Part 5: Counterfeit Love — Addendum
I posted Part 5 last night. This morning I took a walk through the countryside around my cabin here in Central New York state (when people think of NY they almost always think of NY City. The rest of NY is mostly farm land and light industry). On my walk I felt the presence of God in my spirit. He directed me to add some thoughts to my post of last night. That post is already too long, so I decided to write this addendum as a separate post.
Near the end of the Part-5 post I wrote:
“Finally, there is good news for those of us who find ourselves practicing this counterfeit love. We can repent and invite Jesus to enter into this no-love. When He does, counterfeit, contract love can morph into agape love, because His love has power to transform lives and relationships. None of us is stuck. When we cry out “Jesus, Son of David, have mercy on me” He usually shows up. Then our no-love—our life in bondage—can be transformed into ‘yes in Christ’—our life of freedom.
“It is for freedom that Christ has set us free. Stand firm, then, and do not let yourselves be burdened again by a yoke of slavery” (Galatians 3: 1 NIV).
I believe Paul is writing about love in our life—bondage in the world’s counterfeit love versus freedom in God’s agape love – received and given. We have a choice. Love is the ultimate indicator of the Kingdom life. How we love tells the world who we are. How we love determines who we will become. Like Moses said, it is a matter of life and death. God’s love flowing from us releases the Kingdom of God; counterfeit love releases the kingdom of self“.
All of us understand counterfeit love. All of us have loved this way at one time or another. For many of us, even Christians, our relationships with God, others, things, even ourselves are still governed by this type of love in our lives. This is what it means to live in the world or the flesh. But God wants to change us from men and women who love this way, into men and women who agapao the little slice of the world we live in, including our love for others, ourselves, and God.
God does this through the power of His love delivered by the Holy Spirit. I will leave out all of the theological discourse about: can we reject God’s love, what is our role in receiving His love (i.e. repentance), and is His love for everyone (but I can’t resist — yes it is) and get to the heart of the matter. God transforms us from bitter, resentful, sometimes mean-spirited people who are releasing evil into the world — you and me if we are not agapaoing the world — around us into free and joyful people through the power of His love. We become new creations; everyone around us will notice the change. This change, manifested in agape love for the world, is the external expression of the deeper supernatural transformation of our spirit and heart. Friends, this is the meaning of redemption and restoration. This is the good news, the Gospel, the work of the cross, and the power of the Holy Spirit. God’s love, through His Spirit, brings us from the dominion of darkness into the Kingdom of His Son where there is light. God restores us back to the man or woman He originally intended us to be. Not perfectly, because we will always be a work in progress, but better, much better. This transformation is the work of the power of love and it is expressed outwardly in our new, apape love.
To me, this is what it means to follow Jesus. To be transformed from someone who sees the world through counterfeit, contract love into someone who apagaos the world, not by our power or our efforts, but solely through the power of God’s love. The former releases evil into the world camoflaged as love; the latter releases the Kingdom of God into the world through the power of God flowing through us. That is real love. I believe a disciple is a man or woman who loves this way, because to be able to love this way requires us to be living in the Kingdom of God with God Himself dwelling within us. Think of that. God dwelling in you!! Wow, you are valuable. That’s love.
I also wrote “Love is the ultimate indicator of the Kingdom life. How we love tells the world who we are. How we love determines who we will become“. No matter how hard you try to hide it, the world will know if you love them with counterfeit love. And the world will know it if you love them with agape love. The latter is relatively rare. If we love with counterfeit love, we will become like what we love. All of life will become a transaction for us. We will always be looking to see if we are getting what the contract promises. And if we feel short-changed or cheated we will retaliate — sometimes by walking away from the relationship crying “cheater”, because that contract defines our life.
