What is Love?

“Baby, don’t hurt me — no more.”

It’s hard to write or talk about “love” because it’s so prevalent in our day and time. The definition that I think with “love” versus how most of the world or our culture defines “love” seem to be at opposite ends of the spectrum.

How do I mean? We use the word “love” for all kinds of things:

• I love my cat
• I love this burger
• I love Fridays
• etc.

“Love” has become defined as “really like” — the next step in liking something. If you really, really, really like something, you then love it.

But, how does God describe “love” in the Bible? What is “love” biblically? Does it mean “really like” as it’s used in the Bible?

Thankfully, God “defines” His kind of love in 1 Corinthians 13:

1. Suffereth long
2. Is kind
3. Envieth not
4. Vaunteth not itself
5. Is not puffed up
6. Doth not behave itself unseemly
7. Seeketh not her own
8. Is not easily provoked
9. Thinketh no evil
10. Rejoiceth not in iniquity
11. Rejoiceth in the truth
12. Beareth all things
13. Believeth all things
14. Hopeth all things
15. Endureth all things
16. Never faileth

I’m glad God made it so easy. We have it laid out fairly clearly just what, exactly, “love” is to God.

All these details about love describe God because God is love. All these details about love also describe Jesus Christ because Jesus Christ is the image of God. What awesome examples of love!

The next step is to actually love this way and not how the world loves. That challenge is sometimes very daunting.

To have our actions and our words be patient, kind, not proud, not envious and on and on. It really makes it challenging to love God’s way. But is it worth it? Oh yeah.

Imagine being able to love like God loved us (where He sent Jesus Christ) or being able to love like Jesus Christ (think of the miracles of healing and His great compassion) — we can love like that.

Wow. God defines what He looks for us to do when we love in our lives. And it’s easy to love like this, because God first loved us. Yes!