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I love you to the moon and back is a quote from the children’s book, Guess How Much I Love You. It is meant to express that one loves another person more than they can imagine.  The story goes like this:  “I love you to the moon, said little Nutbrown Hare.  “Oh, that’s far, said Big Nutbrown Hare. “That’s very, very, far.” Big Nutbrown Hare settled Little Nutbrown Hare into his bed of leaves. He leaned over and kissed him goodnight. Then, he lay down close by and whispered with a smile, “I love you to the moon and back.”
In Discover magazine, p. 76, The 100 top science stories for 2017, number 77 was, “To the Moon and Back: An Astronaut’s Loving Tribute Finally Acknowledged.” The story, written by Eric Betz, begins with Jim Lovell’s flight in 1968 as navigator of Apollo 8–the first mission around the moon. Lovell carefully documented his path above the Sea of Tranquility, where NASA would land Apollo 11. He spotted a small, pyramid-shaped mountain near the landing site and name it Mount Marilyn for his wife.  Lovell knew he wouldn’t forget the landmark.  Mount Marilyn proved vital on Apollo 11, when Neil Armstrong relied on it for navigation during a harrowing landing. The mountain is among dozens of features named by astronauts, but not on official moon maps.  For nearly half a century, astronomy’s official nomenclature group–The International Astronomical Union (IAU), wouldn’t make any of the name’s official.  Scientists used an asterisk if they cited them.  But, in July (2017), after multiple applications by Lovell and Arizona State University astronomer Mark Robinson, the IAU reversed course for three of the landmarks, including Mount Marilyn, without explanation. Lovell, who kept the campaign a secret from Marilyn, enjoyed revealing it at last.  “She was quite amazed,” Lovell says. “In exploration there’s romanticism, too.”  What a remarkable gesture of love by a husband for his wife!
In Eph. 5:25-33, the apostle Paul compares the love a husband should have for his wife to two things.  The first comparison is to the love that Christ has for the church.  “Husbands love your wives, even as Christ also loved the church and gave himself for it” (Eph. 5:25).  The key words in this text are “even as.” Christ loved the church sacrificially, selflessly, intensely, and purposefully.  A husband’s love for his wife is challenged to imitate Christ’s love.  The second comparison is given in Eph. 5:28-29, “So ought men to love their wives as their own bodies.  He that loveth his wife loveth himself.  For no man ever yet hated his own flesh; but nourisheth and cherisheth it, even as the Lord the church.”  The word nourish indicates the care bestowed upon another.  The word cherish denotes to foster with tender care or cherish with tender love.  The two comparisons teach a valuable lesson about the love a husband should have for his wife.  As Christ loved the church (I love you all the way to the cross) and as a husband loves himself (I love you to the depths of my own being).  These phrases, along with the idea of loving someone to the moon and back, simply declare the intensity, depth, height, and greatness of this love.

Love (agape) is a choice.  Without choice, there is no love.  Love thrives in freedom. Love is a principle.  It may be defined as: “undefeatable, benevolent, goodwill.”  Love involves seeking the highest good of another.  Love is often commanded in God’s word and touches every relationship including our relationship with God.  Love is a principle that we will ourselves to follow.  It requires human volition to pursue.

The Example of Jesus
In John 10:17-18, Jesus said, “Therefore doth my Father love me, because I lay down my life, that I might take it again.  No man taketh it from me, but I have power to lay it down, and I have power to take it again.  This commandment have I received of my Father.”  Jesus was given a commandment from the Father that involved the sacrifice of His life for the redemption of mankind.  Jesus freely gave His life for us.  He was not coerced or forced to sacrifice His life.  He freely gave it as an act of love.  “Who his own self bare our sins in his own body on the tree, the we, being dead to sins, should live unto righteousness: by whose stripes ye were healed” (I Pet. 2:24).  Jesus loved the Father. “But that the world may know that I love the Father; and as the Father gave me commandment, even so I do. Arise, let us go hence.” (John 14:31).  Jesus loved the Father and He loved us.  In a free act of love, He sacrificed His life to provider the atonement for sin and redeem unto Himself a special people purified by His blood.

Love is a Command
Consider the following commands from God involving love.  First and foremost, there is the command to love God with all of our heart, soul and mind (Matt. 22:36-39).  Mark adds “strength” (Mark 12:29-31).  In these same passages, we are commanded to love our neighbor.  Paul instructs husbands to love their wives (Eph. 5:25) as Christ loved the church as gave himself or it.  In Titus 2:4, Paul instructs aged women to teach younger women to love their husbands and their children.  Jesus commands us to love our enemies in Matt. 5:44.  Finally, love for our brothers and sisters in Christ is commanded (John 15:12; I John 3:14; 4:21).  When we are given a command from God, human volition is involved in obeying it.  When we love freely, there is no resentment in the action required.  When we choose to love God, we empower our lives for Christian living.  We act, rather than react, based upon a sacred principle.

Love and Freewill
Without choice, love is not possible.  Love is a free act of the human will in response to God’s commands.  The very existence of love, proves free will.  Consequently, determinism is false.  Evolutionists are determinists.  Sam Harris wrote, “Free will is an illusion.  Our wills are simply not of our own making.  Thoughts and intentions emerge from background causes of which we are unaware and over which we exert no conscious control” (Sam Harris, Freewill, 2012, p. 5–quoted in Paradoxolgy, p. 230).  If this is true, then there is no love.  Secondly, predestination is false.  Those who teach predestination also teach that we do not have free will.  But, the price for believing such a doctrine is high.  If there is no choice, there is no love.

Love is Essential
Love is essential to becoming and remaining a Christian.  Loving God with all of our being requires a choice.  We must choose whom we will serve. “Know ye not, that to whom ye yield yourselves servants to obey, his servants ye are to whom ye obey: whether of sin unto death, or of obedience unto righteousness?” (Rom. 6:16).  Obedience to God requires love for God (John 14:15).  Joy follows the decision to follow God.  When Jesus went to the cross, He embraced the joy that was set before Him (Heb. 12:2).  His joy was in manifesting His love for the Father and Us.  His joy was not in the painful death He suffered.  But, He had joy in His sufferings because He loved much.  Love for God will produce the same joy in us no matter what the cost might be for following Him.