Types of Love

(Schweitzer Youth - 2010 High School Mission Trip)

There is a lack of love. A lack of friendship. A lack of community. All because of sin.

We see this in Genesis, where God creates the man and the woman for the purpose of oneness. They have friendship, and intimacy , and loving affection, but, sin comes and immediately they hide from each other. They hide from God. They cover themselves. Shame enters into the human equation. There is separation between the man and the woman and God, and the man and the woman and each other and that's what sin does. Sin isolates us from God. It also isolates from one another. It ills life, and it kills love, and it kills oneness, as God has created us to have.

This has come to be such a pressing matter in our culture today that we live in a world that is almost completely void of real Christ-like biblical love.

C.S. Lewis talks about Need Love and Gift Love. He says that need love is where I love you, because you do something for me that is beneficial. That is a contractual sort of love where, "Well, you make me feel good, so I love you," or "You do kind things for me, so I love you," or "You meet a need that I think I have, so I love you."

He says that Christ-like love is a gift love where, "I give affection to you with no demands or expectations in return. It is a covenantal and not contractual love. It is not predicated upon terms. It is just given freely, and graciously, and happily, without ever expecting that you will give it back to me or make up for it, or that this ever in any way be an equal giving of love."

So, what kind of love are you giving to your friends, family, co-workers, strangers?

Need Love?
or
Gift Love?