DIFFERENCES BETWEEN LOVE AND INFATUATION (PART 1)

Message by Pastor Kunle Osunkunle

(President, The Singles Fellowship, The Fountain of Life Church)

How come Samson did not discern Delilah? The story of Samson talked about him going somewhere, seeing a girl and telling his parents he wants to marry the girl. He really didn’t know anything about the girl, but he just wanted to marry the girl.

How come Jonathan was able to discern David, even though he was his father’s arch enemy? This implies that there are some things that don’t look or seem like it, but if you probe a little deeper, you would see it clearly.

When God looks at a man, He doesn’t just look at the outside, He looks not on a man alone, but He looks through him. We also need to come to a place where we can look through people, and that only happens when your spirit is sharp. When your spirit is sharp you can discern them. You make your decisions and your decisions make you.

The Bible defines discernment to mean; to stand, to consider, to investigate, to examine, to scrutinize and to ask questions.

Discernment is defined as to detect, to perceive with the eyes of the mind and to perceive the distinctions. Therefore there is a need to discern, detect (that is, pay attention) and to be observant when you are making a decision especially in relationships.

You will need to discern, define and think about things deeply in order to righly decide based on what the Bible says; not based on reasoning, but  based on what the Spirit of God says.

The things that enhance your discernment are the acquisition of knowledge and the capacity to feed on the word of God.

In life, wanting to love or be loved is normal. In actual fact, this is further reinforced by the books, magazines, movies, etc we have read and watched; and based on these we have started to build our fantasies on the man or woman we want to marry.

Some people have magazine husbands and wives. While some already have the picture of the man or woman they desire, failing to realize that those pictures have been made to look perfect using  computer picture editing programmes like ‘Adobe Photoshop’ and now are waiting to marry ‘Photo shopped’ men or women.

Of course when someone you feel is attractive or someone that somewhat fit the portriat notices you, you begin to feel good. This is simply fantasy that you assume has met reality.

It is perfectly normal for you to be attracted to somebody or for someone to be attracted to you. At the point when your heart is pounding, your knees are wobbling that it seems you have butterflies in your stomach because someone is attracted to you; the challenge comes when you define these ‘pleasant’ feelings to love.

Some people have said that love is like a fire, it just consumes you. People then run into problems and chaos because they make quick and permanent decisions based on just these feelings without given enough time, effort and commitment to prove it to be love.

The only reason you keep a vow or promise with someone is if you’ve given time, effort or commitment into that relationship.

Most people are quick to say ‘I love you’ because they are quickly blinded by uncontrolled feelings or emotions.  You just met a girl in two weeks, and you look at her lovely eyes and become dumbfounded, the next thing you say is ‘I love you’ and often times, the lady too will reply, ‘Oh, that’s the sweetest thing I’ve heard’. But once that feeling is gone, if you have not developed and built a relationship, if we have not learnt friendship, you are left with nothing. That’s the reason a number of people keep falling in and out of love. This result also to serial relationships, simply because we make quick and permanent decisions, based on the feelings we have at that moment.

This is a classic case of infatuation. Love is not as quick as that, it doesn’t come or go suddenly. It isn’t love at first sight; it is attraction at first sight that takes it slow and gradual. It is a process, a process of discovery and getting knowledge.

 True love is like a cornerstone. It has even be tried and tested. Also, like a sure foundation, it has to be tested all over again. Isaiah 28:16

Yes, you are sure. Most of us see someone and we say the Holy Spirit has told us; whereas, it is your eyes, your ears that have told you. You feel it is fantasy meeting reality. You need to slow down and really learn the love process. I’m not saying attraction is not good; of a truth, when you meet someone irresistible (pretty or handsome), something attracts you to him or her. That is simply attraction and not love. Therefore, you shouldn’t take attraction for love. Love is more than just an attraction. Haste always makes mistakes. Proverbs 19:2 (NLT). You need to increase your discerning capability. And you need knowledge to enhance this. Proverbs 19:2 (The Message).

A lot of people today are falling into sins including fornicating, because they have been hastily misrepresented love and defines it to be infatuation.

Pastor Bimbo Odukoya said in her book, 165 QUESTIONS TO ASK BEFORE MARRIAGE, that the inability to differentiate between love and infatuation exposes one to the danger of making a costly mistake when choosing a life partner. So you need to be able to discern and differentiate if what you feel is really love or infatuation.

THE WORD OF GOD

When you pay attention to instruction and to the word of God, you will show discernment and your lips will express what you’ve learnt. If you have learnt the right things, your lips will express them in your discussions with others -”For the lips of an immoral woman as sweet as honey and her mouth smoother than oil, but in the end, she is as bitter as poison, as dangerous as a double edged sword, her feet go down to death and her steps lead to the grave”. Proverbs 5:1-5 (NLT).

There are so many things in a relationship that when you are began it with infatuation and not true love, you will like them. They are somewhat enjoyable. You like what you are hear and what you feel. These things are supposed to go through a process. They have to be tested so that in the end you don’t end up being consumed. Most people are being consumed and are making mistakes because they are not discerning and patient enough to go through the process.

WHAT IS INFATUATION?

The dictionary meaning (Webster’s collegiate dictionary) says, ‘To make foolish, to affect with folly, deprive of sound judgment’. It also means to inspire with a foolish and extravagant passion. This implies that infatuation will deprive you of sound judgment, that is, you won’t be able to think right when you need to detect, distinguish and think through. If you are infatuated how you can think through? You will surely start to act foolishly.

