Being One Heart

Acts 4:32 reminds us that the believers that were forming the church were of one heart and soul.  I find it interesting that we tend to use the heart to describe romantic love so often in our culture that this sounds almost weird.  We think of being soulmates with the person we are romantically involved with.  We have completely and totally surrendered the concept of love to romantic love.  In doing so, we have hindered our ability to understand and appreciate the ways that we are to love people that our outside of our romantic life.  We have allowed the culture to define love and we fail to understand how we are to love people outside of our conceptualization of romantic love. 

I believe that we need to go back to a biblical understanding of love and allow it to define all other dimensions of love for us.  Love, biblically, begins with God.  "We love Him because He first loved us."  This is more than just a verse to memorize, it is a foundation upon which we build our loves.  Love is defined and explained in God himself.  Without going into too much detail (I would encourage you to study this on your own) love begins with the love that the Trinity has within God himself.  God the Father and God the Son and God the Spirit love one another with a self-sacrificial, obedient, all consuming love.  When we think of what God has done for us, love is patient as God is patient.  Love is kind as God is kind.  Love keeps no record of wrongs because God has forgiven our sins.  All that love is should be and is defined in the character of God. 

Romantic love is a misnomer.  In fact, in the culture of the ancient near east, romanticism was secondary to family.  Family chose your spouse for you for the benefit of the family.  In a different culture we need to recognize that romantic love is still secondary to familial love.  Love is to be expressed in family in different ways.  Children are to express their love for parents through obedience.  Parents are to express their love for one another in service and mutual submission.  Both are to express their love for parents or children as a reflection of their love for God. 

In the church then we should think of love in this familial sense.  We are to submit to one another to point to a God who is greater.  We are to serve one another because of our God who served us.  We are to sacrifice for one another because of the sacrifice of our Lord and Savior.  This is easy to understand.  And when it comes time to consider starting a family of your own I would encourage you not to think of love in the romantic sense, but in this same familial sense in which your job is to seek someone who can serve God with you. 

When we are able to do this people will come to know the God we serve.  They will know we are Christians by our love for one another after all!