Lust or Love

Today, we are continuing this month’s series on Christian romance and tackling a question that even many within the Church don’t seem to have a good answer for, Lust or Love? What’s the difference? Is lust ever a good thing? Stick with us to find out!

Love, in most of our relationships today, is a lofty goal. If you were to ask most people in class or on the street, what are you looking for in a dating relationship, love probably won’t be the first thing that comes to mind and, for some, won’t come up at all. Due to past failed relationships, trust issues, disordered desires and many other things, a lot of us actually avoid love. We use terms like, “catching feelings” to describe it, almost as if it were a virus or something. It’s like dating is a game and the goal is to play as long as you can with as many people as you can before you get taken out by love, then it’s “game over.” So, how did we get here? How did our goals and desires for relationship become so distorted and broken?

We have to remember that we were created to love.

But when the Pharisees heard that he had silenced the Sadducees, they gathered together. And one of them, a lawyer, asked him a question to test him. “Teacher, which is the great commandment in the Law?” And he said to him, “You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind. This is the great and first commandment. And a second is like it: You shall love your neighbor as yourself. On these two commandments depend all the Law and the Prophets.” - Matthew 22:34-40

When asked what is the most important thing that every single one of us should be doing, Jesus replied, “Love God with everything and love your neighbor as yourself.” Sometimes, we miss the fact that what the teachers of the law were really asking Jesus was, “What were we made for? What is our purpose? What is our ought?” I mean, if this is the most important thing, the greatest thing we are commanded or directed by God, Himself, that we need to do, that thing is our purpose, right? The Westminster Catechism captures the first part of this by saying that “the chief end of man is to glorify God and enjoy Him forever.” But, Jesus says that the second is like or equal to the first, “to love our neighbor as we love ourselves.” 1 John 4:20 also tells us that it is impossible to love God if we don’t love our brother. You can’t have the one without the other. So, we were made to love. Love is what we should be aiming for in all of our relationships. But, love looks different in different types of relationships. Loving your friend looks different than loving your spouse, and in romantic relationships, love and lust can appear very similar. So, what is the difference.

Let him kiss me with the kisses of his mouth! For your love is better than wine;  your anointing oils are fragrant; your name is oil poured out; therefore virgins love you. Draw me after you; let us run. The king has brought me into his chambers.

This may sound like the opening to an inappropriate book, but it’s actually taken from the first few lines in the biblical book, The Song of Solomon. Is this Eros infused letter conveying love or lust? If we believe that lust is a physical, passionate, heated affair while love is giving a chaste hug and maybe a kiss on the cheek, then we would say that this is an example of lust. Unfortunately, some of us have bought into the idea that the difference between the two is that lust is exciting and sexy while love is nice, polite and boring. That’s why we introduced the idea that there are different types of love in last weeks video. Eros is romantic love, including sex. The word for lust, on the other hand is epithumeo and it is not related to the other words for love but for covetousness or deeply desiring something that is not your and wanting to take it. This is where we can start to understand the true difference between lust and love; love is an act you do towards someone else, lust drives you to take.

Many things can be done in love or out of lust. Take sex, for instance: Sex can be given in love, as a husband and wife give their bodies to one another for the pleasure and satisfaction of the other. Sex can also be done out of lust, when the two individuals are using sex to please and satisfy themselves with less or no care for the wants and needs of the other person. Love is saying, “What can I do in service of you?” Lust says, “What can I get you to do in service of me?” Passion and excitement are not the hallmarks of lust or love, but can be present in either. The difference is a self focus or a focus on the other person. Because of this, lust is always a losing game. When you have to lust-filled people engaging in a relationship together, they are both mentally working out how they can get the most out of this other person while at the same time trying to protect themselves as much as possible. Lust inhibits intimacy because lust avoids vulnerability. This is why people who have bought into the lie of lust over love see no problem using terms like “catching feelings” or even “body count,” because they are consciously or subconsciously dehumanizing the other person in order to justify how they are simply using them in order to satisfy themselves. But, again, lust will never truly satisfy. So, in the end, they’re both being played and both will end up with greater hurt, less ability to develop a truly healthy relationship later on and carrying their wounds into their next one. This is why, as Christians, we have been told to flee from sexual immorality and youthful lusts. God’s design for relationships is far greater than anything these broken relationships can counterfeit. If we could learn to love God’s way, not only will our relationships be better, but sex will be, too.