The Battle For Love - An End-of-Year Meditation

When we read children’s stories, many times there are battles. But what differentiates the good guys from the bad guys is not whether they fight, but why they fight. That’s usually how you instinctively know who is who in the story. The bad guys are typically motivated by power, position, revenge, and other self-centred desires. The good guys are motivated by love.

And one of the battles the good guys often face is the battle of keeping their motivations pure. It’s easy, in the heat of the fight, to forget why you are fighting and slowly become a reflection of your enemy. The line between good and evil does not run between fighters and non-fighters, but through the heart of the one who fights.

At the heart of every battle, then, there is an even more fundamental fight: the battle for love. This was one of the emphases of Jesus’ ministry. He was not teaching His disciples that fighting is bad, but that they must fight as truly good men—men controlled by love. One of the great mistakes of our generation is to think that love makes us quit the battle. But what makes us quit is not love; it is indifference. And the indifferent man is simply a quiet bad guy—he cares only about himself.

That is why love is such a rare thing. What we often see instead are evil actors, quitters, and those who have lost themselves in the war and forgotten why they are fighting.

Jesus, our true General, calls us to fight the good fight. Yet in doing so, we must not become like the church in Ephesus, who labored faithfully and defended truth, yet abandoned their first love (Rev. 2:4–5). We are called to be a people who do not love merely with words or talk, but with deeds and truth (1 John 3:18). A love that remains only in words is not love at all—it is the abandonment of love.

And in a world so immersed in darkness, it is easy to grow tired, skeptical, or cynical—to give up on real love and settle for a love of tongue. As the battle intensifies, lawlessness often seems to multiply, and as Jesus warned us, when lawlessness increases, love grows cold (Matt. 24:12). This is one of the great dangers of war: not merely to stop fighting, but to keep fighting for the wrong reasons.

As a new year approaches, with it come new opportunities and new battles. We must courageously engage in whatever battles come our way. As Nehemiah told the people of his day, “Fight for your brothers, your sons, your daughters, your wives, and your homes.” And as Jude exhorts us, we are to “contend for the faith that was once for all delivered to the saints.”

Let us be ready to fight—for our faith, for our loved ones, for the Kingdom of Jesus Christ. But above all, let us remember to fight the battle that lies deep within us: the battle for love.

Let us fight with our eyes and minds fixed on Jesus Christ—the One who won every battle and kept His heart. Let us, as we fight, continually drink from the fountain of eternal love that flows from the throne of God. Let us eat from the Bread of Life, broken in love for us. And may we fight with the cross on our backs, following our Lord, who in the darkest moment did not flinch, but in love gave His own life—striking sin, death, and the powers of darkness at their heart, and changing the world forever.

“And above all these put on love, which binds everything together in perfect harmony.” - Colossians 3:14 

Nino Marques