Unconditional Love
Kenneth R. Mullican, Jr.
My wife, Lenore, and I have dealt with a great many people who, because of various circumstances in their life, are unable to feel loved—by God or anyone else. In fact, they often describe how they feel as “numb” or “empty.” They often view themselves as unattractive, unlovable, and worthless. This is in spite of the fact that many of these people are considered successful in their chosen field. In the most extreme cases, these people have even contemplated ending their life. Why? What’s so special about feeling loved? Isn’t the need to feel loved just a sign of immaturity? Shouldn’t we outgrow the need to feel loved by others and be content within ourselves, doing our own thing, regardless of whether anyone else cares or not?
The Need to Love and Be Loved
A common symptom expressed by those who feel unloved is the feeling of isolation, of not being a part of an intimate group, of not feeling really close to anyone. Usually there is some sort of associated trauma, such as being abused as children, growing up in a dysfunctional family, or in what would be considered a good family but where love was perhaps assumed but not expressed. In fact, one young woman expressed that, as she was growing up, she knew she was loved because of the way her parents treated her but, because they never expressed their love verbally, she didn’t feel loved. Later, as an adult, while discussing this matter with her parents, her parents expressed verbally just how much they really did love her. It was only then that she was able to feel loved by them. This underscores how very important it is to express our love to others verbally as well as through our actions.
I believe this overpowering need to love and be loved exists in every person although it may be unrecognized or denied by some. Why? Why does it seem to be so important to love and be loved? To begin to understand this need, we must begin with God who created us. 1 John 4:8 states that “God is love.” Genesis 1:26 tells us that God said, “Let us make humankind in our own image.” How are we created in God’s image? I believe that this refers to the capacity to give and receive love. It seems that God created us not only with the capacity to give and receive love, but also with the necessity to give and receive love. In fact, apparently it is essential to our sense of wholeness and well being to both give and receive love.
Love Is a Form of Energy
Foremost, we are created to receive God’s love and to reflect that love back to him. I believe that love itself is a form of energy. There is a law of physics that states that energy is neither created nor destroyed. It may be transferred from one object to another and manifest itself in different ways. One type of energy may be expended and stored as potential energy of another type. For example, the heat and light energy of the sun drives the biochemical reactions that produce the tree that becomes the energy of heat and light when the wood of the tree is burned. In like manner, love emanates from God who is the source of love. He is the essence of pure unconditional love. His love reaches out to us, touches us, draws us unto himself with the expectation that his love will flow through us back to him while producing the desired results in us.
God’s Love Is Unconditional
By definition, the love which God extends to us is without preconditions; you don’t have to earn it—and you can’t lose it. It is always there even when you are unaware of it. Just as the sun is always shining everyday even though clouds may obscure the sun from our view, God’s love is always reaching out to us, endeavoring to manifest itself in our life. That doesn’t mean we are not held accountable for our actions. But it does mean that God still loves us even when we act in an unlovely manner.
It is somewhat difficult for us finite humans to grasp an abstract quality such as the love of God. It is perhaps easier to grasp the concepts of righteousness and judgment and mercy—but somehow the idea of a loving God seems too simplistic. A concept like judgment is easier to relegate to sometime in the hopefully distant future. The concept of love, on the other hand, is of more immediate concern. It usually is easy enough to tell whether another person loves us, but how do we know that God really loves us? The ultimate manifestation of God’s love is expressed in the incarnation of himself in the person of our Lord Jesus—Yeshua our Messiah.
What Jesus Said About Love
If Jesus, then, is truly God incarnate, then it should prove helpful to consider what he had to say regarding love. I believe there is good evidence that Jesus spoke and taught in Hebrew. There is also good evidence that he probably also knew Aramaic and Greek. In Hebrew, there is one verb “love” which is ahav, while Greek has more than one word. The words of Jesus have come down to us in Greek and when he speaks of love he uses either agapao, agape or phileo, philia. Is there a difference in these two Greek words as Jesus used them? Really, it is probably superfluous to discuss this if both Greek words are merely translations of the Hebrew word ahav. However, since one often hears teaching which proclaims agape as God’s kind of love and philia as the human kind of love, perhaps it warrants our considering the way the Gospel writers used these words in quoting Jesus.
