Author: Jason Winegar

What do you think about when you think of love? Maybe about people. Maybe about those close to you and how you feel about them. How you want the best for them. The truth is, there’s so much more to it than that. Love is a very complex part of life, so why do we treat it so simply?

How The World Views Love

When a lot of people hear ‘love,’ they think of hearts and butterflies. They think of rom-coms and finding their person. This is what I’d call the Hallmark definition of love, and it’s actually a very dangerous view.

As people try to define love, these visuals will often lead them to thinking about various feelings. As I’ve seen it, what most people think “love” is, is actually a various mixture of passion, desire, interest, care, and intrigue. For example, we may lean more towards passion and desire for people we’re in a relationship with, and more towards care and interest for our parents or children. We wind up calling these various mixtures different types of love.

While these feelings aren’t necessarily negative in and of themselves, they are not love. Rather, these feelings should stem from love, and the Biblical definition of love can help give us more insight as to why.

What The Bible Says About Love

1 Corinthians 13:4-7 gives us a blatant definition for love:

Love is patient, love is kind. It does not envy, it does not boast, it is not proud. It does not dishonor others, it is not self-seeking, it is not easily angered, it keeps no record of wrongs. Love does not delight in evil but rejoices with the truth. It always protects, always trusts, always hopes, always perseveres. (NIV)

What I see when I read this passage is that love is not about our feelings. It is very important to note that it’s not actually about us at all. The love that is described in these versus focus on actions we take for others.

Jesus is quite literally the perfect example of love. Think on when Jesus was traveling with the disciples. He was certainly very patient with them, very kind to them. He of course did not envy anyone, as He blatantly rejected all the temptations – the whole world – from Satan in the desert. He did not boast about His abilities or divine nature, but used them to help those in need. He was not prideful, but even consistently called out the Pharisees for their pride.

The shortest verse in the Bible – “Jesus wept” (John 11:35, NIV) – even shows His action for others, despite how it might seem more like a feeling. In this verse, He saw Mary and many others weeping over the death of Lazarus. He in turn wept at seeing this to empathize with them and their suffering. He actively joined them in their grief in order to be with them in their time of sorrow. He knew He was about to raise Lazarus out of that grave, and they would not be weeping for much longer, yet He still joined them first. That is love.

I could spend this entire article just recounting various ways Jesus showed what perfect love looks like, and I’d likely never be able to stop writing. Really when I look at any part of this definition, I immediately think of Jesus, as He personifies love. He was purposefully our example for it.

But where was His focus in all these examples of love? What is similar about all the other examples the Bible shows us? Well His focus is of course on God first, but also on others. What’s similar is that none of these examples focus on how He Himself was feeling, but on how He treated others.

How We Should Think About Love Going Forward

So how should we view Jesus’s perfect example of love to redirect our own societal thinking? To redirect it away from the Hallmark definition to the true definition?

Well for starters, we have to first think of love as an action, not a feeling. It can certainly bring about feelings and even deepen them, but that is not its origin. We know this because we know it is not “self-seeking.” When we lead with feelings, we become self-seeking. After all, our feelings are our own. They are internal. Even if we feel for others or on their behalf, we are still moving in an internal direction. This is why feelings are meant to stem from love, not define it.

What did Jesus do again when he saw the mourning of those close to Lazarus? Did He feel bad for them or sorry for them? Did feeling bad for them lead to Him immediately raising Lazarus out the of grave so they wouldn’t feel bad anymore? No. He wept: an outward action to be with them in such a troubling moment. If Jesus focused on His own feelings, wouldn’t He have immediately raised Lazarus to stop their hurting? While that may sound good, that would still have been internally focused and therefore not actually all that loving to those around Him. Rather, it would have been loving towards Him Himself. I think men should especially listen to this next part. I am guilty of this too. Sometimes, love isn’t about fixing problems, but rather about being with those in need.

True love begins with action, and I would like to give one more example of Jesus’s love: dying on the cross for us.

We see in Luke 22:39-46 one of the recounts of Jesus’s time in the Garden of Gethsemane. He prays to God, asking Him to take the cup from Him – the burden of the cross – if it be God’s Will. It even says that He was in so much anguish, praying so earnestly, that His sweat became like drops of blood. Jesus certainly did not want to be crucified. He did it out of love for us, to take away our sins so that we may not bear the punishment of Hell that we so rightfully deserve. The purest form of love is sacrificial. It is the furthest from being self-seeking, from dishonoring, from being prideful. Jesus died on that cross to take away our sins, a very blatant action, one done for every one of us until the end of this world.

