“Love is a decision.” “You have to choose to love.” We’ve heard statements like this inside and outside of the church. To an extent, I understand what many are attempting to communicate. The sentiment is a reaction to the widely accepted notion that love is a feeling. But feelings are fickle and change constantly. So if love is defined by the way you feel, love is always unstable.
Maybe we need to rethink the way we view love. Indeed, love does affect our feelings and it engages our decisions but the source of love is more powerful than decisions or feelings? Instead of seeing love as something that is simply rooted in a decision or feeling, we should view love as a fruit — rooted in the Spirit.
In four minutes, Piper explains that love “is not just a decision you make moment by moment. It’s a fruit, it’s an overflow, it’s a work of God within us.”