Brown-Driver-Briggs Hebrew Lexicon defines ahav as “vb. love (affection, both pure and impure, divine and human).” Louw-Nida Greek Lexicon defines agapao, agape: “to have love for someone or something, based on sincere appreciation and high regard—to love, to regard with affection, loving concern, love.” Phileo, philia is defined as: “to have love or affection for someone or something based on association—to love or have affection for.” It is worth noting that a derivative of this word philadelphia, philadelphos has acquired a highly specialized meaning in the New Testament which restricts the range of meaning to fellow believers—that is, pertaining to love or affection for fellow believers—one who loves fellow believers, loving one another as brothers and sisters. This word is not used in the Gospels however; we have only agapao, agape or phileo, philia in the sayings of Jesus.
As I studied the occasions in which Jesus spoke of love as recorded in all four Gospels, I discovered that it seems that the Greek words are used somewhat interchangeably. In fact, the Louw-Nida Lexicon states: “Though the meanings of these terms overlap considerably in many contexts, there are probably some significant differences in certain contexts. It would, however, be quite wrong to assume that phileo and philia refer only to human love, while agapeo and agape refer to divine love. Both sets of terms are used for the total range of loving relations between people, between people and God, and between God and Jesus Christ.”
How Jesus Demonstrated Unconditional Love
I also found that perhaps even more importantly than what Jesus said about love was how he demonstrated unconditional love—reaching out and touching the untouchables—the lepers, the beggars, the prostitutes, the social outcasts. They were drawn to his message of unconditional love demonstrated by his actions. There is a very important principle involved here: our words confirm or negate our actions and our actions confirm or negate our words. Let’s examine what Jesus taught us about love, both by his words and by his actions.
When Jesus was asked what he considered to be the greatest or primary commandment, without hesitation he stated, “You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your strength; and you shall love your neighbor as your self.” He said that if we do this, we have kept all the other commandments in the process. But he didn’t stop with loving our neighbor as one’s self. He instructed his followers to love others in the same manner that they had experienced his love—unconditionally.
In the Sermon on the Mount beginning in the fifth chapter of Matthew, Jesus speaks of loving our enemies and praying for those who persecute us and in so doing to emulate our heavenly Father. We might paraphrase the passage as follows:
What? You expect a reward for being nice to the people who are nice to you? Big deal! Even godless people do that much. If you really want to be commended, act like your heavenly father. Treat everyone with the same goodness—without preconditions. He makes his sun rise on the evil and on the good, and sends rain on the righteous and on the unrighteous.
Luke includes “The Golden Rule” with this teaching of Jesus: 6:31 “Do to others as you would have them do to you.” In Matthew he adds: “For this is the Law and the Prophets.” Rabbi Hillel, who lived just prior to Jesus during the reign of Herod the Great, taught the same thing but stated as the reverse. When a Gentile challenged Hillel to teach him the whole concept of Judaism while standing on one foot, Hillel answered: “What is hateful to yourself, do not do that to your fellowman. That is the whole Torah. All the rest is commentary.”
Unconditional Love and the Final Judgment
Some qualities that one might list to describe the life of a person who conducted his or her life according to Jesus’ teaching of unconditional love are compassionate, forgiving, generous, humble, loving, and merciful. Jesus not only demonstrated his own love by his actions but he also required that those of us who follow him do likewise. In fact, when he describes those who will inherit eternal life and have their part in the world to come, it doesn’t fit our modern evangelical theological formula of coming forward in a service and shaking the pastor’s hand and making a profession of our faith in Jesus. This is not to say that that is a bad thing. But in fact, Jesus’ description of those who will spend eternity with him is based on their actions. James says that faith without works is dead and he proposes to demonstrate his faith by his works. (Jas 2:20, 26) How then did Jesus describe those who follow his example of extending unconditional love to those about them? In Matthew 25:31ff he describes his return and judgment in which he separates humankind into two groups. Those on his right are invited to enter into eternal reward and those on his left are condemned to eternal punishment. And what are the criteria for entering into eternal reward? How did we treat those in need—the hungry, thirsty, ill-clothed, sick, and prisoners—“the least of my brothers (and sisters, implied).” Our treatment of “the least” is considered as if we had treated him personally in the same manner and determines whether or not he desires to spend eternity with us. This suggests that he personally actually experiences our treatment, good or bad, of those in need. In spite of any theological bias to the contrary, that’s a pretty sobering thought, is it not?
Does God Really Care?