WordNet online dictionary says, ‘It is a foolish and extravagant passion, temporary love and object of extravagant short lived passion’. Just like lightning, it comes and goes. Infatuation is an emotional response based on fantasy.

You have had a fantasy of a particular guy or lady and some day that fantasy just passes by, your fantasy has come through and you have an emotional response to it. Emotions are ‘e-motions’ always changing. You can’t make a decision based on emotions.

So, where do these feelings come from? Is it the devil? No. God put those feelings in you. Feelings are not bad in itself, it is how you use them. Failure to understand the purpose of a thing means that it would be abused, so God put those feelings there to be initiators not deciders of love.

Some people have walked so much in lust that they chase anything in skirts, usually it is when your fantasy comes around you that you are supposed to notice. So it is supposed to be an initiator and not a decider.

Note again that, attraction in itself is not bad, it is what you do with it that determines if you will fall into sin or not. Biological science has proven that emotions or feelings are caused by a chemical reaction in the body. This releases some hormones into the brain.

How does infatuation start?

Usually when you have fantasies and dreams gotten or formed by some magazines, Hollywood movies and not the word of God, what usually happen is that you will begin to concentrate only on what you have seen and heard.

PROCESSES OF LOVE

1. EYE TO BODY CONTACT: It often starts in form of eye to body contact. Something registers your interest there and you start to think about your life together with that person, that is, fantasize.
2. EYE TO EYE CONTACT: If you keep on for so long, eye to eye contact results. This is when two people look at each other, eye just meets eye for a second and you take it off immediately. Then wait for about two seconds to see if the person is still looking or not and because both of you are thinking the same way, your eyes meet again. Some people stop there and start to dream and fantasize and end up dreaming about so and so. It is not God telling you anything, your thoughts are. Some others say this lady is disturbing me in my dreams. It is not the lady, but your fantasies. Take a step, walk up to her and say hello. It doesn’t mean anything would happen. When people are infatuated usually they take one quality and celebrate it, usually physical appearance. However, when they start to see the flaws and weaknesses they walk away.
3. VOICE TO VOICE CONTACT: The next is voice-voice contact. That is where you kick off a discussion, you start to feel good talking to a person and the feelings make you happy and happiness isn’t a sin. Conversations continue, phone numbers are exchanged and you begin to talk. When you are talking, you need to ensure that you are really talking on the things that matter – relevant issues of life. The quality of what you discuss at this point is very important. It can take the relationship to the next level or deter it and end there.

In such a relationship, the first six months are the “HONEYMOON STAGE” where nothing he/she does is wrong until you enter the “REALITY STAGE”. Don’t take any lasting decisions during the honeymoon stage. Most people take lasting decisions during that stage which is usually detrimental

Also, when you are talking, your hands can possibly touch each other just for a little. When that happens, something in you changes, infatuation eventually would turn physical. Before you know it, if you are not careful, one day both of you will be looking into each other’s eyes when you are alone and results to kissing. Both of you must have been thinking about kissing at one point or the other, until the situation presents itself. As you go further, infatuation eventually becomes physical. AND IF YOU ARE NOT CAREFUL SEX IS AT YOUR DOORSTEP.

Most people especially Christians don’t plan to have sex when in a relationship, but there are things that get you up to that position/point where the only thing that seems reasonable to do is to have sex. Therefore, you need to understand your body chemistry/make up and that the way God has made us is that, when you are in a relationship, our physical and emotional self merge.

When you mistakenly cross over to sex, your discussions and bonding stop; because you have gone to “non-verbal bonding” which means problems you are supposed to be solving and quality discussions you are to have stop totally. You do everything with sex - solve problems with sex, fight with sex. Most times, it ends in a break-up. But, if eventually both get married to each other, then at some point you begin to think he/she has changed. He/she didn’t change, what has happened is that you didn’t find out, you were infatuated and you short-circuited the process of love.

This is the main reason that God has told us not to have sex before marriage because it hinders good communication, discussions and discernment.

MORE DIFFERENCES BETWEEN LOVE AND INFATUATION

1 Corinthians 13:4-8; 1 John 4:7-8.

1.  Love takes God into all its plans. It is the essence of God, so if you say you love a person, you take God into consideration for everything you do for that person. The problem with most of us is that if you have not experienced love you cannot know what you are looking for. If your heart hasn’t experienced the love of God, you cannot know what you are looking for. You will only look based on your misconceptions and assumptions about love.

The state of your heart is important. If you have the knowledge of God, you will compel your feelings and thoughts with it. When you’ve acquired knowledge, you will be able to detect, define and logically discriminate when necessary.

2.  Love has a priority to maintain a closer work with God. Its desire is to please God above pleasing a man or a woman (mortars). The more you walk with God, the more you walk in love. Then God will begin to reveal Himself to you the more. As this happens, love grows more in your heart.

Unlike love, infatuation wants to please the person rather than please God. Infatuation is selfish, while love isn’t. Love doesn’t want to take from you, it wants to protect you. Infatuation wants to take from you and doesn’t want to give back. Love takes time to grow, while infatuation is fast and always in haste. It comes like a speeding bullet and like a bomb. It makes a distraction, and then it is gone. It comes suddenly and sometimes without warning.

Remember the Bible says that love is patient. It is willing to start small and willing to grow. Infatuation is like a weed.

In conclusion, you really need to slow down, get to know the person, because love is a process, and learn through thick and thin. See him/her in various seasons through the years, how he/she behaves in various situations before you make your decisions. The knowledge you’ve acquired when you begin to define, detect and logically discriminate will help you make right and godly decisions.

I pray that you will make the right decisions in Jesus’ name.

Watch out for Part 2…

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