But if we love with agape or covenant love we will grow in peace and joy; we will grow in wisdom and discernment. We will no longer see life as a transaction, but as a journey to be celebrated, enjoyed, and savored. We will stop looking to see if we got what we deserved, but will give more than is required, even the coat off my back, so to speak, including forgiveness. That is what it means to follow Jesus, to be His disciple, to agapao Him as I apagao my neighbor, myself, even my enemy (or the person who disagrees with me theologically).
One of the best extra-Biblical examples of these two types of love — counterfeit-contract love versus agape-covenant love — is found in the character of Ebenezer Scrooge in Dicken’s ‘The Christmas Carol’. For those of you who have kept up with my posts, you know I have used this example before.
Scrooge loved money, money gave him the value he desperately needed. Recall as a boy his father rejected him, in effect telling Scrooge you are ‘not good enough’. Ebenezer ultimately found the antidote to this devaluing in the value of money — he loved (worshiped) money. But of course, it was not agape love, it was counterfeit, contract love. Scrooge devoted his live to making money and in return money gave him what he needed. The world knew him by his love — the world knew him to be a bitter, hard-hearted, mean-spirited man who released evil into the world (Scrooge is written over the top to make a point, most of us are much more subtle, but equally effective). There was a reason he lived a lonely life. Everyone saw who he was, knew that he saw them only in terms of dollars and cents. In other words, Ebenezer dehumanized them and dehumanized himself. He lived in darkness, inside and out.
He was known by his love, in this case counterfeit love, and over time he became like what he loved. As you probably have figured out, counterfeit, contract love is another name for idolatry. You know God hates idolatry.
But praise God for the cross and the power of God’s love. In the story, Scrooge is redeemed and restored. The power of God’s love made him a new creation. The work was done in Scrooge’s heart; the external manifestation of this work was his new ability to love extravagantly and generously give of himself, which was seen by the world around him. He gave away the thing that had been most precious to him with no thought for himself or the applause the world might give him. He was literally born again. In part, or maybe in whole, to be born again means to be transformed from a man or woman who sees the world through counterfeit love into a man or woman who sees the world through the eyes of Christ, which means to agapao the world. And in order to do this, just as Ebeneezer did, I must give up the right to myself. I must tear up the contract and say “I no longer care if I get what is owed to me. I am free from all of that. Now I only care that you get from me what you need.”
Which comes first? The transformation or the love? I suppose you could make the argument that they come together. But the more I learn about God and His amazing love for us and the power of that love, I have come to believe that no spiritual and emotional transformation takes place apart from God’s love — either His love flowing into us or His love flowing out of us into another person.
Two final points. First, Scrooge was transformed by ghosts. We are transformed by the Holy Spirit, not ghosts. Second, like Ebeneezer most of us are deeply wounded, usually from childhood. Lately, I have been amazed at the number of people I have met who have publicly confessed to some type of early childhood abuse — emotional, physical, or sexual. This type of abuse, unless Jesus steps in at some point, almost always manifests itself in counterfeit love, where the person is looking for some type of comfort and value. That is why inner healing is so critical. For many people, agape love is out of reach until they are healed. Jesus does the healing, but sometimes they need a Christian ministry to facilitate that work. This is one of the most important roles of the Church today, because only the Church can do it, and it is the arena where the Church needs significant improvement. The Church is very generous with money, social programs, and health care, for example. But until the hearts and souls of people are healed, they will continue to live in the darkness, just like Scrooge. And if the Bible is correct, without the transformation described here, that life of darkness can last for eternity.
That seems like a contradiction, doesn’t it? The God who is love will consign some of those He loves to outer darkness, far from Him. But it is the truth and is the reason why D.A. Carson wrote a book titled ‘The Difficult Doctrine of the Love of God’.
I am still amazed at how every aspect of the Christian life — theology, a personal relationship with God, the work of God in Jesus, the move of the Holy Spirit, my journey of sanctification, and all that Christ commands us to do in the Great Commission — are just variations on the same theme: Love.
Still learning and still trying to agapao better,
John