Motivated by Love
by Mark Gutman
“Love”1 is not enough as a motive. I realize that it is widely considered to be the best motive, but something about that concerns me. Wait a minute, I hear you splutter. How can anyone take issue with love as a motive? That’s tantamount to running down motherhood or the flag. Hear (or read) me out before you write this off.
What about all those Bible texts (and quotations and stories and . . .)! John 14:15 (NASB) quotes Jesus: “If you love me, you will keep my commandments.” In Philippians 1:15-17, Paul refers to two groups who preach Christ. One group preaches out of selfish ambition, but the other group preaches out of love. 2 Corinthians 5:14 NIV (NLT): “Christ’s love compels (or controls) us.” 1 Corinthians 13 says that love outranks faith or hope.
Love is certainly a better motive than hate or fear, partly because those negative emotions have such undesirable side effects. But if the hate or fear or love ever subsides, actions motivated by such emotions often do too. How many former Adventists or former Christians have taken up smoking once they left the church?2 If they didn’t smoke because they loved Jesus (or the church), their motive didn’t have much staying power once the love faded.
Then again, love can involve a willingness to lay aside common thinking and judgment in order to do what someone else wants. 1 Kings 13 relates the story of a prophet who was fooled by someone else’s claim to be a prophet who was delivering a message from God. If we snap to attention and quit thinking as soon as we hear “God said this,” we risk being gullible. Con-men depend on people’s willingness to act with little or no evidence. The Bereans of Acts 17 were praised because they didn’t accept Paul’s teaching without doing some investigation.
Love can be a beneficial motive. It can provide motivation when I’m not so interested in my own welfare. For instance, if I don’t take care of my health, my family will suffer, so I guess I’ll work a little harder to keep from becoming a medical nuisance when I’m older. Even people who are not all that interested in exercise or getting enough sleep may actually make a little effort in such an area because of love. Maybe I exercise because my spouse wants company while she exercises. Someone seeing me running by on the street may give me credit for being devoted to exercise, not realizing that actually I’m just trying to make my wife happy.
Love is a good motive, but it often is not enough; it leaves us too easily ignorant or unthinking. I remember one missionary’s telling me about a country where he worked where church members knew not to drink tea or coffee. The church members may well have been told that if they loved Jesus they would avoid tea and coffee. But apparently the problem was not caffeine, because the coffee-avoiding members drank lots of Coca-Cola. Perhaps the love that led members to refuse to drink a certain beverage did not encourage investigation that might lead them to understand physical (not just spiritual) benefits of avoiding tea and coffee.
We can search the Bible for guidance, but few practices can be conclusively proved as right or wrong from the Bible. Someone who does not do X may want to convince you that you should not do X either. Warning you that you may burn in hell is losing some popularity as a method of persuasion, but many religious people have no concerns about using love as a motivation. So you’re told that you should not do X because Jesus does not want you to do it, and you will not do it if you love Jesus. That argument still does not pin down that Jesus does not want you to do X; it only pins down that your would-be persuader is convinced that Jesus thinks that. So the proponent is in effect saying that you won’t do that if you love her. Whatever. If I really am going to avoid doing X, I’d like to understand the benefit of avoiding it. In other words, why does Jesus think that doing X is not a good idea?
Related to the love-motive idea is “God said it, and I believe it, and that settles it for me.” People with that motto used to believe that the earth was flat and at the center of the universe. Eventually science showed that the earth is not flat, and that the earth is one of a few planets that revolve around our sun, and our solar system is part of a much larger galaxy that is part of . . . . So the motto would be better stated as “I think the Bible means this, and I believe it,” because understanding of the Bible often changes as science or society changes. Bible believers for centuries had no problem revering the Bible while treating women or minorities as inferior on a regular basis. Women and minorities fare better in many Bible-believing churches now, but society provided those groups with rights before many churches did. Love that was guided by the Bible didn’t seem to cause pangs of conscience for mistreating others. You might see why many unbelievers were not impressed by the Bible-believers who did what they did and claimed they were motivated by love.
You mean that the Christian life is just a calculated strategy? Live the way that seems most logical? Come to think of it, that’s what I’m advocating. Not in the sense that I recommend that someone propose to his girlfriend with, “I’d like to marry you, but not because I love you. It’s that I’ve figured out that you and I would make a very efficient team.” When I act because of investigation and understanding, though, I’m more likely to be acting freely, rather than because someone else has asked me to. Jesus words in John 8:32, “You will know the truth, and the truth will make you free,” seem to describe this. I don’t avoid Coca-Cola because it’s somebody else’s rule. I avoid it because I believe I’ll stay healthier if I do. If I avoid it only because another church member told me I shouldn’t drink it, I’m not really free. (Romans 14 and 1 Corinthians 8 are for another column.)
Summing up, love is not a bad motive. But people claiming it have used it as an excuse not to investigate, leaving themselves to be taken in by the inconsistent or nonsensical (drink one caffeine but avoid another), or the unkind (worship in church but keep women and minorities “in their place”). But it can also provide a motive when we don’t want to do what we know is best (healthful living, so we’re not a burden to our loved ones).
