Sick of that Same Old Love?

The lyrics of pop music are usually fluff – but sometimes they are quite instructive.

Selena Gomez’s latest “hit” is called “Same Old Love” where she sings on and on about how she “is so sick of that same old love.”  Which should lead one to ask – what kind of “love” is she sick of?  What kind of “love” is she talking about?

“The kind that tears me up” she sings.  “The kind that breaks your heart.”  Ohhhhhhhh, you’re talking about the “love” Disney panders.  The stare-into-each-others-eyes-time-melts-away kind of “love.”  The chemicals rushing through the bloodstream “love.”  The high-like-a-drug “love.”

Pop music and Hollywood have been selling this kind of feel-good love as the “true” thing for decades, and according to Selena, it has finally caught up with us.  Because there is a huge deception in this “love” they are talking/singing about.  This “love” they boast of and teach everyone to search for – above all else – at the expense of anything that comes in its way – is not actually for anyone but you.  Just you.  You and only you, all by yourself, all alone.

Think about it.  They are not talking about what you do for someone else.  They are talking about the way you feel inside when you are with someone.  They are talking about how someone makes you feel.  If they make you feel good, then you are “full of love” for them.  But the moment they stop taking you to that “high”, the moment the feelings you are feeling inside are not as strong as they were before – do you still love them?  How do you get those feelings back? 

In an amazing twist that has sent us all on a search for certain feelings inside ourselves, we have abandoned real love that looks out at the other person.  We are stuck looking in.  Trying to know others by feeling them inside us.  Because we think this is love.  But it is lust.  Desire.  Not love.  In fact, love is entirely different.

God showed His love to us this way: He sent His only Son into our sin and death, that believing He did it for us, we might not perish. (John 3:16)  It didn’t feel good.  Jesus was not happy on the cross.  He gave up every good thing He had – for you.

That is love.  Unconditional, acting, committed love.  Not inside someone.  But out in plain sight – for all to see – lifted up that He might draw all people to Himself.  Not for Himself – but always and only for you. 

This is the kind of love that really tears me up.  This is the kind that breaks my heart of stone.  That our sinless God became our sin.  That He was crowned with our curse.  That He died our death – in order to save us forever.  That is love.  And there is no way one could ever be sick of it.

So if you are out there “looking for love,” don’t listen to the preaching of Disney and use your feelings.  Christ has shown you true love.  It acts.  Find someone whose eyes are looking at the exact same point on the horizon of life as you are – find someone who believes in your Savior God – and who wants to act, as you do, in His service all your days here and for all eternity.  I promise – all the chemicals and feelings – they will sort themselves out on their own.