What is Love?

Tagging on to my previous blogs, I would like to pose the question which the title has already made obvious.....What is love? Is it that feeling of your heart leaping in your chest when that “special someone” walks in the room? Those butterflies flying around your head, clouding your thoughts and tying your tongue in knots? Is love that twinkling in your eye when you’re gazing into his or hers? 

Unfortunately, this world has yet again tainted something which the Lord intended to be very different. 1 Corinthians 13:4-8 sums it up very well... “Love suffers long and is kind; love does not envy; love does not parade itself, is not puffed up; does not behave rudely, does not seek its own, is not provoked, thinks no evil; does not rejoice in iniquity, but rejoices in the truth; bears all things, believes all things, hopes all things, endures all things. Love never fails.”

Looking through this list, it doesn’t say anything about butterflies or twinkling eyes. Instead it speaks of sacrifice, being selfless and esteeming others higher then yourself (Phil. 2:3). All these things are a choice! You choose to do these things for the person you love. It’s a decision we make to do the right thing no matter what the situation is. Therefore, I believe love is a choice. 

Love is also a sacrifice, as I mentioned earlier. Jesus gives us many great examples of this throughout the Bible. The obvious example is the sacrifice He made for us by laying His life down on the cross. God loves us so much that He sent His one and ONLY Son, to be that sacrifice, die for our sins, so we could be with Him (John 3:16). THAT is LOVE.

Love has been so belittled. People throw that word around like it means nothing... and unfortunately, because of this, I feel it has lost a lot of it’s authenticity. It’s like hearing someone say “sorry” over and over again about the same thing they keep doing to you. After a while, when they say “sorry” you don’t believe them..... it doesn’t mean anything to you. They’ve abused the word so much it’s belittled it. Same thing with the word ‘love.’ People go from one relationship to another and tell each person how much they love them, yet they break up. Eventually, when you hear the words “I love you” it doesn’t mean much to you anymore because you’ve heard from so many others who have broken your heart. It’s so sad to me when I see people in relationships, and when they break up they talk about how they just don’t understand because “He said he loved me...”  Don’t let these words become nothing to you. These three simple words can be the most powerful when said in the right moment.

So, to sum it up, Love is a choice and a sacrifice. Those butterflies you get when you see that special someone, is infatuation. Now, I’m not saying love and infatuation can’t go together. Because you will definitely get that joy and excitement when you are with the person you are in love with, but that doesn’t make those feelings love. It’s sad to me when people tell me about how they are so in love with someone and then they continue to tell me about how they make them feel!! “Oh, he just makes me feel so happy, he makes me feel beautiful, he makes me feel so good inside.... I love him!!” My question to them is, what happens when he stops making you “feel” like that? What happens when he’s being really stubborn, or difficult about something and you get frustrated? What happens if you get into a fight? Then those “twitterpated” feelings go away. Then people say they just “fell out of love.” It’s so superficial! I don’t think anyone can fall in or out of love, because if you really loved that person, you would choose to love them through those tough times. You would be patient, and kind, hang in there, and stay by their side no matter what. You put love into action by doing these things. If you just base it off of simple feelings you get, it won’t last. 

Remember the sacrifice Christ made for us, think of all the times we have turned our backs on Him, sinned against Him, and broken His heart... yet He still chooses to love us and be patient. Think of how it would have been if Jesus said, “Oh, they turned their back on me again! I guess we fell out of love.” No! He promised He would never leave us nor forsake us in three different places in the Bible, He repeats this promise (Due. 31:6, Josh. 1:5,  Heb. 13:5). Again, this is our example of what true love is! Not what the world has turned it in to. The world will do its best to throw all different kinds of definitions of love and what it should look like. But I encourage you to look to Jesus as your example. To me... that is what true love really is.