“Many will turn away from the faith, and betray each other, and hate each other, and many false prophets will appear and deceive many, and because lawlessness will multiply, the love of many will grow cold.”
(Gospel of Matthew, ch. 24, v. 10-12*, bolded text is ours)
How does love grow cold? What causes a loving heart to stop loving, or even become incapable of it? These two questions are increasingly relevant, considering that in the context of the Gospel of Matthew, Christ speaks about the signs of the last days. We can be sure that if not in the last days, then we are at least living in the ones that lead directly to them.
Lawlessness is the key word in the cited passage above. The word used in the original Greek text is ἀνομία (anomia). The meaning of the word includes the ultimate result of not observing the law. Lawlessness is not the absence or annulment of God's law, but its non-observance. This places a person's life outside God's protection and favor when they decide to violate it, whether consciously or not. Why is lawlessness a problem if the person themselves chooses whether to follow certain norms and rules? Do they not themselves bear the consequences of living outside the Law's boundaries? How does this affect everyone else?
The only way to nullify the power and authority of the Law is for it to be fulfilled. Only One can and has done it – the Lord Jesus Christ. He says of Himself: "Do not think that I have come to abolish the law or the Prophets. I have not come to abolish them but to fulfill them.” (Gospel of Matthew, ch. 5, v. 17*) When a person believes that another human being can be righteous on their own by behaving perfectly, it leads to great disappointment. None of us is perfect, and cannot be. Each one of us in one way or another, in some aspect, is a law-breaker. That is why we are disappointing and disappointed.
The surest way to kill love in a person's heart is through disappointment. Besides the emotional pain disappointment causes when there is a gap between expectations and reality, lawlessness itself harms the proper order and directly challenges justice.
Love is by nature not an emotion, but a way of life and thinking. That is, loving God and people can manifest in various ways – from not running a red light, telling someone they've dropped a banknote, leaving your change in a store, maintaining cleanliness in nature, to saving a human life at the cost of your own by jumping into raging river waters. We imagine love as too abstract and only wrapped in emotions, but it is a principle upon which we can choose to exist. At the core of this principle is the motive to do the best for others. Love respects order, but does not submit to selfishness or self-preservation, which gives it a dual nature. On one hand, it supports and maintains rules and laws, and on the other, it can break them in the name of someone's good. Lawlessness works on the exact opposite principle—where there are no rules, and the primary motive is selfishness and the desire for personal gain and welfare. It completely shatters any structure, even human, that can serve as a social, spiritual, or physical protection for the individual. In short, love heals and cares even at its own expense, while lawlessness injures and enriches itself at the expense of others. As lawlessness increases, love begins to lose strength and grow cold. It must reside in and operate through people who are ready to sacrifice themselves and suffer in an ever more selfish, lawless, ruthless, and cutting world of lawlessness.
How to keep love in our hearts? How not to fall victim to lawlessness or our own disappointment? “(...) we know that suffering produces perseverance, perseverance – character, character – hope, and hope does not lead to disappointment, because God's love has been poured into our hearts through the Holy Spirit who has been given to us.” (Epistle to the Romans, ch. 5, v. 3b-5*, bolded text is ours)
A little further in the chapter, Apostle Paul speaks about God's gift of grace and salvation given to us through Christ's death on the cross – because He, the Sinless One, dies in place of us, the sinners. It is this love, which nailed Jesus to the cross, that is poured into our hearts through the Holy Spirit, who comes into us the moment we accept Jesus Christ as our Savior and God. This love, which gives where undeserving, and dies for the guilty, that does not defend itself, does not seek its own, is armored against injury because it does not depend on human recognition.
Thought of the week: This love, which is in Christ, is also in you through His Spirit. It endures until it gains the experience, the encounter with God, which will affirm it, proving that it is worthwhile, that there is a good fruit from the sacrifice. It will inspire hope that it will not be disappointed. We wish you to live with the conviction that He loves you more than you could ever deserve, so that you can love others more than they could ever deserve. Love for love, love even for hatred.
*Biblical quotes are according to the text of Bible, new translation from the original languages © Bulgarian Bible Society 2013.
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``` This translation retains the structure and content of the original Bulgarian text while adapting it into English.