The Question Was Asked, "What is Love?"



This past Tuesday afternoon my two teenage sons were asked "what is love?" They answered "trust" and "feelings". They were not corrected. What IS the real meaning of love? When my oldest son brought the subject up with me, I asked what he thought, and once again he said that love is about feelings and about trust.  I took the opportunity to tell him that love is also a choice. It is doing what is best for someone else even when it might hurt you.

Today's society is filled with too much concentration on self, and not on others.  Our commercials and shows are focused on how to make ME look better or feel better about myself. How can I look just as good as or better than someone else?  Most ads and shows are not about making someone else feel better. 

What did Jesus say about love?  In Matthew 22:35-40 He says, ³⁵Then one of them, which was a lawyer, asked him a question, tempting him, and saying, ³⁶Master, which is the great commandment in the law? ³⁷Jesus said unto him, Thou shalt love the Lord thy God with all thy heart, and with all thy soul, and with all thy mind. ³⁸This is the first and great commandment. ³⁹And the second is like unto it, Thou shalt love thy neighbour as thyself. ⁴⁰On these two commandments hang all the law and the prophets. Nowhere in these verses does He say you should love yourself.  All the love is directed outward, to God first and then to others. 

God gave that ultimate gift of love -- Jesus said in John 3:14-21 ¹⁴And as Moses lifted up the serpent in the wilderness, even so must the Son of man be lifted up: ¹⁵That whosoever believeth in him should not perish, but have eternal life. ¹⁶For God so loved the world, that he gave his only begotten Son, that whosoever believeth in him should not perish, but have everlasting life. ¹⁷For God sent not his Son into the world to condemn the world; but that the world through him might be saved. ¹⁸He that believeth on him is not condemned: but he that believeth not is condemned already, because he hath not believed in the name of the only begotten Son of God. ¹⁹And this is the condemnation, that light is come into the world, and men loved darkness rather than light, because their deeds were evil. ²⁰For every one that doeth evil hateth the light, neither cometh to the light, lest his deeds should be reproved. ²¹But he that doeth truth cometh to the light, that his deeds may be made manifest, that they are wrought in God.    Everyone recognizes John 3:16. It has been said that it's the most well known and most quoted verse in the Bible.  Take a peek at verse 18. Although God is love, God also must punish those who reject Him.  -- God gave His only Son!  Do we want to WASTE that GIFT?

Love is also correction.  What parent wouldn't snatch their child back from danger?  The child might not recognize the danger and feel like he is being unfairly treated.  After all, it HURT when he was yanked back. But the parent saw the big picture and was protecting the child.  Proverbs 3:10-12 says ¹¹My son, despise not the chastening of the LORD; neither be weary of his correction: ¹²For whom the LORD loveth he correcteth; even as a father the son in whom he delighteth.

Look at Ephesians 5:25-33.  Now this passage might step on some toes!  Paul exhorts husbands to love their wives, just like Christ loved the church.  Husbands are to love their wives just like they love themselves.  However, wives are told to reverence or respect their husbands.  Hmmm...if you reverence or respect someone, aren't you putting them before yourself, which is showing love? 

There are many other ways to love or show love, but remember this acrostic most of us learned when we were little:

Jesus

Others

You

If we would show love to others through God, what would happen?  We would experience true love. And as a result, we would be blessed and have great joy.

What do you think?  How do you know what LOVE really means?

Reese