Biblical Love That Heals Family Wounds

This article is written by BCC Counselor Dr. Luke Trifilio as part of our series on the family. In this series, our counselors examine various difficulties of family life and share ways to pursue healthier family dynamics.

Learning to love those who have hurt us, especially within our own family, is one of the hardest parts of Christian growth.

Yet biblical counseling teaches that love is not powered by emotion or obligation, but by the love we receive from Christ Himself—the Source—which we then participate in through the Spirit, the very life of Christ living within us.

To love an enemy in the home is not weakness or avoidance; it is spiritual strength that arises from our union with Christ, who loved us even while we were still sinners (Rom 5:8). This is the essence of gospel-centered transformation: love does not depend on being loved back. Instead, it is born within us by the Spirit. Christ’s own life takes root and produces in us a love that restores, forgives, and heals with a power no human effort can achieve.

“You have heard that it was said, ‘You shall love your neighbor and hate your enemy.
But I say to you, Love your enemies and pray for those who persecute you, so that you may be sons of your Father who is in heaven.
For he makes his sun rise on the evil and on the good, and sends rain on the just and on the unjust.
For if you love those who love you, what reward do you have? Do not even the tax collectors do the same?
And if you greet only your brothers, what more are you doing than others? Do not even the Gentiles do the same?
You therefore must be perfect, as your heavenly Father is perfect.” – Matthew 5:43-48

We don’t want to think of family as enemies, but when family relationships wound us—through criticism, control, neglect, or betrayal… our hearts instinctively protect themselves. Wisdom is required because love without discernment can become destructive.

Sometimes abuse is tolerated in the name of love—as if the loving thing to do were to endure sin silently or to allow harm to continue. This is not biblical love; this is perversion. True love never excuses evil; it seeks redemption and repentance while maintaining godly boundaries.

Love is patient and kind, and it not only rejoices with the truth, but stands firm for what is good (1 Cor 13:4-7).

Love Through the Gospel

God’s love is not reciprocal; it does not wait to be returned before it gives. His love is engendering, meaning it generates new love within us through the indwelling Spirit. This is more than imitation—it is participation. The Spirit reproduces the self-giving life of Christ in us, forming new reactions of grace rather than self-protection and defensiveness.

Recently in my counseling, I’ve been preferring the term “engendering” because it points to the Source of our spirituality as well as a purpose: our participation. While human love often mirrors what it receives, God’s love originates within Himself and flows outward, in-generating love through human agency so that we, too, may love as participants in His redemptive life. The Lord gives of Himself so that we might become like Him. We receive, and then we give. We are loved into loving, and our love manifests as a witness of His (John 13:34–35; 1 John 4:19).

Thus, the Gospel sanctifies our love as Christ redeems not only our sins but also our ways of loving. At the cross, God’s love meets us, changes us from the inside out, that is it in-generates in us a love that now reaches toward others with His redemptive aim—we love as He loves.

Without the Gospel, our love is grounded in reciprocity—we love only those who return that love. This is precisely what Christ exposes in the verses below.

“If you love those who love you, what benefit is that to you? For even sinners love those who love them…  And if you lend to those from whom you expect to receive, what credit is that to you? Even sinners lend to sinners, to get back the same amount.” – Luke 6:32, 34

To give love, in order to receive love, is, in fact a form of self-love, self-idolatry — narcissism.

To love ourselves rightly is the first fruit of God’s redemptive love. The Gospel cures the sickness of narcissism by reordering the soul—turning self-love from self-absorption into gratitude and humility before God. His love does not feed our ego; it frees us from it. By His grace, our souls are re-formed so that they engender love—love that is giving, wise, and safe: love that honors truth, protects goodness, and seeks redemption. God’s love flows through us: from Him, to us, and through us to others.

The Spirit also inhabits our souls, reshaping and re-creating us into the image of perfect love—Jesus Christ. Through the Spirit’s in-generating work, God’s love is engendered—born within us, moving us from narcissism to participation—so that in Christ we learn to love our families faithfully and our enemies redemptively, because He first loved us.

