Affirming Love

With so many mixed messages of unconditional love we need to explore the meaning of the word. Unconditional means without conditions or reservation, it is absolute. However, when it comes to love, human love is limited. Amidst a basic human necessity are the emotional needs that are unconditional acceptance, unconditional self-regard, unconditional self-acceptance and unconditional love. This basic human need is essential to a person’s sense of wellbeing. We are taught that individuals need to be loved and accepted unconditionally without any conditions of performance.

Some individuals believe that unconditional love is a myth and that humans are naturally self-biased and the heart is so deceitful that one can fool himself into thinking that he loves unconditionally, when in fact he has all kinds of conditions. We believe that humans would find answers to his own dilemmas and naturally blossom into his best self in an atmosphere of unconditional love and acceptance. Nonetheless, people are not able to love unconditionally.

The human spirit craves unconditional love and experiences something when it cannot be achieved. When God is brought in as the source of unconditional love and acceptance then our eyes are also open to the subtle deception that can turn individuals’ eyes from God to self. The basis of this deception is an eagerness to dispute the claim of the scripture “For God so loved the world that He gave His only begotten Son that whosoever believeth in Him, should not perish, but have everlasting life” (John. 3:16) but the wideness of the love of God has been the theme of the gospels throughout all the ages, for to know His love is to know Him, and in order to know His love it is highly important that our beliefs be based on the revelation of Himself rather than on the imagination of men.

Having unconditional love means that there are no prerequisites or contingencies to the promise of salvation. I define love in three ways:

1) Eros love -romantic love which is the feeling of incredible attraction to someone

2) philos love-caring love which is meeting someone’s needs. When you are in love you feel something and when you care you do something and

3) agape love is above philos love and eros love, it is a love that emulates the love of God which is totally selfless, where a person gives out love to another person even if this act does not benefit her/him in any way. Whether the love given is returned or not, the person continues to love even without any self-benefit.

Romanic love is created when someone is meeting important emotional needs. When the romantic love threshold or feeling of incredible attraction is reached then romantic love is experienced indefinitely. It is not what I do that causes me to be in love it is what is done to me. Caring love makes unconditional love seem possible. I believe a relationship of any sort should meet each other’s important emotional needs and avoid hurting each other. Affirming love is a bilateral relationship with God where we must fulfill our commitment for the relationship to function.