So don’t quit loving. But don’t use love for God or Jesus or anyone else as an excuse to quit studying. Blind obedience suits cult leaders, but is not a fitting lifestyle for those who follow a God who says, “let’s talk this over together” (Isaiah 1:18, CJB) and “test everything that is said; hold on to what is good” (1 Thessalonians 5:21, NLT).
1“Love” can mean many things, and is often a catchall explanation of motive because we don’t know what else to say. But even actual love for God or a person can leave us with some disadvantages, as the column goes on to explain.
2Sorry to pick on smoking, but it makes the point quickly. See my column, “Squeaky Wheels” (October, 2012), on the subject of health.
One of the pithy truisms I remember my maternal grandfather saying was: "Love is blind but marriage is a real eye-opener." Applying the same to life and our relationship with God we could say: "Love is a great way to start but there's a lot more to life and God than just love."
In the same manner, one place where I've learned there is more to God was discovering in John 14:15, 23 that Jesus was NOT talking about the Ten Commandments. The disciples already knew the Ten Commandments so He was teaching them at a level above mere obedience to the letter of the law. He was teaching them to minister the love and power of God under the guidance and empowerment of the Holy Spirit. That is the same objective God has placed before each of us. Will we keep our focus on the law, or how to minister the love and power of God?
Many profess to be Christian, but their life behaviour speaks otherwise. Many profess to love, but their actions say no. A person is known by behaviour, their love, the fruit of the Spirit. 1st Cor. chapter 13, is the primer that teaches us of love, what it is, what it does. If the love that man professes is not according to this formula, there is no LIGHT in him. Tobacco, caffiene, food, grooming & clothing styles, do not display the heart of man. Col.2:16 "Let no man judge you". Man looks on the outside, God knows the heart. Agape not Eros.
The column is focusing on motivation, not individual practices. I'm writing about the brain, not the heart. Tobacco and caffeine and X are side issues, used for illustration not for criticism. People who are motivated by "love" rather than a logical understanding will stop (or start) behavior if their "love" changes, whether that behavior has to do with tobacco or caffeine or X or reading a certain author. If their behavior is motivated by a "logic" after the order of "scientific research indicates pretty strongly that tobacco is bad for my health, wallet, and happiness," changing a church or a girlfriend will not leave them vulnerable to taking up tobacco. The person who just changed still realizes the net negative of the practice. Getting back at the spurned church or girlfriend by using tobacco will usually not outweigh the motivation of not wanting to spend a lot of money to poison oneself (or override whatever the net negative is).
The matter is one of doing what makes sense to me as opposed to doing what makes sense to God or a romantic interest or a neighbor. If I want to do X and it seems reasonable, but I don't do X because you (or God or anyone else) don't think I should, then I don’t feel free. I'm doing what seems right to someone else. (Again, I'm leaving an explanation of Romans 14 for a different column.) My understanding may be wrong, but there's a freedom in doing what I believe is best. (We often give up that freedom to avoid scolding or firing or a speeding ticket.) Ignorance can leave me vulnerable to being misled that something harmful is helpful, so I need to keep educating myself as to which is which. God knows the heart, including whether I am doing something just to keep on his good side or because I really think it is the best way to go.
Mark,
When I first read your blog yesterday, it struck me there was something missing. Last night I watched a program: Love And Marriage: A 20th Century Romance. (Here in Oz it was on SBS1) It was a three part series and last night was the end.
I think it put the finger on the issue I have with your blog. It seems to me you have chosen the wrong victim. Love is not the problem. Failure to take personal responsibility for loving oneself and others is the problem.
This failure may take the form of laziness, ignorance, or even simply "proof text" obedience. Your caffeine example captures the last one well. How much of our "love" as religious people is shaped and controlled by how we "think" we are supposed to act, or be, due to our religious indoctrination?!
This TV Series on marriage covered the journey marriage has undergone in the last few generations. Most fascinating. One could sum up these stages in three simple categories:
Marriages confined and defined by custom, roles, and obedience. Love was there, but it was crushed under a load of social expectations and gender roles. Often through the vehicle of religion.
The next stage could be described as selfish freedom. The 60's "free Love" era. Again, love was there, but often torn apart by the selfish freedom of individuals – all who thought they were acting in "love".
The final stage was what hit me. It showed several couples, some of whom had discovered the staying power of love. Love full stop. Love that was relational, informed, unselfish, there for the other person.
It actually showed, after all those generations that LOVE was enough. In fact it showed that love was the only thing left standing. In an age of "Victorian tyranny", love suffered by role and religion. In an age of "free love", love suffered by an uninformed selfishness. In an age of divorce and easy "hitch and ditch", love was the only thing that gave marriage true staying power. Love is the ultimate and absolute motivator.
The problem is not love, it is that in most the examples you gave "love" was just tacked on to "obedience", "Biblical literalism", "religion and religioisity" etc.