What about when we simply do not feel the presence of God? We don’t feel his love and when we pray it seems the heavens are brass. There may be any of a number of reasons why we are unable to experience God’s presence and love. Besides the obvious reason of sin in our life, there are times when we may be just plain mad at God. We may be afraid to admit it but, really, that is what it is. Perhaps something really terrible has happened to you or to someone you love and you have asked, “Where was God when this happened? Why didn’t he intervene and prevent it, if he really is a good God? Either he doesn’t really care or he is unable to do anything about it. Either way, what is the benefit of praying to him if it isn’t going to change anything anyway? God is omnipotent, right? If he is all-powerful, then why doesn’t he always intervene and prevent bad things from happening, at least to those who sincerely endeavor to follow him?
I don’t pretend to have all the answers but I would like to share with you some of what I believe to be the understanding the Lord has given me when I have asked these questions. First of all, I want to state emphatically that God is God and he is not dependent upon my understanding of the way in which he works either to defend him or to force him to be consistent in his dealing with humankind. God can do anything he wants because he is God—and that includes changing the rules if he wants to. But the scriptures, particularly those that relate the life and teachings of Jesus, offer some conclusions that I find reassuring and comforting.
I believe that God chose to create humankind as objects of his affection—for the purpose of receiving his love and loving him back. In order for our love for God to have any significance it must be entirely voluntary—and therein lay the risk, which God chose to take. If he created humankind with truly free will, then there was also the potential that some humans would chose not to return his love. In fact, they might choose not to believe that he even exists. But it seems that he was willing to take the risk and so he did indeed create us with free will. In order to guarantee the integrity of our free will, it was necessary for the omnipotent, omniscient, omnipresent, and immutable Creator of the universe, of his own volition, to place certain limitations upon himself. If humankind were not truly free to do evil as well as to do good, then the good that we do would have no meaning insofar as our relationship with God is concerned. If we had no choice but always to do the good, loving thing—if we had no choice but to say, “I love you God and I want to please you with my life choices,”—then we would be nothing more than robots. We would be no different that our children’s talking doll that says, “I love you Mommie, I love you Mommie, I love you Mommie!” “I love you God, I love you God, I love you God!”
If God did indeed place certain limitations upon himself when he granted humankind free will, and if he truly is a loving heavenly Father who loves us unconditionally, then think how he must suffer when we suffer. Speaking in human terms, if you want to get a parent really steamed, you just mistreat one of their children. Or think how you feel when one of your children is sick or injured. To begin to understand the magnitude of what God himself must feel, consider the suffering of the billions of people presently on the earth, and then add to that the suffering of all the people that have lived upon this earth since the beginning of humankind—all created in his image, although many have chosen to live in a manner that would deny that fact. God’s suffering must be indescribable. Yes, I believe that God does indeed suffer when we suffer. He is there, even when we cannot sense his presence, loving us unconditionally, suffering along with us.
Why Our Prayers Are Essential
Then if God has placed certain limitations upon himself that prevent him from intervening in our affairs, why bother to pray? Does prayer really make any difference? And if so, how does it make a difference? How can God intervene in our life without violating our free will?
It seems that the universe that God created is an orderly universe—a universe that is governed by certain natural laws. Our prayer requesting God’s supernatural intervention in our affairs is a legal petition that grants God the legal right to intervene on our behalf without violating our free will. We have exercised our free will in requesting his supernatural intervention. When we exercise our free will and release our concerns, our fears, our hurt, our frustration, our anger, our unforgiveness, our loneliness to him, and that releases him to take all those negative, hurtful things and transform them and then return them to us—beauty for ashes. How can he work on our behalf, at our request, without violating someone else’s free will? That’s what makes him God!
OK, what about the times when we examine our lives and find no known sin, but there must be something wrong since we aren’t feeling anything but DRY! Right? Not necessarily. Perhaps there is an alternative to consider. I once read a sermon our friend Joseph Frankovic had preached at the Narkis Street Baptist Church in Jerusalem that has been published in a collection of sermons entitled “Sermons from Narkis.” The topic of Frankovic’s sermon was “Walking Before God.”
In his sermon Frankovic discusses the point the rabbis have made regarding the prepositions used about the relationship of Noah and Abraham to God. The Bible says Noah walked with God but it says Abraham walked before God. The implication that the rabbis make is that Abraham was more mature that Noah. They illustrate it with a parable: It can be compared to a father who had two sons. One son was more mature than the other. In public, the father held the hand of the younger, immature son. The other son, however, was mature. In public, the father enjoyed walking behind this son and watching him from a distance.
