The Measure of Love

How do you measure love? If you say to some one, "I love you with all my heart," what does that mean?  If I say to my wife, "You are the best thing that ever happened to me." Is that a measure of love? If I say, "My love for you knows no bounds." What does that mean?

Hallmark cards has become famous by catching just the right phrase or lyric to express a person's deepest devotion to another. But are those just words or do they really measure the depth of love we have for that person?

There are many things my wife does to show that she loves me, but if anyone were to ask me what one thing means the most, I would always say, "She takes the crumbs from the bottom of the chip bag and gives me the whole ones."  Pretty silly for some, but for me it demonstrates her putting my needs before her own.

When it comes to spouse, mothers, fathers, sisters or brothers, sons or daughters, often times our love is so deep that we would put ourselves in harms way if it meant shielding them.

In Matthew 10:34-39, Jesus makes if clear that our love - or if you prefer, allegiance - for family is to be secondary to our love for him. In fact our commitment to him may indeed bring strife and division among families. If someone makes that kind of commitment today to someone else of authority we would call it cult-like. But when it comes to a persons commitment to Christ over family we call it devotion.

I would further suggest that if someone where to walk away from mother or father, son our daughter, husband or wife in order to pursue "Christ's call", it would be viewed as hypocritical. We would say, "How can a person love God yet abandon his family?"

Part of me wants to think that Christ is speaking symbolically, but from his own life it appears that he is not. (Matthew 12:46-50)

This is a hard concept. It is not easy to wrap my arms around the kind of devotion Christ talks about in his call to discipleship.  Is it just a matter of being "willing to"? That would certainly soften the concept. However words like, "I have not come to bring peace but a sword..." seem pretty concise. This is difficult thing.

As a new Christian, I remember this exact thing happened in my family. I even quoted the words of Christ when my parents were fed up with my constant attendance at Church and Bible studies; exasperated with my verbal testimony to them and reading my Bible at home. They actually told me to leave.

Of course all of that sounded good in my testimony. The young man so committed to Christ that it cost him his family. In fact, it cost me even more than that. Nevertheless, the bottom line is basically this - my testimony had little impact on my family as a result of that "commitment".

So I simply ask, "What is the measure of love?"