This is our example.

A Look At The Difference

Once more, the most common definition people have for love today is so dangerous because it promotes feelings over actions.

Have you ever heard the term “falling out of love?” People often use this term to describe when they don’t feel that spark for their significant others anymore. What does a spark have to do with your actions for your partner in marriage? This phrase blatantly describes passion, not love.

I would go so far as to say that this time in every married couple’s life is actually a gift. It provides them with the opportunity to show true love to one another. A chance to begin in that enduring, persevering love described in the Bible, rather than a Christmas tale happy ending kind of love. It is a necessary trial in every marriage that so many do not get through because of their misunderstanding of what the feeling means.

What about differences of opinion? Nowadays, people are so divided that a difference in opinion or belief all but automatically means hate in the eyes of others. If you don’t feel the same way they do, then you are hateful. You are the furthest from love as one can be.

But this just isn’t true. One can absolutely love someone that they don’t agree with. Whether politically, religiously, or even politically correct-idly (and yes, I did say ‘religiously’ as a devout Christian on a faith-based blog. We are still called to love those that have not accepted Jesus’s truth. I also made up that last word to fit the tone). Not only can one still love in this way, but loving someone you do not agree with would actually begin to approach that perfect sacrificial love. It is very likely that this would require one to sacrifice their pride and their own interests to act on behalf of another that disagrees with them. That is love.

Saying that someone is hateful because their views or beliefs don’t align with yours is actually what is unloving. It is very prideful and very self-seeking. It walks in the opposite direction of the perfect sacrificial love Jesus demonstrates for us.

A Call For Grace

Now with all this being said, I want you all to give yourselves a little grace. Even as I write this and know it to be true, this ‘new’ concept of love is hard for me to actually understand. We are so conditioned to focus on our feelings that it’s very difficult to determine what we do based on these feelings vs what we do based on actual love.

The best thing we can do right now is to recognize the importance of this shift in thinking and to seek God. As He continues to reveal His love for each of us, we will continue to have a better understanding of it and will learn how to truly love others.

There is so much division in our world today. I can’t say if it’s always been like this or if it’s gotten worse now than it has been in the past. Maybe social media and our growing ability to be connected has only illuminated what was already there. Regardless, division is very prevalent in this world.

I was thinking about why this might be, and my thoughts landed on how everyone is good. In their own minds, everyone is good, everyone is righteous, everyone knows what’s up. So what happens when people disagree. Well that would make the others bad, or wrong, or foolish. But these fools keep shouting so loudly about how they’re right and I am in fact the one who is wrong.

What a ridiculous thing to say. After all, I’ve done this, and even more of that. All these good things came from me right? I’m such a good person, truly. If they can’t even see that, well that just makes me realize how much smarter I am than them. Their so-called good deeds don’t compare to mine. And if they do, well then they must not actually be such good deeds to have come from such a foolish and evil person.

This may seem like an exaggerated example, but I believe that many if not most fall into this line of thinking, just in a much more subtle way. So, if everyone is saying this same thing, how do we know who is truly good. We clearly can’t even agree on what good is. No wonder there’s so much division. Luckily, it’s not up to us.

Relational Good Vs. Absolute Good

Let’s be real, we all know where this article is going. This blog is about God after all. But before I get into God’s Goodness, I want to talk about the ideas of relational good and absolute good.

Relational Good is the type of good we can quantify and see. We do this through comparison. In our minds, comparing our good deeds to those of others – and on the flip side, our bad deeds to their’s – we can determine if we are good or bad. This is a dangerous trap we often fall into. It is a lie from the enemy, and yet it’s become the benchmark most people use nowadays. Christians often fall into this trap as well. I know I’ve been guilty of it in the past.

Absolute Good is true good. Truth is above us. It is of God. We do not get any say in what is true and what is false. If we do, then it’s not truth. We may do things that are true. For example, I can pick up a pencil and put it back down. Then it is true that I picked it up, and put it down again. We cannot, however, decide on our own what is true. I cannot then say that I had not actually picked up that pencil and put it down again, regardless of what a philosopher might attempt to argue. Good very much falls under the category of truth. It is absolute, and we do not get to determine it. I think that’s why the world loves Relational Good so much. They get to control it, mold it to be what they want rather than actually doing what is good.

