The Economy of Love

We deal with love like we deal with money. It’s just the truth. Over a cup of coffee with a friend or in a busy room full of new faces, we buy and sell our love away like a starving peasant spends his hard earned shilling on food to sustain his feeble hands.   

def. Market: a regular gathering of people for the purchase and sale of provisions

def. Market of Love: a regular gathering of people for the purchase and sale of love

God has been showing me that this is how I deal with love. I give out love to those who I think can offer me the most in the way of what I need. To be a wise investor, we should befriend the most promising investment because there is a likely chance that if we give love out to them, they will return the favor. We may paint our purchases with the colors of sincere Christian love, but our hope for return is the same.

If the world functions like this, which it does, how can we ever love someone unconditionally as we are commanded by Christ? As long as we are trying to buy identity from other people, we may as well hang out with those who can give us what we want.

But God has another economy. If we gain our identity from the love Jesus has for us, two things will happen. The first is that we will experience an identity that is better than life as David proclaims in Psalm 63. The second is that we will no longer have a requirement for the type of people we love! If our joy, value, and hope are rooted in the gift of identity Christ gives, we no longer need to seek out a certain type of person to give us love. Love ceases to be an investment, and instead becomes more like a donation, or a gift.  

This is so beautiful and freeing! The idea that I can go through a day without needing identity from those I’m around is foreign, but it is possible, and in this I have great hope! No other form of love is pure love. John says, “Whoever does not love does not know God, because God is love.” Or just as true, whoever does not know God, does not love. It is not a possibility to love unconditionally those around us with no expectation of return unless we have received the love from God, for “God is love.” We would be like streams of living water overflowing into everything around us. 

Unconditional love will find me when I have no condition for loving. And I will only have no condition for loving when I don’t need something from people. And I will only have no need of something when I find all I need in the love Jesus has for me!

I could go on and on praising the beauties of this! Lord you are the archetype of love and love has no root outside of you. Oh taste and see that the Lord is good! And tell of his goodness unconditionally!