The Senses of Love

Series: Love


LOVE. We can’t see it, hear it, touch it, smell it, or taste it. It is not proved by our five physical senses through which we take in all information. How do we even know it exists? GOD is Love. How do we understand that?

Some say they experience love. How do they prove their “experience?" They may say, “I just know it.” Any descriptions will be filled with “see, hear, touch (feel), smell, taste” types of words--our five senses. These are all physical sensations that we can receive. “I love ice cream!” I.e., I saw it -- in the carton; heard it -- plop into the dish; felt it -- the temperature in my mouth, the texture; smelled it -- the flavoring; tasted it -- the sweetness/flavoring. I enjoy all these sensations from ice cream. Same for pizza, chocolate, and medium-rare steaks. These are all physical sensations that we receive, but they are not love. LOVE is an emotion of affection or attachment demonstrated by behavior; that is, LOVE is the word we accurately use to explain our wanting the best for another person. We can both receive and give love.

We are told, “For God so loved the world, that He gave His one and only begotten Son, that whoever believes in Him shall not perish, but have eternal life” (Jn. 3:16, NASB). “Love” and “gave” are active verbs, not sensations; they require action to or from another person to be evident. God’s action (love) is much more than a physical sensation or an emotional response. GOD did not see, hear, touch, smell, or taste us to love us. He loved us because He created us! Because He wanted to create us! Then, “God saw all that He had made [including humans, ms] and behold, it was very good” (Gen. 1:31a, NASB).

He made us perfect. He loves the perfection He made. But He also loves us (i.e., wants the best for us) even with our imperfections (caused by our choice to sin) because He knows what we can be when we are made perfect, like Him, in eternity with Him. So, He gave Perfection (Jesus Christ) to return us to His perfection. Now the question is, how do we live as examples of God’s perfection, His love, while we are still in this world? How do we use our physical bodies with their five senses to learn to demonstrate Christ’s love to the world, to each individual person?

See: What was the last time I saw an opportunity to be Christ to someone? A fellow grocery shopper who has at least 30 items in the 20-item line and can’t find her checkbook? “May I help you put your items on the conveyor belt?” Or the stranger at church? “Hello, I’m .… Welcome to .… We’re glad you’re here. Can I help you?” Show her where she wants to go, go with her, help her find a seat she wants. I must not just cease chatting and walk off to visit others I already know. Make myself available! Do anything I can appropriate to the moment. Let the other person see me acting with love, with help. Mt. 5:16: “ . . . let your light shine before men, that they may see your good deeds and praise your Father in Heaven” (NIV).

Hear: It’s a Friday afternoon, last payday of the week and the month. Monday is a holiday. Traffic is hectic. Grocery stores are packed. Clerks are tired, edgy. The din is exhausting. Everyone wants to finish shopping and get home. How can I relieve anyone’s frustration? Say “hello” to the greeter; smile at the checkout clerk, acknowledge her “hard day,” tell her God loves her and let her know from where my peace comes. Smile at the customer behind me, place the “stick” to divide my purchases from her’s, acknowledge the hassle, remind her she’s nearly through shopping. And bless her weekend that God may give her respite from the week. Let her hear God’s peaceful joy in my voice. “How, then, can they call on the one they have not believed in? And how can they believe in the one of whom they have not heard? And how can they hear without someone preaching to them?” (Rom. 10:14, NIV).

Touch: “People were also bringing babies to Jesus to have him touch them. . . .” (Lk. 18:15, NIV). “Jesus reached out his hand and touched the man. . . .” (Mt. 8:3, NIV). “Now that I, your Lord and Teacher, have washed your feet, you also should wash one another’s feet. I have set you an example that you should do as I have done for you” (Jn. 13:14, NIV). Those people learned of the loving healing powers of touch. Though our touch may not be miraculous, we can help heal others when we touch them. Touch gently, most of the time, anyway (“high-fives” can be okay too). Did I carefully shake the hand or touch the shoulder of my frail acquaintance or the child who is learning to talk with others? Many people hunger for hugs. I must loosen up! Share “my space” with my friends! Shake the hand of the homeless, stroke the head of the child. Acknowledge other people as human. One widow thanked me for hugging her. She said, “You know, when you’re a widow you don’t get many hugs any more. Sometimes you don’t really feel like a person.” And there was the leper who had not been touched by anyone for months since her family last came to visit her. Through an interpreter, we agreed we shall see and hug each other again in heaven. Then we cried together. I think this hug and her blessing to me helped me more than it did her.

Smell: I cringe at the odor of a person who reeks of tobacco inside a small store. I avoid someone stumbling down the street, unable to walk a straight line. I cry for the young child at school whose mother has not washed him or his clothes in the last five weeks. How should I react when a dying friend needs me to help with a bath and clean bedclothes? It’s said that smell is one of the last senses forgotten. It’s amazing how nice “clean” smells. Which person can I help, and how? Be polite to the people who smell bad. If I can, offer help, or offer to find someone who can help. Bathe my friend. Wash the child’s feet. Show compassion in all my behavior. We all need washing, and not just with soap and water. Can I help them want to be washed with Christ’s blood? His blood is spiritually redeeming, but think of the physical smell when He was crucified! The blood, the sweat, the tears, the dirt, the urine and excrement! This was part of His Body, His Love! Joseph of Arimathea showed his love by asking Pilate for Jesus’ body, and by taking and wrapping the body and burying it in his own tomb (Mt. 27:57-60; Mk. 15:43, 46; Lk. 23:50-53; Jn. 19:38-40). With those smells, could I show that love for my Savior? Can I dare turn my back on others who do not yet smell “clean?" “For we are to God the aroma of Christ among those who are being saved and those who are perishing” (2 Cor. 2:15).

Taste: So connected with smell. “How sweet are your words to my taste, sweeter than honey to my mouth?” (Ps. 119:103, NIV). “Taste and see that the LORD is good; blessed is the man who takes refuge in him” (Ps. 34:8, NIV). “But we see Jesus, who was made a little lower than the angels, now crowned with glory and honor because he suffered death, so that by the grace of God he might taste death for everyone” (Heb. 2:9, NIV). Am I treating everyone I meet, or even some of them, as though I want them to “taste the LORD,” to experience His sweetness, so they do not have to “taste death?" Am I willing to share the tasty feast at the Lord’s Table?

I am incapable of being what Jesus would be, of doing just what He would do when He meets the people I meet. I can only show love to others (i.e., show I want the best for them), by using my body to demonstrate His holy love, being what Jesus wants me to be to all I meet. “We have different gifts, according to the grace given us” (Rom. 12:6a, NIV). My gifts are unique to me, yours to you. How I use them is unique to me. Do I love other people enough to show my love for them? Do I make them “love” what they “sense” about me because of how I treat them? If I show non-Christians the same “love” I show my fellow Christians, is my love convincing? John Denver wrote a song, “Annie’s Song,” in which he said:
You fill up my senses like a night in a forest
Like the mountains in springtime, like a walk in the rain
Like a storm in the desert, like a sleepy blue ocean
You fill up my senses come fill me again.

I must continually inventory how I use my physical senses to love others. Let’s all consciously fill up each other and the world with the “sensual,” spiritual life with Jesus.

Dear Lord, You who are perfect Love, help me to use all my senses to BE love to others, to show them how to have their senses filled with Your perfect love, now and forever. Through Jesus, Whose perfect love allows us to “sense” you even now, and to live with You forever, Amen.

Marilyn Schulze
Stephenville, TX