About Love

What you can see in the picture is basically the verses from 1 Corinthians 13:4-8,13

What has gone through my mind that I decided, out of nowhere, to write about this topic. A very sensitive topic, I would say, as everyone believed that they know what LOVE really is. Everyone seemed to have their own notions of what love is. Be it the feelings of I-just-can't-live-my-life-without-you, or probably I-would-give-the-world-to-you, most love songs we heard on the radio, all the way to the lust, the deep deep desire, the control of someone else's life, the sacrifice, possessiveness, and... there would just be no end to this.

What is love, really?

I want to write about this because I myself am so curious over what went wrong in my previous relationship. I know love can be applied not only to our boyfriends/husbands/life partners but... maybe I want to focus more on this first. Is there really love? or is it just using that someone to achieve my goals? or is it just another phenomena that teenager has to go through? Is it peer pressure? or am I just giving in to that someone such that I won't feel uncomfortable? I have spent months trying to look for the meaning of love. I have not fully comprehended it now. But I guess there are some things which are worth sharing here.

Firstly, I ask myself about my love for my Creator. Do I love God?

I started off analyzing this by my feelings. Do I feel things for God? Ugh, how do I feel for something/someone that I can't even see. Why would I do this, I guess we can get the answer from the first woman ever on earth, Eve. Why did the snake approach Eve, not Adam? because women generally judge by feelings, which then became a weakness that the snake used to cause the fall of mankind to the evil power.

Again I ask, do I love God? how do I know how to love God? I then came to an understanding of that here :

God is love, and he who abides in love abides in God, and God abides in him

To know how to love God, is to first learn about how God has loved us. Though, I believe that we, limited sinners can never love God the way God has first loved us, I am pretty sure it is the way to learn how to love God. To understand that love through His Son, Jesus Christ who had died not only to pay for our sins but also to free us from the chains of the evil power, to restore our relationship with God. God doesn't love us because of His feelings or emotions for us. His love is purely unconditional, it is not because of who we are, the pureness of our life, for goodness' sake, He loved us even while we were still sinners! It is just because of His loving nature. Again, God is Love.

John 3:16, "For God so loved the world, that he gave his only begotten Son, that whosoever believeth in him should not perish, but have everlasting life."

Romans 5:8,"But God demonstrates his own love for us in this: While we were still sinners, Christ died for us."

How to love God?

Matthew 22:37, "Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind."

For me, looking at this verse alone, might be useful :

Exodus 20:3,""You shall have no other gods before me."

Putting God as our first priority, and as colossians 3:23 says "Whatever you do, work at it with all your heart, as working for the Lord, not for men". Maybe the best way to put it is Christ Lordship, which happened to be the theme for a camp held in May.

Now back to my original question. So what is love?
I know these verses have been quoted like thousands of times, but to me, it is still the best definition of love I could find :

Love is patient, love is kind. It does not envy, it does not boast, it is not proud.

It is not rude, it is not self-seeking, it is not easily angered, it keeps no record of wrongs.

Love does not delight in evil but rejoices with the truth.

It always protects, always trusts, always hopes, always perseveres.

Love never fails.

I've stopped searching for feelings. Many times I've been deceived by my own feelings. I used too much of them. Maybe the evil spirit is even using my own feelings against myself. How scary is one's feeling if uncontrolled! God's grace has opened my eyes to learn to understand love through Him, not through human emotions and feelings.

Love is not a spontaneous thing. It's not an accident, it is not an uncontrollable feeling. There's no such thing as love at first sight but I do believe in God's work in mutual/one-way attraction of men to women or vice versa.

I guess love is a step forward. It is the decision made to commit ourselves to being patient, kind, not envious, not proud, not arrogant, not rude, not self-seeking, not easily angered, keeping no record of wrongs, delighting not in evil, but rejoicing with the truth. A decision made to always protect, trust, hope, and persevere. However not forgetting to love and serve Jesus Christ, "We love because he first loved us" (1 John 4:19). In fact, it should be the main, most important thing in a relationship between man and woman.

We're living in this filthy world with heavy misuse of the term "love". Fallen men are so rationally limited that they equate love with emotions, lusts, feelings.

I believe that those souls that have not been saved do not know what love is, though they might claim that they do. They will never understand what real love is. Love which is not abused by fallen man. If they have not experienced God, God's love, the love for the unworthy, the unconditional love, the sacrifice of Jesus Christ, how can they ever know love, which is God Himself?

1 John 4:7-11, "Dear friends, let us love one another, for love comes from God. Everyone who loves has been born of God and knows God. Whoever does not love does not know God, because God is love. This is how God showed his love among us: He sent his one and only Son into the world that we might live through him. This is love: not that we loved God, but that he loved us and sent his Son as an atoning sacrifice for our sins. Dear friends, since God so loved us, we also ought to love one another."

Try not to understand love from feelings, temporary emotions, that sort of things. Think of unconditional love. Love despite. Think of parents loving their children, it may be the nearest, though it will never be the same as God's love for us, for nothing will be.