Love Is The Law: Be Loved Right & Loving Well

This morning, I was studying what Jesus called the greatest commandment.

Love God.

Love your neighbor.

Simple enough, right?

At least that’s what I thought.

But the longer I sat with Luke 10, the more uncomfortable I became. Because if I’m being honest, I have spent most of my life thinking I understood love, only to realize I understood a version of love that was heavily shaped by my own wounds, fears, and desire to be accepted.

As I was reading, I found myself thinking about a line from Ab-Soul’s song The Law.

“Love has laws.”

That statement stayed with me.

Because if love has laws, then it means not everything we call love actually is love.

And suddenly I had to confront a reality I didn’t particularly enjoy.

Some of the things I spent years calling love weren’t love at all.

For most of my life, I thought love meant being available.

Always.

I thought love meant saying yes.

I thought love meant carrying everyone’s burdens.

I thought love meant fixing people.

I thought love meant allowing things that hurt me because I didn’t want anyone to think I was selfish.

If someone needed me, I was there.

If someone crossed a boundary, I moved the boundary.

If someone treated me poorly, I found a way to justify it.

Because underneath all of it was a very simple desire:

I wanted to be accepted.

And I convinced myself that was love.

The problem was that what I called love often produced exhaustion, resentment, frustration, and eventually bitterness.

Which should have been my first clue.

Because healthy love should not consistently produce unhealthy fruit.

As I continued reading Luke 10, a particular verse grabbed my attention.

A lawyer approaches Jesus and asks what he must do to inherit eternal life.

Jesus responds with a question:

“What is written in the Law? How do you read it?” (Luke 10:26)

Not “What does it say?”

Not “Can you quote it?”

Not “Have you memorized it?”

How do you read it?

How do you understand it?

How are you interpreting it?

That question feels just as relevant today as it did then.

Because people can read the same Bible and walk away with completely different conclusions.

Throughout history, people have used Scripture to justify slavery.

People have used Scripture to support oppression.

People have used Scripture to manipulate others.

People have used Scripture to defend spiritual abuse.

Not because the Bible teaches those things, but because interpretation matters.

Jesus understood that.

The issue wasn’t merely information.

It was understanding.

It was perspective.

It was the lens through which people viewed God’s heart.

And if we’re honest, we all do this.

We don’t read Scripture in a vacuum.

We read it through our experiences.

Through our disappointments.

Through our church experiences.

Through our family dynamics.

Through our wounds.

Sometimes we experience a painful season and spend years building an entire philosophy around that pain.

We get hurt and decide everyone is unsafe.

We get betrayed and decide trust is foolish.

We get disappointed and decide vulnerability isn’t worth it.

Pain becomes the lens.

And eventually pain starts interpreting everything.

But pain makes a terrible theologian.

The lawyer answers Jesus correctly.

Love God.

Love your neighbor.

But then he asks the question many of us would ask:

“Who is my neighbor?”

Jesus responds with the story of a Jewish man who was traveling from Jerusalem to Jericho.

He’s attacked.

Robbed.

Beaten.

Left half dead on the side of the road.

A priest walks by.

Keeps going.

A temple assistant walks by.

Keeps going.

Then a Samaritan comes along.

And that detail is easy to miss unless you understand the history.

Jews and Samaritans did not get along.

There was deep hostility between them.

Generations of division.

Generations of prejudice.

Generations of reasons not to care.

Yet the Samaritan stops.

He binds the man’s wounds.

Places him on his own animal.

Takes him to an inn.

Pays for his care.

Promises to cover any additional expenses.

Then Jesus asks which man acted like a neighbor.

The answer is obvious.

The Samaritan.

The one who loved.

Not with words.

Not with intentions.

Not with feelings.

With action.

Because love is not primarily something we feel.

Love is something we do.

In English, we use one word for love and expect it to carry an enormous amount of weight.

The Greeks had multiple words.

Philia described friendship.

Storge described family affection.

Eros described romantic love.

And agape described selfless, sacrificial love that consistently pursues the good of another person.

When Jesus says to love your enemies, He’s talking about agape.

Not feelings.

Not emotions.

Not affection.

Action.

Choosing someone’s good even when it’s difficult.

Choosing mercy when it costs something.

Choosing obedience over preference.

But what really convicted me wasn’t what the Samaritan did.

It was what he didn’t do.

The Samaritan didn’t abandon the man.

Love notices suffering.

Love pays attention.

Love stops long enough to care.

But he also didn’t enable him.

He helped him.

He cared for him.

He invested in him.

Yet he didn’t make the wounded man’s recovery his entire identity.

He didn’t move into the inn.

He didn’t quit his assignment.

He didn’t take responsibility for another man’s life.

That part hit me right between the eyes.

Because I spent years thinking love meant taking responsibility for everyone.

Everyone’s healing.

Everyone’s happiness.

Everyone’s choices.

Everyone’s consequences.

I thought that was love.

Now I realize it was often fear disguised as love.

Fear that people wouldn’t stay.

Fear that people wouldn’t approve.

Fear that I wouldn’t be enough.

Love helps.

Love serves.

Love sacrifices.

But love does not become someone’s savior.

Jesus already has that position filled.

The Samaritan also wasn’t exploited.

He willingly gave.

He willingly sacrificed.

But there was wisdom in it.

There were boundaries in it.

There was stewardship in it.

The more I study Scripture, the more I realize that boundaries and love are not enemies.

In many cases, boundaries protect love.

Without them, bitterness eventually grows.

Hebrews 12:15 warns us about a root of bitterness taking hold.

Roots don’t appear overnight.

They grow slowly.

Quietly.

Almost unnoticed.

And I think one of the ways bitterness grows is when we repeatedly violate the laws of love while calling it virtue.

We overextend ourselves.

We ignore wisdom.

We carry burdens that aren’t ours.

We abandon our own God-given assignments.

Then we wonder why we’re exhausted.

Why we’re frustrated.

Why we’re angry.

Maybe because what we called love wasn’t actually love.

Maybe it was people pleasing.

Maybe it was fear.

Maybe it was codependency.

Maybe it was a desperate need to be accepted.

This study forced me to confront something I’ve never wanted to admit:

I knew a lot about love.

I just wasn’t always practicing it correctly.

Because love isn’t abandonment.

Love isn’t enablement.

Love isn’t exploitation.

Love isn’t rescuing everyone.

Love isn’t saying yes to everything.

Love isn’t sacrificing obedience to gain acceptance.

Love is action.

Love is wisdom.

Love is mercy.

Love is truth.

Love is boundaries.

Love is sacrifice.

Love is understanding.

And maybe that’s why Jesus asked, “How do you read it?”

Because how we read God’s definition of love ultimately determines how we live it.

These days, I’m learning to trade my definition for His.

And honestly, that’s been both freeing and convicting.

Because for the first time in a long time, I’m beginning to believe that loving people well doesn’t require me to lose myself in the process.

It simply requires me to love the way Jesus did.