Love

What does it mean to be human? The answer to this question is not as simple as we might like it to be, or as some people make it out to be. To begin to answer this question, I will take you into the first chapter of the first book in the best selling book of all time: the Bible. Imagine that, after 6 days of work (creating the sun and moon, the plants and animals, the entire earth) God decides he needs something to have dominion over the entire earth. So he creates man. Genesis 1:27 says "So God created man in his own image, in the image of God he created him; male and female he created them." We are created in the image of God. Now, you might ask, "Well, what does it mean to be created in the image of God?" One answer to that question is explained extensively in one of my favorite chapters in the Bible: 1 John 4. Multiple times in this chapter, John states that "God is love." One thing that humans have that no other living things do is the capacity to love. Love, I believe, is one part of what it means to be human.
What is love without freedom of choice? Without the ability to choose freely what we do and don't do, do we really have love? Imagine if God had not not created the forbidden fruit. He could've told Adam and Eve that they could eat from any tree in the garden whatsoever. They would never have sinned and we would all be living in the Garden and loving God unconditionally. Or would we? Would it really be love if we had no alternative? We'd be like robots, doing everything he told us without having the capability to choose otherwise? That's not love, that's slavery. We are given free choice because God wants us to love him.
In today's society, I believe that it is getting increasingly harder to love because we are not letting ourselves have free choice. People are letting the opinions of others smother their own free will, beyond mere influence. We need to learn to train our minds to resist the weakening of our freedom. According to John Dewey, author of "How We Think," "genuine freedom, in short, is intellectual; it rests in the trained power of thought." We must be able to "look at matters deliberately" and look at all the evidence, then decide for ourselves. How do we discipline our minds? The author of "The Liberal Arts: What and Why," Arthur Holmes, believes that an education, specifically a liberal arts education, "prepares a man for the wise exercise of the God-given freedom he can enjoy." We must use the intelligence God has given us to discipline our minds in the liberal arts and therefore retain our freedom of choice and our capacity to love.
While the two authors certainly weren't writing specifically about love, I couldn't help but notice the underlying theme of free will and think about our love for God and his love for us. We remain independent in our thoughts. We must remain loving toward God and others. And most of all, we must remain in the Word of God. "All scripture is God-breathed and is useful for teaching, rebuking, correcting, and training in righteousness" (2 Timothy 3:16). If we abide in Him and His Word, all these things will come easy.
We need to love. I cannot emphasize this point more. We were created to love, so that is what we should be doing. When we are demonstrating the love of God, others will notice it and wonder what is so special about us. We will be his light unto the world. And remember: "remain in me [Jesus], as I also remain in you" (John 15:4).