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True Love

As we approach Valentine's Day, the subject of love looms over us. It is the season of romantic gestures, fancy dates, and heart shaped chocolates. Little angels in diapers with arrows adorn stores and the colors pink and red are everywhere.

Our culture has something of an obsession with romantic love. While the Valentine's season accentuates this craze, it exists year round. Just think of the number of songs that are written, from any era, that concern romance in some way. Most movies aren't complete without a romance subplot woven into the script. Suffice it to say that we love, well, love. Or at least we think we do.

Confusing Our Terms

The common understanding of love is that of a feeling. Love is that feeling you get in the pit of your stomach, or the warm fuzzy feeling you get when you are with someone you like. We define love in a variety of ways, most of which have to do with feelings.

What has happened is that we have confused love with two other emotions; passion and desire. 

Passion is a strong fervor for something or someone. Desire is when you deeply want something, someone, or some event to occur. The way we talk about falling in love in our world today is much more akin to passion and desire than love. 

The songs we sing and the movies we watch all depict "love" as desperately wanting someone. That's what love is depicted as. The Bible has something different to say about love.

What is Love?

While passion and desire are powerful emotions that Scripture certainly addresses, what is truly stunning is how it talks about love. Love is not an emotion in the Bible; love is an action or way of life. It is not something you feel but something you do.

The best example of love we see in Scripture is of course God. The love God shows is not a passive feeling. While God certainly demonstrates a passion for his creation and a desire for all people to be in relationship with him, these alone are not love. The most famous verse in the whole Bible shows the love of God perfectly.

"For God so loved the world, that he gave his only Son, that whoever should believe in him should not perish but have eternal life." John 3:16

This is love. Love is sacrificing yourself for another. Love is living a life for another, not yourself. Love is focusing your attention on good of others, not your own comfort.

True Love

When we define love in terms of passion and desire it leads to a very selfish view of love. If love is simply our strong feelings and wants then the goal of love is satisfying yourself. It's about getting what you want, what makes you feel good, and deserving to have your cravings and passions satisfied.

True love, Godly love, means placing the good of another ahead of yourself. It means laying down your life, desires, and passions for the sake of the one you love. It sometimes means saying no to your own desire for a relationship because it does not help the other person walk closely with Christ. It means reigning in our passions and regulating our desires.

True love is helping those around you walk with Christ no matter what. It is showing them a glimpse of the God who is love so that they may come to know Jesus. 

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