Do you want to know how love works? Love in 4 directions is a message that can help you grasp the meaning of love better. It can also help you to understand what not to love. The Bible teaches that love is not always in the positive sense. In fact, it can creates harm rather than good. It can destroy rather than build. But what are these kinds of love? In what sense that it can destroy or harm us? But there is also a way to understand love positively. We should go in that better direction.
Downward Love
The direction of this kind of love is “downward” because it is all about the love of sin or the love to the world. It says in 1 John 2:15-16, “Do not love the world or anything in the world. If anyone loves the world, love for the Father is not in them. For everything in the world—the lust of the flesh, the lust of the eyes, and the pride of life—comes not from the Father but from the world.”
The “world,” in this passage is defined in terms of the sinful acts. The world offers a negative sense of love. These are the lust of the flesh, lust of the eyes, and the pride of life. When we succomb to these, we sinned. The conequence will be harm and distruction.
Inward Love
Inward love is all about loving “yourself,” the wrong way. The Bible is clear when it says in 2 Timothy 3:1-5 – But know this, that in the last days perilous times will come: For men will be lovers of themselves, lovers of money, boasters, proud, blasphemers, disobedient to parents, unthankful, unholy, unloving, unforgiving, slanderers, without self-control, brutal, despisers of good, traitors, headstrong, haughty, lovers of pleasure rather than lovers of God, having a form of godliness but denying its power. And from such people turn away!
Just like the “downward” love, inward love also create problems. It is a love the harms and destroys. Take not of the phrase in verse 1, “People will be lovers of themselves,” obviously speaks in an inward direction geared to selfishness.
Upward Love
The “upward” direction speaks about the love for God. A familiar passage that talks about the love for God is found in Matthew 22:37-38 – Jesus replied: “Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind.’ This is the first and greatest commandment.”
This kind of love must be the goal of everybody. Upward love is the Greatest Commandment. If downward and inward love can create problems, upward love can solve problems. It is because loving God sumarizes many of the laws in the Old Testament and in the New Testament.
Sideward Love
“Sideward love” is all about loving others. It says in Matthew 22:39, “And the second is like it: ‘Love your neighbor as yourself.’ “Loving others” is also part of the Greatest Commandment. This direction of love can be called horizontal love – loving your neighbor. It also summarizes every law in relation to other people.
Follow the two directions: upward and sideward love, and disregard the other two: downward and inward. Life will be better if we love the right way.
