What is True Love?

What is True Love?

This post is about “True Love.” You may need to read the rest of the post to get the full con­text.

The world says love is about how some­one makes them feel or how they feel about some­one else, but God says love is about how you behave and treat others.

The world says love is about how some­one makes them feel or how they feel about some­one else, but God says love is about how you behave and treat others. The Church needs to know what real love is for three rea­sons:

In order to build unity among the saints.

Keep friend­ships, mar­riages and fam­i­lies to­gether.

Show an ac­cu­rate ex­am­ple of Christ to the world.

Chris­t­ian mis­con­cep­tions about love

Mis­con­cep­tion 1:

We can’t love like Christ. His love is just some­thing to aspire to, not some­thing you can ac­tu­ally reach.

False. The bible says, “we can do all things through Christ who strength­ens us” (Phil 4:13), for God called us to be con­formed to the image of Christ (Rom 8:29) and to love one an­other like he loved us (John 15:12). So these com­ments usu­ally come from people who don’t want to obey God, who listen to the lies of the devil, or have failed to love be­cause they tried in their own strength. Loving like Jesus is pos­si­ble be­cause Jesus com­manded us to do so.

Mis­con­cep­tion 2:

You have to first love your­self before you can love others.

I hear this often, but when you look at scrip­ture it’s not there. The truth is: most people love them­selves al­ready. By nature we’re self cen­tered beings. On the other hand, if some­one doesn’t love them­selves (they don’t look at them­selves as valu­able or worthy) then there is a dis­con­nec­tion from God.

In Mark 12:30-31, Jesus said: love God first. If you love God first, you’ll be filled with his love in return, so you won’t have a prob­lem loving your neigh­bor as it goes on to com­mand. To love your­self first is con­trary to the word of God and is self cen­tered which is not an at­tribute of love (1 Cor 13:5). If a person doesn’t love them­selves it’s be­cause they don’t love God first. Loving God rids a person of all esteem issues.

Love de­fined

The world’s de­f­i­n­i­tion

A deep, tender, in­ef­fa­ble feel­ing of af­fec­tion and so­lic­i­tude toward an­other person. An in­tense emo­tional at­tach­ment or feel­ing for a person, place, or thing. A feel­ing of in­tense desire and at­trac­tion toward a person with whom one is dis­posed to make a pair. Ro­mance, sexual pas­sion, sexual in­ter­course.

God’s de­f­i­n­i­tion (1 Cor 13:4-7)

Love suf­fers long and is kind; love does not envy; love does not parade itself, is not puffed up; does not behave rudely. Love does not seek its own, is not pro­voked, thinks no evil; does not re­joice in in­iq­uity, but re­joices in the truth. Love bears all things, be­lieves all things, hopes all things, en­dures all things.

After com­par­ing the world’s view against the bible’s:

Love is not feel­ing.

Love is not emo­tion.

Love is not at­trac­tion.

Love is not having sex.

Love is not liking some­one.

Love is moral char­ac­ter.

Love is Jesus Christ.

Notice how the world’s de­f­i­n­i­tion is based on how they feel about some­one. This has noth­ing to do with love at all. Bib­li­cal love is moral char­ac­ter: how we act and treat other beings. And we as chil­dren of God know that this moral char­ac­ter comes from Jesus Christ (1 John 4:7).

I much prefer some­one treat­ing me with kind­ness, re­spect, hu­mil­ity, and pa­tience rather than re­lat­ing to me solely on our sim­i­lar­i­ties, mutual ben­e­fit or at­trac­tion.

This means that times will come when we don’t feel like show­ing re­spect, pa­tience, trust, and hon­esty; but we must push past those feel­ings and show it anyway. Love is what we do ac­cord­ing to the stan­dard of God, not what we feel.

Lust and love

Many women actually believe that the lust of a man is love: his constant stares, his compliments, and his desire to have sex with her. This is not love. It’s simply attraction, and in most cases, lust.

Lust is a terrible thing because it’s the exact opposite of love (which is selfishness). A man in lust is looking to relieve himself at some woman’s expense. He’s looking to quench the thirst in his soul (which can only be fulfilled by God) by using sex. Do not mistaken his desire as love, it’s selfishness.

This is why lust is a sin. Lust for anything is a sin because we have a God that will supply all our needs. To walk in lust is to be disconnected from God and to say that God cannot supply our needs and therefore we must fulfill our needs on our own.

How to determine if it’s really love.

Women can know if a man loves them by lining up that man’s character to the Corinthian passage. They should ask themselves this question: does this man display the attributes of Christ? Many times they will find that this is not the case. These men cannot love because love is a person who embodies the born again believer. Without God, no man can love. However, the men of God love like God because they have God in them (1 John 4:7).

So where does attraction, desire, arousal, passion and sexual intercourse fit in? Are these love? Answer: No. These are simply the natural feelings that come about between human beings for the purpose of procreation in which should only be expressed and enjoyed when a strong foundation of biblical love has been established through a marriage commitment. Until that happens, the participants of these activities can be considered as dogs in heat.

The world says love is about how someone makes them feel, God says love is about how you behave and treat others. And not just that, he gives us specifics like kindness, patience, humility and more.

I’m satisfied with God’s definition of love because it has standards — something I can build a foundation on. The world doesn’t have a standard. And the false church doesn’t follow the standard. This is why love is so confusing and disastrous in this world. Of course people want godly love, but they can’t find it on the horizontal because they don’t understand that it comes from above. As the church of God stands up, the world will be able to find and see the manifestation of God’s love in effect through his people.

The 1 Corinthians 13:4-7 passage names 13 different attributes of love listed below.

Love is Patient and suffers long.

Love is Kind – benevolent, understands and sympathizes.

Love is Happy about what others have – not envious and jealous.

Love is Humble – not boastful, disrespectful, proud and arrogant.

Love is Supportive, Considerate and seeks to helps others – not self-centered.

Love is Courtesy and Polite – not rude and ill-mannered (using truth recklessly).

Love is slow to Anger – not easily provoked.

Love is Forgiving – doesn’t keep a record of wrongs.

Love is tells the Truth – not telling lies and rejoicing in evil.

Love is a Covering (covers another’s faults), doesn’t gossip about them.

Love is Trusting and gives a new start to those who’d sinned in the past.

Love is Hopes for the best for people rather than the worst.

Love is loyal Endures all things (marriage till death, persecution, never gives up).

Also: Love doesn’t Control others.