What Is Love?

It might be easier to say what love isn't.

I am talking about agape love, the highest order of love. This kind of love isn't what the world thinks it is, or wants us to believe it is. It is not tolerance of anything or everything that makes someone feel good. It is not support for any and all actions or beliefs, no matter how self destructive. It is not letting someone do whatever they want to do. That's not love. That's not caring. That's apathy.

Nor is love a warm, gushy feeling. It's not teddy bears and chocolates. It's not negligees and candlelight. Love is not lust. Love isn't just words. Love isn't just actions. Love is, as much as anything, the motivation behind what we say and do. Saying or doing the right words or the right actions for the wrong reasons isn't love. That's hypocrisy.

Love is what we do and why we do it. Love is having another person's highest good in mind. The kind of love the Bible talks about is alive, because God is love. Without God, we can't love, because we're dead inside.

The picture above is what you get when you try to play at love without God. Kind of spooky, isn't it?

Love is life.

Love is how you live with other people. If you treat others the way you'd want to be treated, you love them. If you love others as you love yourself, you're on the right track. If you are willing to lay down your life for a friend, you know what love is. That's how you are supposed to live with all people. Christ didn't just tell us to love our friends; He told us to love our enemies as well.

Love is about what you are supposed to do, not whether or not the other person "deserves" your love. Love is a command we are given. We are supposed to love each other. We are not supposed to earn love, or wait for love to be earned; we're just supposed to do it.

Love is what we are called to do all the time. We are supposed to live in love. Love is supposed to define our lives. Love isn't a sometimes thing. Now these three remain: Faith, hope and love. And the greatest of these is love. 

Love is powerful.

For God so loved the world that He gave His one and only Son that whoever believes in Him shall not perish but have eternal life. Love is so powerful that God gave us Jesus. According to Paul, love is greater than even faith, or hope. According to I John 4:16, God is love. That's powerful.

There is nothing soft and squishy about love. God disciplines those He loves. God is jealous for those He loves. God's wrath burns against those who try to harm those He loves. God is a consuming fire, and God is love.

What is love?

Love is everything. It's what you do or don't do; it's what you say or keep to yourself; it's what you think, or keep yourself from thinking. And most importantly, love is what makes all of those things either right, or wrong. Love is less about the what, and all about the why.

Follow God, and you will love.

What is love? All you have to do is ask yourself that old phrase: What would Jesus do? The answer to that question is love.