Is It Love or Is It Lust? - By Angie Lewis
This is an easy one. The most important and greatest book ever written tells us what love is. Once we realize the meaning of love we can hopefully understand what lust and being "in lust" and "in love" actually means.
Let Love Be Without Dissimulation (Romans 12:9)
What does "let love be without dissimulation" mean? It means that when we love we are to do it with sincerity of heart, mind, and spirit. Anything else is not love but lust. If a young man on his third date wants to have sexual relations because he feels something for the young girl, this is lust, not love. If and when this couple decides to get married based on the way they feel towards each other it is not love because they did not love one another to begin with. Instead they lusted after one another through the sexual relationship.
Dissimulation means to disguise (one's intentions, for example) under a feigned appearance, or to conceal one's true feelings or intentions. When we walk into new relationship wanting something from the other, which includes sex then it is not love, and we are disguising our true appearance. When we walk into marriage thinking "what's in it for me" then we conceal our true intentions. Most couples walk into marriage in these ways and this is why there is so much unhappiness in marriage and divorce!!
Love The One You Marry
Scripture tells us to "love the one we marry" not marry the one we (think) we love. If couples were properly prepared for marriage they would understand what it means to love the one they marry, which means total commitment to the marriage. But to marry the one we (think) we love is lust, hence, the feelings of lust wear off and couples commit infidelities and have many issues, such as jealousy, control issues, possessiveness, etc, etc. These things are not love! Let love be without (dissimulation) these things.
Love which comes from our Creator is what is called unconditional love, hence "love the one you marry." God loves you no matter what you have done, for this reason He came to earth in the form of the man, Jesus Christ to "show us" how to love. Many of us choose to pass up this wonderful and awesome gift by choosing to put conditions on how we will love. When we stop to ponder who Jesus is we see this forgiving, sacrificial, unconditional nature that few can follow because they themselves have not yet received it. We must die to our selfish nature before we can love others properly.
God loves us in this way but we humans must put in effort to love others without dissimulation, and many of us can't love without dissimulation because we're too selfish, rebellious and stubborn to follow the path that leads to love. Unfortunately, most couples when they marry don't realize how serious of an issue "marriage" is to God. They go into marriage thinking they are in love with the person they are marrying. But if they divorce when troubles come butting their little horns in the marriage, it means they have no commitment to finish what they started because the marriage was based upon their feelings of lust, not the commitment to love their spouse till death do them part. When we marry the one we (think) we love the marriage has no foundation of love as its support. Trouble comes and the marriage cannot stand. This is NOT love. If it's not love, what is it?
Dating in Christian society is lust and many people are being deceived. In essence they have confused the feelings of lust and desire to be love. Most young people are not educated about what marriage is, and or prepared for a lifetime marriage. If they knew that God expects them to "love the one they marry" there would be no dissimulation and this is because commitment has no room for false intentions or concealment of ones feelings, because how one feels does not matter when there is commitment.
Love must be sincere. Love must be without dissimulation. Romans 12:9.
Christian culture teaches lust not love: http://youtu.be/jQv8ELJWRz4 Heaven Ministries Marriage Healing Ministry: http://www.heavenministries.com Article Source: http://EzineArticles.com/?expert=Angie_Lewis Article Source: http://EzineArticles.com/6168289
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