My suggestion is that you've tossed the baby out in the dirty bathwater. Love is the baby. If genuine love for myself and others is nurtured by information, openness, trust, and learning it will be the ultimate motivator. It's effect will be seen in how I treat my body, my loved ones and my world!
That kind of love is relational. That kind of love will be uncluttered from religious tradition. It will be freed from the crazy expectations we put on one another to be other than human. It will reach a depth in relational power that is the ultimate motivator for doing the absolute best by those closest to us, and on the larger scale for our community and world.
I wonder if this journey marriage has taken in the last few generations could provide a metaphor for the journey the human spirit should take as it moves from religion to experiencing the wonder of being human in a world where we take responsibility for ourselves and one another as we struggle to become a global village instead of "tribal villagers".
I agree with you. "If genuine love for myself and others is nurtured by information, openness, trust, and learning it will be the ultimate motivator. Its effect will be seen in how I treat my body, my loved ones and my world." The reason I wrote everything else is that "genuine" and "love" are often not connected, which is why I put the key word in quote marks to start the article, and why you put it in quote marks three times.
If my explanation for my behavior is someone else's thinking or wishes instead of my own, I can use the word "love" and not realize that I have not figured out the reasoning behind what I am doing. And in the religious (Christian) world I usually need no more explanation than to say that I do something because I "love" Jesus. I suggest that we are freer if our explanation of why we do something does not need to refer to someone else's suggestion. I eat broccoli because I appreciate its nutritional value (not its taste). My main motive for eating broccoli is not my love of Jesus or my respect for my nutrition teacher's advice, although they may be secondary motives.
BTW, The series here was screened on Friday nights, so all the "good" Adventists would have missed it!
I would recommend seeing it if you can find a source.
Chris, i agree with your understanding of LOVE, except your last paragraph. Man is basically a selfish creature. Other than the Christian faith religion (GOD IS LOVE), i detect little of AGAPE LOVE. There is in some other religions, an essence of live & let live, a degree of tolerance and genteelness, politeness, with those in close associations (as the Japanese). These are the types that may do well in global villages. But the depth of God's love, realized by those in the Christian faith, ie: "do unto others"; "LOVE your neighbor as you LOVE yourslf "; "greater LOVE hath no man but that he lay down his life for his neighbor"; "God so LOVED the world, He gave His Son, whoso believeth in Him shall not perish".
This LOVE is only offered in the Christian religion. Without this God's LOVE, there is no redemption. Without this God's LOVE there would be no LOVE in the world. The Christian God is the Father of LOVE. Personally, i believe GOD's LOVE may grow to include a tribal village, but never never will it be manifested in a global village, because God's LOVE is not known by most in the world. The human spirit will never move from religion (GOD), nor should it.
How often do we know what is right, convinced with the most comprehensive logic, yet do not do it? How do you explain Paul's frustration with his own weak disposition? If God is love but you say love is not enough, that it should be our own free and soverign conscience, then I can only conclude that you are saying God is not enough. The fundamental issue I take with your position is that you elevate the human will above the divine. How can we be surrendered to God when we assert our own sovereign will to discern good from evil in order to "do the right thing."
We frequently don't do what we “know” is “right.” We may know we would be better off getting to bed at a decent time instead of staying up late to watch TV. Even though we know getting to bed early means more sleep and thinking more clearly the next day, we sometimes choose not to. But we feel free to choose the worse natural consequences.
Children learn from their parents that they should always be in bed by, say, 8:00 in the evening, and feel bad (or afraid) when they disappoint their authority figure(s) by getting to bed after 8:00. They don’t have to understand the logic at all. But I don’t understand God as asking thinking people to do things that don’t make sense. We work that way when other people use the Bible to show that Sunday is the day to worship or that dead loved ones are now gazing down at us from heaven. My brain lets me refuse to believe that a teaching is from God if it doesn’t make sense. But if “make sense” is not required, maybe I should start ordering my wife to quit cutting her hair (as some interpret 1 Corinthians 11:5, 6). Wives are to obey their husbands (Ephesians 5:22 – http://www.bible.ca/marriage/submission.htm), and I am to obey God, even if the command seems strange.
I’m not elevating human will (which often doesn’t live up to the human’s logic) or human logic above the divine. But where people toss their logic out the window to do what God asks, I wonder what logic led them to believe that God was the one doing such asking, or that God wants them to do what seems to fly in the face of what makes sense to their brain.
You last sentence encapsulated the problem: thinking we are surrendered to God when we are asserting our own soverign will. There is a natural tension between God's will and our will. How do we make sure it is God's will tha wins? First, by knowing God well enough to see the difference between the two. Second, by asking God for the power to make right decisions. Third, getting over the idea that we have to see God's power before we will be able to choose His will. The Red Sea did not part until Moses got his feet wet. God does not give us more of His power until He sees we are actually using what He has already given.
I define LOVE by the unselfish act of Jesus to surrender His Life for me. And that kind of 110% love willing to die for me, is not a human element, it has to be divine and very humbling to me.