YOUR GREATEST BARRIER TO ATTRACTING LOVE IS THE LACK OF THE KNOWLEDGE OF LOVE
The key to mastering anything is to understand the foundational framework upon which that concept or thing is or was built—so that you can build on it. This is also true with love. It is true to cultivate, nurturing spiritual connections in your marriage and relationships. It is true to building a strong marriage, and relationship, or a strong home. It is crucial to understand what love is—what or who the source of love is, where love comes from, the nature of love, how love works, and the guiding principles of love and relationships. Love is not taught in schools. The reason why the concept of love is challenging, and many people fail in their relationships is because they do not understand that basic principles of love—which is key to all relationships—let alone how love works in relationships.Taking time to study love and its impact in relationships, can give you accurate and deep understanding of love, and the ability to love. This enables you to look at relationships with a wider lens than just focusing on your past experiences—culture, values, education, and other factors. These are external factors that have strongly shaped or influenced your perception about love and relationships.
What is Love?
What is love? What does love represents? What is that nature of love? Can you see or perceive love with your senses? Is love a physical or spiritual entity? The apostle John answers these questions in 1 John 4:7-21. In his account, the English Standard Version of the Bible records the following.
Beloved, let us love one another, for love is from God, and whoever loves has been born of God and knows God. Anyone who does not love does not know God, because God is love. In this the love of God was made manifest among us, that God sent his only Son into the world, so that we might live through him. In this is love, not that we have loved God but that he loved us and sent his Son to be the propitiation for our sins. Beloved, if God so loved us, we also ought to love one another. No one has ever seen God; if we love one another, God abides in us and his love is perfected in us. By this we know that we abide in him and he in us, because he has given us of his Spirit. And we have seen and testify that the Father has sent his Son to be the Savior of the world. Whoever confesses that Jesus is the Son of God, God abides in him, and he in God. So we have come to know and to believe the love that God has for us. God is love, and whoever abides in love abides in God, and God abides in him. By this is love perfected with us, so that we may have confidence for the day of judgment, because as he is so also are we in this world. There is no fear in love, but perfect love casts out fear. For fear has to do with punishment, and whoever fears has not been perfected in love. We love because he first loved us. If anyone says, “I love God,” and hates his brother, he is a liar; for he who does not love his brother whom he has seen cannot love God whom he has not seen. And this commandment we have from him: whoever loves God must also love his brother.
In this biblical passage, the apostle John reveals the following (1) God is love, (2) love comes from God, (3) if we love one another, God abides in us and his love is perfected in us, and (4) If anyone says, “I love God,” and hates his brother, he is a liar; for he who does not love his brother whom he has seen cannot love God whom he has not seen. This revelation is an illustration of how God designed relationships with in an intend to be deeply and actively involved in them.
If God is love, God is Spirit, and love is the first fruit of the Holy Spirit (Galatians 5:22), we can conclude that love is Spirit. Its nature is spiritual and not physical. If love is not a physical entity or body, it should be a spirit—that has a spiritual body. Just as there are natural bodies, there are also spiritual bodies. There are also bodies in the heavens and bodies on the earth. The glory of the heavenly bodies is different from the glory of the earthly bodies. The sun has one kind of glory, while the moon and stars each have another kind. And even the stars differ from each other in their glory. Love is a spiritual body—with a heavenly body. A spiritual body cannot be accessed with human senses— sight, sound, smell, taste, and touch.
Searching for Love
People often say, “I am looking for love.” How can you want to fix something when you don’t know how it works? How can you look for something that you cannot identify? How can you want to look for some that you don’t know its nature? Jesus Christ is the second person of the Blessed Trinity—He is God. Jesus said, “You will look for me, but you will not find me; and where I am, you cannot come” (John 7:34). The reason why you are looking for love—but can’t find it is because you are looking for it in wrong places.
Where is love located? Where can you find love?