Love That Increases

The Lord gives of Himself in order that we might become like Him. God is love, and the indwelling presence of the Lord should be increasing, maturing, and growing us to become more like Him.

A husband and wife sat in counseling, locked in years of defensiveness. Every conversation ended in blame. Each believed love would return only when the other changed. But as the Gospel began to reshape his heart, the husband’s love ceased to depend on his wife’s behavior. It was no longer a mirror of what he received, but a manifestation of the love of Christ now dwelling within him. One evening, she snapped at him, expecting another argument. Instead, he gently said, “I’m not here to win anymore. I just want to understand.” That moment didn’t erase the years of pain, but it revealed the first fruit of a new kind of love—the love God engenders through the Gospel, a love that no longer reacts but redeems.

Family issues are complex including defensiveness, patterns of self-protection, and words that twisted truth. Education is necessary, but it is not enough. Only through Christ does love learn to listen, to repent, and to tell the truth in grace. Forgiveness and reconciliation will still require effort, yet as God’s love indwells the soul, it begins to increase—growing in wisdom, patience, and truth. As sanctification deepens, so does love. Such love does not arise from human resolve; it is the life of Christ increasing within us. We love God (the Source) by loving His people through participation in His Spirit.

Our love for the Lord, then, is not measured by sentiment but by participation. We love God not by retreating from others but by drawing near to them through His Spirit and Word. This is the fruit of the Gospel—God’s love continually in-generating our love, forming us into agents of His redeeming grace.

In Christ, love no longer depends on reciprocity; it is born from communion with Him and grows as we learn to respond with His heart. The Spirit teaches us, moment by moment, how to love more wisely and more freely—how to replace old reactions with new mercies.

Our trials and testings become opportunities for new responses—moments where grace meets weakness and engenders the love of God anew. Every act of forgiveness, every word of grace, every patient response becomes evidence of this increasing life. Love is no longer something we strive to achieve; it is the life of Christ Himself, dwelling, renewing, and enlarging our capacity to love.

Love That Unifies

We love the Lord through loving His people. Our love for the Lord is beyond the transactional—it is not a trade of devotion for blessing, but the result of being in-generated by His Spirit and Word. When Christ’s love takes form within us, it seeks expression in the very relationships that once revealed our weakness. To love another person—especially one who has wounded us—is to participate in the very love by which Christ loved us.

One wife recently shared how the coming Thanksgiving filled her with dread. Her marriage was strained, and difficult family gatherings often heightened their conflict. Her husband longed for peace with his family, even when those relationships placed unhealthy expectations upon them both. Instead of rehearsing old arguments, the couple began praying through how they might love their extended family together. They decided to enter the holiday not as rivals managing chaos, but as partners in grace—looking out for each other in love, guarding each other’s hearts, and responding with gentleness instead of defensiveness. The holiday gathering was, in fact, a trial, yet their unified response, love toward others, and protecting each other began to build trust and restore unity. As they learned to love others in unity rather than self-protection, something changed between them. Love, shaped by the Spirit and Word, reoriented their hearts away from control and toward participation in Christ’s redemptive work.

The Gospel teaches that love is not proven by emotion or return, but by embodiment: we manifest our love for God when we extend His love to others. As John writes, “If we love one another, God abides in us and His love is perfected in us” (1 John 4:12). Love matures as it moves outward; the same Spirit who unites us to Christ also unites us to His body. In this way, sanctification becomes relational—God re-creates our capacity to love by drawing us into living communion with Himself, an engendering fellowship in which we become agents of His redeeming love.

Conclusion

The Gospel transforms our love from reciprocal to redemptive, from self-protective to self-giving. As His Spirit re-creates our responses, love becomes the evidence of sanctification—the life of Christ enlarging our capacity to forgive, to endure, and to bless. This is not a concept to master but something we allow to happen within us: God’s love continually in-generating our love, drawing us into His redemptive mission towards others.

If your love has grown weary or wounded, biblical counseling offers a space to rediscover this participation—to see how Christ’s life can be engendered within you anew, restoring what has been broken and teaching you to love as He loves.