The Further Dangers of Relational Good

As I said, Relational Good is a lie from the enemy, but let’s get more specific as to why it’s so dangerous.

Relational Good naturally pits us against one another. We are constantly, often subconsciously trying to outdo one another to prove that we are good, or to at least solidify that idea in our own brains. To shape that identity for ourselves.

We form groups with people who have similar ideas as to what good is, fall in line in similar ways, and agree that the same other types of people are all fools.

But why is that so wrong?

Maybe one such group actually is right and all the others actually are wrong. Or maybe, because we are oh so humble people, we can even admit that we are potentially wrong and one of the other groups is right. Why is it a bad thing to stick to these ideas, these groups?

That’s because we’re all wrong. We don’t actually know everything that Absolute Good entails, and so we are all destined to be wrong about something, and in truth, many things.

Genesis 2:9 says “The Lord God made al kinds of trees grow out of the ground – trees that were pleasing to the eye and good for food. In the middle of the garden were the tree of life and the tree of the knowledge of good and evil.” (NIV). Did you catch that one little word there? The knowledge of good and evil. Not the knowledge of what good and evil actually are. So during the fall from eating the fruit of this tree, we didn’t actually learn what absolute good was. We just learned the good and evil existed, information that we really didn’t need for an abundance of reasons.

Now some theologians may debate on how literal this passage is, and many non-Christians will debate whether it actually happened. Fine. Turn to history for this revelation. History has proved time and time again that no one truly knows what good really is. Each side in a war thinks they have good reasons, but the other side says it’s selfish or unjust, and both will truly believe their own version. No one really knows.

The Sand

So now we’re all pitted against each other because of all the different ways we’re each wrong about what good is.

Lovely.

Let’s make it even worse.

If we’re all arguing while both being misguided, doesn’t that beg the thought that we’re all hypocrites?

This is another reason why Relative Good is truly bad: it turns us into hypocrites.

This can be hard to wrap our heads around, especially when we’ve gone to such lengths to convince ourselves we’re good. To help with this, I like to think about being a beach.

We’re all sand, telling the other beaches that they’re more sandy than we are, and so they must be much worse. The sand in this case, is our sin. Each individual grain is another of our sins, our wrongdoings, our evil. How much sand makes up a beach? It would be pointless to call another beach bad for all its sand when we too are made up of so much of it. One being slightly bigger than the other makes so little difference that it’s not even remotely relevant to a conversation of who is good and who is bad.

We both are bad.

So Who Is Good?

None of us.

Not naturally anyway. How can we be? We don’t know what good is. And the truth is, we never needed to know. We still don’t, not when we do know the one who is Absolute Good: God.

The point of our being here was never to be good. The point of us being here is to follow God, the one who is good. As we do this, we will be healed by Him, and we will reflect His image more. This will make us better. Following Him is the true goal.

Does this mean Christians are better than non-Christians? No. This is not meant to be an outward comparison, but an internal struggle for the goal of better. Again, we go back to the sand example. What would be the point of saying one has more sand than another when there’s so much of it in our lives? Christians are not sinless. We will continue to fall short of the glory of God even as we follow Him. We have fallen short of the Glory of God before we devoted ourselves to Him. Even the most zealous of followers have fallen. Think of Paul when he was Saul and persecuted followers of Jesus. Think of Peter when he denied Jesus three times. Think of Thomas when he doubted Jesus’s resurrection. Even they were not sinless. Only Jesus was.

The real difference between Christians and non-Christians are that we know we need God. God is the one who saves us. Jesus died on the cross for us, to pay the price for our sins so that we don’t have to. Christians have recognized their need for this grace and have accepted this gift He has given us. It makes us no better or worse than non-Christians, it just means we follow the one who is truly good.

How deeply must the one who is good love us, we who are not good at all? How deeply must He love us to pay such a terrible price on our behalf, the one’s who truly deserve it? The ones who hated Him enough to crucify Him? We hate each other simply for having different ideas of what good is. He loved us so deeply, despite knowing we are not good.

The division in this world, the arguing over good and evil: it’s all pointless. Only true good matters, and only God is truly good.

Money, success, pleasure? What is the root of your life. This article will talk about what a life root is and what it means for us.

What is a Life Root?