The reason why you search for love and cannot find it is because you are searching for a spiritual being—in the physical realm. Since love is a spiritual being, you must search for Him in the spiritual realm. You can’t see love with your physical eyes or search for him with your physical senses—sight, sound, smell, taste, and touch. Genuine search for love in your relationship is looking for God—who is love—the source of relationships, the author of relationships and the protector and sustainer of relationships. God is the reference point of relationships. As a relational God, He created human beings, in His image and likeness, so that they might become relational beings. To create the relationship system, the Relational God said
“It is not good for the man to be alone. I will make a helper suitable for him” (Genesis 2:18).
So, the Relational God caused the man to fall into a deep sleep; and while he was sleeping, he took one of the man’s ribs and then closed the place with flesh. Then the Relational God made a woman from the rib, He had taken out of the man, and He brought her to the man. The man said, “This is now bone of my bones and flesh of my flesh; she shall be called ‘woman,’ for she was taken out of man.” Adam named her “woman” in relation to the “man.” That is why a man leaves his father and mother and is united to his wife, and they become one flesh (Genesis 2:21-24). In this act of creation, God established the relational dimension of the Scriptures. Therefore, God is the source of all relationships.
The Relationships we Manifest.
Although we live in the physical realm, life itself is spiritual. Relationships are spiritual. Spiritual and physical life become easy when we live our lives in God and with God. God is love. Therefore, love relationships must be live in God and with God. Just as physical life begins when our physical heart starts to beat, in the same manner, our spiritual life begins when our spiritual heart starts to beat. Spiritual life begins when we are “born again. You must be born again before you can have access with spiritual love—true love.
Destruction in Relationships
People are being destroyed in relationships because they don’t know Love or lack the knowledge of Love. You are destroyed in relationships for the lack of the knowledge—you do not know or acknowledge God as Love. When you reject the knowledge of Love—Love rejects and abandons you. How can you obey the law of Love when you lack the knowledge of Love? How can you apply the principles love—fundamental principles guiding relationships, when you don’t know then or rebel against them? How can you build strong love relationships when you the lack wisdom, knowledge and understanding on how love relationships work? The reason why we fail in relationships is because we don’t know the author of all relationship—His sovereign will for creating relationship systems, and how these systems—relationship systems were designed to works. The foundation upon which relationship systems were build are out of course, broken to the core (Genesis 3).
Psalm 82:5 (ESV)
They have neither knowledge nor understanding, they walk about in darkness; all the foundations of the earth are shaken.
All the foundations of the earth—the fundamental principles of the administration of justice—the fundamental principles of relationships are shaken. These fundamental principles of the are shaken by sin. How can you build a successful relationship on a faulty foundation? How can you maintain and protect a successful relationship on a faulty foundation? A successful relationship or marriage can only be built on the foundation of Christ. When the Author of relationships—God is removed from your everyday lives, the results are evident—dysfunctional homes, marriages, and relationships. As a RelationalGod, He wants to be deeply and actively involved in your relationships. You have a choice to make—either to invite Him or keep Him out of your relationships. Many relationships and people are destroyed in relationships for the following reasons.
- Lack of knowledge of Love
- Lack of the knowledge of God
- Lack of the knowledge of the guiding and sustaining principles of love—the fundamental principles of guiding relationships.
- Rejection of the knowledge of God—who is the Author and Source of all relationships.
In Hosea 4:6 (ESV), the prophet Hosea recorded the following.
My people are destroyed for lack of knowledge; because you have rejected knowledge, I reject you from being a priest to me. And since you have forgotten the law of your God, I also will forget your children.
I have a quick question to ask. Why are medical doctors required to take courses in human anatomy in medical schools? Some people may say it for them to locate sickness sites. Some may say the knowledge of human anatomy is for them to pinpoint problems and refer the patient to the right specialist. Generally, it is difficult to fix a problem without knowing its roots or origin. The same applies to love and relationships. For a medical doctor to treat a disease, affecting a certain area of the human body, he or she must study the disease. He or she must know how the human body work—and how it is structured. Human anatomy is an essential element in understanding how the human body works normally or abnormally. Why then do we approach love and relationships differently or with reservations?