The definition of Love

Often times I feel that the word “love” has become trivialized.  We hear it being used excessively to describe everything from a pair of shoes to cars, from food to music.  It is used carelessly, sarcastically, off-handedly, almost meaninglessly and unfeelingly.

Love.

A profoundly tender affection. A feeling of warm personal attachment. A passion or desire.  A term of endearment.  To have a strong liking for something.  A fondness.

 It is a word that describes one of the most basic and foundational needs a person possesses.  We as humans have this need to be cared for, accepted, wanted, and valued.

The problem is, however, this word love never really lives up to the concept one’s heart and soul yearn for.  In this world, ‘Love’ often changes based on situations, reactions, feelings, emotions, desires, senses, perceptions, impulses, and actions. 

The true definition of LOVE is one that is absolute, unchanging, unconditional, uncompromising, all-encompassing, fulfilling, faithful, self-sacrificing.  It encompasses patience, kindness, truth, loyalty, fidelity, joy, goodness, hope, perseverance, completeness.

Three words tell us what Love is.  They define Love beyond doubt, reasoning, or understanding.

God IS Love. (1 John 4:8)

IS.

The great I AM – the one who is unchanging-remains-endures-exists-endures –
IS Love. 

Love isn’t a feeling or emotion that comes and goes.  Love is a state of being—Love is the BEING – The I AM.

As I consider what Love is (Who Love is) it changes everything.  I am someone who knows Love.   I have Love… that is unconditional, accepts me with all my failings and flaws.  No matter what I could ever do I will always have Love.  The kind that provides joy in my deepest sorrow, hope in the most desperate of times, light in the darkest moments, patience and kindness in the most undeserving situations. 
And because I possess LOVE, I am enabled to love others (1 John 4:19 – We loved because He first loved us).  I am enabled to live life above circumstance. I am a person of great value.  I am never alone. 

My prayer for you… is that you can define Love and know its fullness.

Ephesians 3:18 – And I pray that you, being rooted and established in love, may have power, together with all the Lord’s people, to grasp how wide and long and high and deep is the love of Christ, and to know this love that surpasses knowledge, that you may be filled to the measure of all fullness of God.

Romans 8:38-39 – For I am convinced that neither death nor life, neither angels nor demons, neither the present nor the future, nor any powers, neither height nor depth, nor anything else in all creation, will be able to separate us from the Love of God that is in Christ Jesus our Lord.
Jeremiah 31:3 – “I have loved you with an everlasting love; I have drawn you with unfailing kindness.”
1 John 3:15 – This is how we know what love is: Jesus Christ laid down His life for us.  And we ought to lay down our lives for our brothers and sisters.
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.
1 John 4:10 – This is love: not that we loved God, but that He loved us and sent His Son as an atoning sacrifice for us.
Romans 5:8 – God demonstrates His love for us in this: While we were still sinners, Christ died for us.
1Corinthians 13:4-13 ^-  Love is patient, love is kind. It does not envy, it does not boast, it is not proud.  It does not dishonor others, 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. But where there are prophecies, they will cease; where there are tongues, they will be stilled; where there is knowledge, it will pass away.  For we know in part and we prophesy in part, but when completeness comes, what is in part disappears. When I was a child, I talked like a child, I thought like a child, I reasoned like a child. When I became a man, I put the ways of childhood behind me.  For now we see only a reflection as in a mirror; then we shall see face to face. Now I know in part; then I shall know fully, even as I am fully known. And now these three remain: faith, hope and love. But the greatest of these is love.