C.S. Lewis, one of my favorite authors, in his book The Four Loves identified three attitudes in love: need love, gift love, and appreciative love.
In terms of human love, the love of a man for a woman or of a woman for a man, need love would say: “I cannot live without you.”
Gift love would say: “The most important thing in the world for me is that I meet your needs and make you happy.”
Appreciative love rejoices in his or her very existence, and gives thanks for all the fine qualities that he or she possesses.
In terms of our relationship with God, need love drives us to God with an awareness that life cannot be dealt with in a constructive way apart from Him. Gift love finds joy and happiness in serving God. Appreciative love gives thanks and glory to God for His very existence and for the marvelous handiwork of His creation. If our relationship with God is healthy, it should and will contain all three.
Let us look more specifically at how faith is involved in these three kinds or levels of love:
NEED LOVE: It is out of a sense of need that humans begin to love. The cry of the human heart is expressed in the words of the Christian hymn, “I Need Thee Every Hour.” Abraham Lincoln frankly confessed: “I have often been driven to my knees in prayer, because I had nowhere else to go.” He realized that his own resources were extremely limited, and he needed strength that only God could provide.
It is characteristic of human beings to be dependent on others. Dependence on God is the very essence of the Christian faith in the same way that dependence on others is the essence of humanity. How much less meaningful and joyful our lives would be without the support of others.
GIFT LOVE: The love which thinks only in terms taking or getting is not true love. Genuine love instinctively thinks in terms of giving. Great joy is derived from the giving of oneself to the one who is loved. You can give without loving, but you can’t love without giving.
In human love, there is a certain danger in gift love. It is possible to be so anxious to give and to protect someone that it may in the end create in the person loved an almost complete dependence. Thus, it has the potential to smother instead of develop the personality of the one who is loved.
Gift love is well aware that it is in serving God that we find perfect freedom – freedom to become the persons God created us to be, freedom to become our best selves. It is in knowing this kind of freedom that inner peace is found.
The initial gift that we should bring to God is ourselves. If we give ourselves to Him, He will automatically have first priority on our time, talents, and resources.
APPRECIATIVE LOVE: Need love is instinctive; gift love arises naturally in the heart of any person who has a desire to love. Appreciative love is different in that it has to be consciously and consistently cultivated and grow out of an attitude of gratitude.
In human relationships we often find it easy to take for granted the love, care, and service that we receive from others. In our relationship with God we also find it easy to take His blessings for granted.
Need love; gift love; and appreciative love. Life at its fullest and best needs and must contain all three. Persons who have never experienced even one of these three are undoubtedly the most deprived people in the world. Poet John Oxenham, in Love’s Prerogative, explains why this is true:
“Love ever gives—
Forgives—outlives—
And ever stands
With open hands.
And while it lives,
It gives.
For this is love’s prerogative—
To give—and give—and give.”
The Paper Pulpit 
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