“Let there be love shared among us, let there be love in our eyes. May now Your love sweep this nation, cause us, oh Lord, to arise. Give us a fresh understanding of brotherly love that is real. Let there be love shared among us, let there be love.”

These words are the lyrics to a worship song we sang during last Sunday’s morning service of my beloved Pellissier Gemeente. A song which serves as a prayer to God, asking Him to fill us with His love so that we can share it with one another. A song which immediately took me back almost forty years, to a time when the highlights of my life had been the times where I sang this particular song on church youth camps (KJA & CSV).

Now, forty years later, I’ve been around the mountain of life more than just a few times and I have learned some truths about LOVE, some of which I would like to share in this reflection. If LOVE is present, it is either REAL or it is FAKE. I have noticed that an alarming amount of the most powerful LOVE ballads in music history, have lyrics that really make very little sense and/or have arbitary and shallow backstories. I have also noticed that the majority of LOVE-themed movies are disappointingly one-dimensional.

But it is the authenticity behind the statement

I LOVE YOU!

that I find particularly disturbing. It has become one of the most dangerous declarations in a world where REAL is so flippantly replaced by FAKE and FAKE is growing deeper. This statement does not necessarily imply REAL LOVE and it cannot override FAKE LOVE. This declaration is a blessing when the LOVE is REAL, but it is a curse when the LOVE is FAKE.

I believe that LOVE in its purest form (REAL LOVE) comes only from God and it is the most powerful force on earth. We (as God’s created beings) can only be vessels of REAL LOVE, we cannot imitate or reproduce it. An infilling of His LOVE also includes empathy, consideration, patience, selflessness and servant-heartedness. REAL LOVE cannot be dimmed, it is undeniable, it is unconditional, and it has the power to HEAL beyond modern medicine. It transcends language, culture and tradition and the recipients’ experiences are transformative and hopeful.

However, people hijack REAL LOVE when they add impurities such as indifference, deception, control and manipulation. Then it becomes FAKE LOVE, a distortion of REAL LOVE, and it is almost always rooted in selfishness. It is conditional, exclusive and it has the power to HURT beyond the most destructive weaponry. FAKE LOVE is like a commodity or a currency which some people use in trade-offs and transactions or even as bargaining chips. Recipients of FAKE LOVE are manipulated and their experiences may leave them hopeless.

My personal experience of REAL LOVE is something indescribably beautiful, a heartwarming and soothing touch which revives, restores, replenishes and invigorates deep within my soul and mind. However, my personal experience of FAKE LOVE is like someone taking a blowtorch to my brain, while concurrently dripping acid onto my exposed heart and tightening the grip of the barbed wire around my throat.

When it comes to LOVE, all of us are both givers and recipients and these two actions are independent of each other. We have a choice over which LOVE we give to others, and as believers, we are called to give REAL LOVE. Although we have no choice over which LOVE other people offer up to us, we do have the choice to accept it or not. Refusing to accept FAKE LOVE from other people is not rude or unappreciative, but rather a protective act of realigning our vulnerable hearts with the Source of REAL LOVE. He instructed us to guard our hearts above all else, because it the wellsprings of our lives.

Oh Lord, our God,

Thank You for Your REAL LOVE! Please help us to be faithful in sharing Your REAL LOVE with one another and with other people. Please also give us a fresh understanding thereof in our world where FAKE is rapidly growing deeper, so that our declaration of I LOVE YOU can be authentic.

Amen.