Like a loving father, God holds the spiritually newborn in his arms. There is a strong sense of God’s presence in their life and there seems to be an amazing response to their every need. But a time comes when God begins the weaning process. One day they wake up and they don’t feel the same warm sense of God’s presence. When they pray, it seems the heavens are brass and there doesn’t seem to be the same response as they have initially experienced. They are confused and cry out to God, searching for some hidden sin that could have disturbed their comfortable relationship.
Are there logical reasons why one should experience this sense of spiritual loneliness in spite of “doing everything right”? Although a variety of things might be responsible for this feeling, perhaps it is merely a matter of our loving heavenly Father desiring that we experience spiritual growth in our lives. The colloquial expression “growing pains” reminds us that with growth there also comes discomfort. (It is worth noting that throughout one’s walk with the Lord, one can expect periods when one experiences a greater or lesser sense of God’s presence—but that is little comfort when one experiences the sense of spiritual loneliness, particularly for the first time.)
Frankovic notes that when we go through this weaning process there are three general responses:
1. Discouragement.
2. Lack of courage to face what is happening—pretending everything is just like it was when they were spiritual newborns.
3. Having the courage to assess what is happening, realizing that God is molding them, accepting the challenge and moving forward. Don’t be misled: Walking before God is much more difficult than walking with God.
If you have been a believer for very many years, you probably have experienced points in your life of faith which were spiritually dry. For long stretches you did not hear from God. At the time you did not understand the reason—and the reason was that you were walking before God. Standing right there behind you, God was watching the decisions you were making. Our life of faith is a continual process of growth. We begin as newborn babies in his arms, but at a certain point the maturation process begins. Weaning is a natural part of maturing. As we grow in the Christian faith, the challenges do not become easier. They become greater, and it is through encountering these greater and greater challenges that the truth of God’s grace becomes more of a reality to us. We need to be people of God who are willing to go beyond our spheres of comfort, who are willing to reach out to the pariahs of society with God’s unconditional love in order to bring them into a relationship with our heavenly Father so that they too can experience his unconditional love.
Conclusion: To Experience God’s Unconditional Love Is a Choice
What does the foregoing discussion have to do with experiencing God’s love and the love of those about us? I submit that the love of God is a powerful force that empowers us to accomplish things far beyond our natural human ability. If we consider the law of physics I mentioned earlier that states that energy is neither created nor destroyed and apply it to love as a form of energy, we must conclude that all the love that there ever shall be exists right now. God himself is the source of love. He is pure essence of unconditional love and God is without limit. He is continually extending his unconditional love to us. In order for that love to become a powerful, motivating force in our lives it must flow—back to God and out to those about us. Just as a fully charged battery shows no evidence of the potential energy it contains until the current is flowing—through a lamp or motor, for example—in like manner, love is not evident in our life until it is flowing, either back to God the source, or out to those about us. Consequently, the love with which we love others is merely the love that we receive from God—even when we are unaware of his love. And what is the switch that enables love to flow through us? Our will; unconditional love is a choice. We can choose to exercise our free will in receiving God’s unconditional love (even when we can’t feel it) and to allow his love to flow out to others. We can ask him to permit us to see and feel for the other as he sees and feels for them. (It’s not easy to love the unlovely—particularly those who are really rotten to us—but God’s unconditional love has the power to transform us as well as the other.)
Finally, a word about feelings: many people experience a sweet intimacy in worshiping the Lord. For me personally, however, most of the time I must be content to rest in the assurance that I love the Lord and he loves me and he can be trusted regardless of whether I feel anything. There are times though when I am able to feel God’s love intensely. When I am ministering to another person in physical or spiritual need, I can feel God’s love flowing through me out to the other. Another time I can feel God’s love is when I hear or read about other people addressing physical and/or spiritual needs—really making a difference in the lives of others. The intensity of emotion is deeply moving—these times are precious. So I encourage you to exercise your free will in choosing to be an instrument of God’s unconditional love, for, truly, it is in looking outside ourselves that we find that which is so vital to our own sense of well being. We look to God as our source of love and to others as both recipients of God’s love through us and as instrument of his love to us. In spite of whatever challenges we may face, no matter how we may have been hurt or by whom, to love unconditionally is a choice.