When Love Isn’t Love
Ever been smothered with “love” that did not feel right? It looked like care, but underneath, it was control. It came wrapped in compliments, attention, and promises, but something about it rang hollow. That is not love. That is manipulation dressed up as ministry. Love traps are hard to spot and harder to escape. But freedom begins when you finally realize it was not love at all.
Sadly, many have experienced that kind of counterfeit love inside the church. They walked through the doors longing for safety, hoping for grace, only to find a welcome that wore off once they no longer fit the mold. The hugs and handshakes were warm at first, but the warmth faded when they struggled, questioned, or changed too slowly. They were not met with compassion. They were met with control.
That is not the love of Christ.
Real love does not use people. It does not recruit them for a purpose or manipulate them into performance. Real love stays when things get complicated. It sits beside people in the dark. It forgives when it would be easier to walk away.
The sad truth is that what we often call “love” in the church is sometimes a substitute for grace. We have learned how to smile and say the right words while secretly keeping score. We have learned how to act kind but keep people at arm’s length. We have learned how to talk about community without ever risking genuine connection.
But love without forgiveness is just theater. It looks good from a distance, but there is no life in it.
True love begins with forgiveness. You cannot love someone you refuse to forgive. You can fake kindness, but you cannot fake grace. The lack of forgiveness is the root of most fake love in the world and in the church. We say we care, but deep down, we are still holding on to old wounds, silent grudges, and quiet resentment.
You cannot carry bitterness and love freely at the same time. One will choke the other.
That is why Jesus said, “For if ye forgive men their trespasses, your heavenly Father will also forgive you.” Real love forgives because it remembers what it feels like to be forgiven. It lets go because it knows the weight of being let go.
If your love disappears the moment someone fails you, it was never love. It was leverage.
Real love does not wait for people to get it right. It loves them right where they are, just like Jesus does. It does not say, “I will love you once you fix this.” It says, “I love you because God already has.”
But for that kind of love to flow, the heart must be clean. Only the Holy Spirit can purify our motives. Love with an agenda is not love. When we love so we can be noticed, thanked, or admired, it is no longer love. It is a transaction. God’s kind of love has no hidden motive. It does not need credit, control, or results. It simply gives.
When grace fills your heart, you stop seeing people as projects and start seeing them as priceless. You stop measuring them by progress and start rejoicing that they are still breathing, still standing, still here. You stop trying to fix people and start walking with them.
This is the kind of love that holds steady through thick and thin. It does not quit when people stumble or change. It forgives seventy times seven, not because it has to, but because it cannot do otherwise. It is love born out of the very heart of God.
And you cannot produce that kind of love through willpower. You cannot fake it or force it. It comes only from the Holy Spirit pouring God’s love into your heart until you find yourself loving people you never thought you could.
This love is the truest sign of the Spirit’s work. It loves enemies. It prays for those who wound. It serves those who misunderstand. And when it is betrayed, it forgives again.
Jesus said, “By this shall all men know that ye are my disciples, if ye have love one to another.” That is not a suggestion. It is a command. The world will not know us by our music or our preaching or our numbers, but by our love.
And not the polished, performative kind that greets well on Sunday but grows cold by Monday. The world will know us by a love that endures.
So let us stop using love as bait to draw people in. Let us stop treating people as means to a goal. Let us stop advertising a love we will not live when life gets messy. Let us become the kind of people who love with no agenda, just like the God who loved us when we had nothing to offer Him.
Real love does not control. It does not condemn. It does not walk away when people disappoint us. Real love forgives. Real love stays. Real love reflects Jesus.
May God cleanse our motives, soften our hearts, and fill us so completely with His Spirit that every person we meet can sense the reality of His love through us. And may every weary soul who crosses our path finally know what true love feels like: steady, honest, unconditional, and free.