What does love really mean?

We throw the word love around fairly easily and we use it a lot more than we probably should. We
love wives or girlfriends. We love our Church, school, or job. We love pizza and porterhouse. What don't we love? It seems like we say that we love everything that causes us to have any positive emotion or favorable opinion. We have watered the word down so much that we use it for anything that we remotely like. Unfortunately, when we use it so much that it becomes commonplace, it loses its force. Many people today could not even give you a real definition of love when asked. I know because I have asked lots of people that question. Let's look at what love really means.

Webster starts by calling love a strong affection or a warm attachment and to some degree this is true but it is way short of the Biblical understanding of love, the one that I hope to use whenever I write the word. There are a couple passages in Scripture that give us a good look at what love is from God's perspective. I hope that you will take the time to read and meditate no them. They are a picture of the character of God and the endpoint of the journey that He is leading us on. He is making us to look like this love. It is what sanctification looks like when it is completed in us.

Phl 2:1-8 ESV - So if there is any encouragement in Christ, any comfort from love, any participation in the Spirit, any affection and sympathy, complete my joy by being of the same mind, having the same love, being in full accord and of one mind. Do nothing from selfish ambition or conceit, but in humility count others more significant than yourselves. Let each of you look not only to his own interests, but also to the interests of others. Have this mind among yourselves, which is yours in Christ Jesus, who, though he was in the form of God, did not count equality with God a thing to be grasped, but emptied himself, by taking the form of a servant, being born in the likeness of men. And being found in human form, he humbled himself by becoming obedient to the point of death, even death on a cross.

1Co 13:1-8 ESV - If I speak in the tongues of men and of angels, but have not love, I am a noisy gong or a clanging cymbal. And if I have prophetic powers, and understand all mysteries and all knowledge, and if I have all faith, so as to remove mountains, but have not love, I am nothing. If I give away all I have, and if I deliver up my body to be burned, but have not love, I gain nothing. Love is patient and kind; love does not envy or boast; it is not arrogant or rude. It does not insist on its own way; it is not irritable or resentful; it does not rejoice at wrongdoing, but rejoices with the truth. Love bears all things, believes all things, hopes all things, endures all things. Love never ends. As for prophecies, they will pass away; as for tongues, they will cease; as for knowledge, it will pass away.

When we read these two passages, a lot of things stand out. Jesus loved and it led Him to serve. His love caused Him to look at the needs of humanity and put them above Himself. He served all the way to the point of suffering and death. He was not powerless to end His suffering. He could have exercised His authority as God at any point and stopped the process but instead, He chose to continue in His identity as son of man and let it proceed. That is how He showed love and it helps us see that love is selfless and looks out for the needs of others above my personal needs.

In the second passage, we see the nature of God toward us. We often think of God as demanding or controlling but look at these verses. We know that God is love and they tell us what love is. It is patient and kind so that means God is patient with us and kind to us. It is not arrogant or rude. God does not talk to us as superior, even though He is in every way. He talks to us as a concerned, loving Father even when we are not respectful to Him. Love does not insist on its own way. God puts a choice before us. He knows that there is a best plan and He longs for us to choose it but because He is by nature love, He does not insist that we choose what He has for us. Love bears all things, it endures all things and it never ends. Because Jesus paid fully for your sins, God is, for all eternity drawing you to Himself. Many will choose not to fallow Him and the price of that rejection will be high but God will never stop loving them. He will always be committed to the one's Jesus died for even though many will be separated from Him for all eternity. By nature, He cannot stop loving them.

I know that this is wordy so I have reduced my definition of love to just this."Love is seeking and working for the highest good of a person regardless of how they feel about it and not stopping until they have reached that potential." There are people that will get angry because you love them. This does not mean you have the right to nag them or try to control their lives. They have to choose their own path. I does mean that you will pay any price in helping them realize the plans and dreams God has for them, even when it is costly to you. Jesus paid our debt with His life. That is the ultimate expression of love. At the same time, He does not force us to step into the future that He created for us. We cannot force people to do what is best for them, nor should we try but can be there to help them pursue it when they are ready.

We are called to love like Jesus. I am still learning to do that. I still get frustrated when I see people hurting themselves and acting contrary to what I know is best for them. I get angry at people when they live below who they are made to be. Honestly, I get angry at myself too. I know that God has more than I am living in and still I get complacent in my pursuit of Him. God is calling us to love without consideration of the cost. He is even calling me to love myself and be willing to pay any price to pursue my highest good and then to help others do that. I cannot love until I have experienced love and been filled with it. I am praying that I experience the fullness of God's love in me until it pours out and I can love others completely and fully. This is the plan God has for us.

1Jo 4:19 ESV - We love because he first loved us.

1Jo 3:16-18 ESV - By this we know love, that he laid down his life for us, and we ought to lay down our lives for the brothers. But if anyone has the world's goods and sees his brother in need, yet closes his heart against him, how does God's love abide in him? Little children, let us not love in word or talk but in deed and in truth.

Have you experienced the love of God in a way that you must love others? Are you running after His love? Are you a bringer of that love to others? That is your call and this is what love looks like.