A life root is a term I use to describe what we center our lives around, which naturally shapes our identities. I like to picture a large tree, and the life root is the base.

We all have something that we’ve made the root of our lives, the thing that every other aspect branches out from. These roots don’t always necessarily seem negative. Sometimes they can be family or comfort or even love. It’s just to describe what your base is.

For example, let’s say comfort is your life root. This means you want to be able to live a comfortable life above all else. What does it take to live a comfortable life? For one thing, you would need money, so money would be a branch. Money requires a good job and wise financial planning, so those would be two more branches stemming off money. You would also need downtime to relax, another base branch. Downtime would require you to have hobbies, another stem branch.

While money and downtime are important to you in this example, comfort is still the root. It’s what you seek over all, and will therefore shape every other part of your life.

Worldly Vs Godly Roots

Living a comfortable life sounds nice right? So would living a family-driven life, or a successful life. You’re probably thinking some life roots are more fulfilling than others, or they just sound better. Maybe family over money, or love over success. What if I were to say these are all the same? They will all fall short of fulfilling you. That’s because they all have one thing in common: they are all worldly roots.

The only root our lives are meant to have is God. All else is meant to stem from Him, even love and family. Christian values, especially the big ones from the Bible, are all base branches that will inevitably lead to many stem branches. The bases may be love, community, seeking and learning about Him. These are all very important, but they are still meant to come from Him, making Him the true root. And the truth is, for many of us, He’s not.

Is God Our Root?

For many of us, God is not our root, but a branch. Maybe for some He’s a base branch; maybe for some He’s more of a stem. I believe this is why many Christians act superior to others, morally and otherwise. They think their branch of God is closer to the root, or they have more stems off their branch (going to church or reading their Bible more). While these stems are still good things, they are not where they’re meant to be on the tree. Your identity is still rooted in something else, meaning something in your life is taking priority over God.

Christian is not a label or a credential or even a religion (in the ways people think of religions today). It’s a calling to God, from God. It is not something you call yourself and then say well I believe so I’m going to Heaven. Jesus said that “many will say to me on that day, ‘Lord, Lord, did we not prophesy in your name and in your name drive out demons and in your name perform many miracles?’ Then I will tell them plainly, ‘I never knew you. Away from me, you evildoers!’” (NIV, Matthew 7:22-23). Christianity is certainly not a bus pass either.

What does this mean? Does this mean I can’t be a Christian if He hasn’t called me? Relax. For starters that’s a whole other can of worms to open another time. Let’s not get too off topic here. For now, just know that we are all given the choice to answer His call, it’s just that most of us don’t. He is for all of us.

Identifying Your Root

If our root is meant to be in God, then how do we know if it actually is? Well for starters, prayer. Ask God to reveal your life root to you. Are you prioritizing something over Him? Is He your base or your branch? It’s not like you’re telling on yourself here, He already knows the answer. This is about going to Him, asking Him to search you so that He may reveal where you fall short. And if the answer is that He is not your root, you know you need to change that. If anything, that’s the first step to making Him your root.

Is that all? No, it’s not. Retrospection is a great second step to figuring out your root. Start with what you can see. What are your habits? What are you giving most of your time to? What do you think about the most? These are usually stem branches. Follow them back to the root. Just be sure to start with the prayer. This isn’t meant for you to figure out by your own power. That’d be pretty counter-productive to this whole thing. As you continue to prayer and think, more will be revealed to you.

Focusing Your Root

Everybody reading this article is at a different place in their faith journey. Some may already truly have God as their life roots. Some may not even really believe in Him right now. Regardless of how much of this article you agree with, we all have something at the root of our lives. That root is either Him, or it’s guiding us away from Him, towards worldly values.

Now a bit of a disclaimer: just because you fall to sin doesn’t necessarily mean your root isn’t in Him. For example, I can be very lazy myself. I over-consume Instagram reels and television way more than I care to admit. It’s actually why I used the comfort example from before, I relate to that one well. There’s a lot I can talk about as to why this is (I very well may in a future article). For now, let me remind you that all trees need to be trimmed. We can certainly perverse the good that comes from Him. That’s called evil, and those are branches that should be trimmed, but they do not mean you are not with Him.

Focusing your life root means seeking Him. Learn about Him, follow Him, and invite Him into your life. You’ll see what is and isn’t branching out from Him, you’ll see what you are perverting if you remember that He is the root of your life.