INTELLIGENT LOVE

 “So this is my prayer: that your love will flourish and that you will not only love much but well. Learn to love appropriately. You need to use your head and test your feelings so that your love is sincere and intelligent, not sentimental gush. Live a lover's life, circumspect and exemplary, a life Jesus will be proud of: bountiful in fruits from the soul, making Jesus Christ attractive to all, getting everyone involved in the glory and praise of God.”

Phil 1:9-11

  

If worship doesn’t make GOD attractive, then I believe we’ve missed the boat, we’ve crossed a line that has taken our worship out of His presence and into the realm of the flesh.  Things that we can see, that we can control, that we can glory in - and that’s where things fall short!  We start to glory in our worship, instead of glorifying GOD.  It’s a fine line between experiencing GOD’s joy and glorifying ourselves. It’s a fine line between loving GOD and loving ourselves...

Loving intelligently means that we need to risk sacrificing ourselves.  Loving gushingly means that we’re in it for our own pleasure, and that’s not real love: it’s selfish and one-sided.  If we want to love well, in a way that is sincere and intelligent, then we are urged in this scripture to test our feelings and use our heads!  We need to LIVE in a way that is careful and intentional, not carelessly with a ‘whatever-goes’ attitude because then, instead of making choices, we will just ‘let life happen’. This is a dangerous facade, because, in just sitting back and letting things happen is making a choice.  It’s making a choice to give others control over our situations and circumstances.

Intelligent love is intentional.  I pray that you might be encouraged and challenged to love intelligently in all of your relationships!