“This destruction, this romantic apocalypse if you will, that we go to in our culture without boundaries where we think total freedom from any laws and restrictions on love, where it actually leads us is exactly this: at apocalypse.”
In a video posted to YouTube, Michelle Tepper, a speaker for Ravi Zacharias International Ministries, provides a powerful answer to a question many Christians struggle with:
Why is the Bible so Restrictive on Love and Relationships?
“The Bible tells us that we crave relationships and intimacy because God designed us that way, made for perfect love.”
“But the problem is that until we come to know and accept, really accept that Love in God, we will try to satisfy that deep desire and need and void in all sorts of other ways, and specifically we try to fill it in other people.”
This topic seems to be one that many do not understand, but for those who do, it can be a lifeline proving that our Father in Heaven is an all-Loving Father and a merciful God.
How is this, when some feel like He is keeping them from enjoying what life has to offer?
Because when boundaries are set, it is with love and for our protection.
Just like when a child is told not to touch the stove or not to cross the street without their parents, God is, as our Father, trying to protect us from coming to harm.
Michelle says that there are three major themes throughout the Bible:
- “You are Loved.”
- “God wants you to be free.”
- “God wants you to live forever.”
Tepper acknowledges that when we try to find our own freedom, we drift further away from God. We are looking for satisfaction, but we actually get further and further away from the satisfaction that we so crave.
She reveals that in 2012, the most searched for phrase on Google was “What is love?”
This “tells us two things: nobody knows what love is and everybody is looking for it.”
Tepper also shows us what is right in front of our eyes: many people are taking their search for love and their dissatisfaction and placing all of their hope in another human being.
Our culture is one that views finding our one true, usually human, love as satisfaction.
It seems that many think that once they find love in a human, earthly relationship, that all of their worries and troubles will vanish. So, when they do actually find somebody who they decide to make a life with, they put all of their hopes in that one person.
Hopes, beliefs, and the love that should have been placed in God, they are now placing in another person.
Now, we know that no one can truly satisfy our hopes and longings. There is no mere human who can give us the satisfaction for which we are looking.
Trying to find it there will eventually cause contention between two people because one is never satisfied and the other cannot possibly do what is necessary to satisfy. This is a vicious cycle that is rampant in our culture.
Through the Bible, God is showing us the wisdom of following boundaries when it comes to relationships. These boundaries are to keep us from this vicious cycle.
“What happens when we are so hungry for love and we want to be free from any restrictions that we have turned the pursuit of relationship and actually dreamt of a person to be love itself.”
She goes on to state that we have taken love, the kind that we have for another person, and turned it into God.
Michelle also realizes that when we turn that other person into a god in our hearts, we are looking for redemption and purpose in that other person. This is a huge burden for that other person to carry, and they will never be able to give their partner what they want.
Nobody can ever be perfect. Nobody can ever fulfill the promises that God has given to those who Love Him and nobody can ever be as forgiving and understanding as God is. These relationships will turn into dissatisfaction and they start to fall apart.
This only leaves people more dissatisfied and leads them to more and more bad relationships, unless the cycle is stopped and they turn to the One True God, their One True Father, and their One True Love.
“When the Christian says ‘God is Love’, it’s actually helping us define Love and less about a description of God.”
Tepper says that God is communicating to you and saying that you are already Loved and that you are made to be free and that you are supposed to live forever.
She says that the Bible communicates to us the following truths about Love:
Love will always be personal. God is not selfish and He is always thinking of us. Love happens when we think about another person, not when we put our own wants on somebody else.
Love is sacrificial. When we are in a relationship, we must be thinking about the other person and trying to do what that other person needs, not just consuming what we want from that person.
Love is permanent. This is the amazing thing about the fact that God is Love. He is eternal, His Love is eternal, and He makes us eternal through Him.
But it is hard for people to see this from God. Instead, they look for what they are craving in other people, but our dissatisfaction is leading to depression, suicide, divorce and many other destructive things.
She says that our hunger for Love can only be satisfied with God. We know that this is true. God is trying to help us come to Him and trying to show us what Love should be. He is pursuing us, showing us what True Love is.
He, selflessly, sacrificed His Son for us and His saving Grace is permanent. He is fighting for us; He is fighting for our hearts and is trying to protect us from false love and from giving false love to others.
Tepper states another truth: that God’s Love is powerful enough to forgive you, powerful enough to save you, and personal enough to give you eternal life with Him forever. “There is nothing you could do that could end God’s Love for you.”
So how does one find this Love and affection? By looking for God, following His ways, and subsequently falling in Love with Him and realizing that none of those things that you were following beyond His boundaries are worth turning away from His Love for you.
So, let us take the time to pray today for the people who are searching for Love.
Let’s pray that they find it, not in another person, but in our Holy Father. He is the True Father.
Let us also pray that those who know His Love never doubt it and see His Love clearly in their lives.
Pray that we all may know the satisfaction of being with and knowing our One True Love: God.
Watch this powerful video for yourself:
