Fr. John Powell had a profound understanding of love. We say that we fell in or out of love. But love is not an emotion. Love is a decision we make. We choose to love and we choose to stop loving. Sure our emotions are moved when we feel loved and our love will cause us to feel intimacy and affection. But love is a decision we make regardless what we feel.
Does the young mother really enjoy the feeling of changing a diaper? We say that we love chocolate, ice cream or fresh baked bread, but is that really love? Parents discipline out of love but that does not mean that it feels good for the parent or the child.
God chose to love us. He decided to send His Son to die for us because He chose to love us. If we truly could just fall in and out of love, wouldn't God have fallen out of love with us a long time ago? Thank goodness God graciously chooses to love us even though we do not deserve it. Can we do anything less than love one another?
(1 John 4:7-11 NIV) "7 Dear friends, let us love one another, for love comes from God. Everyone who loves has been born of God and knows God. 8 Whoever does not love does not know God, because God is love. 9 This is how God showed his love among us: He sent his one and only Son into the world that we might live through him. 10 This is love: not that we loved God, but that he loved us and sent his Son as an atoning sacrifice for our sins. 11 Dear friends, since God so loved us, we also ought to love one another."
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