What is Love?  The dictionary defines love as: a deep, tender, ineffable feeling of affection and solicitude toward a person, such as that arising from kinship, recognition of attractive qualities, or a sense of underlying oneness.

In 1Corinthians 13:4 -7God’s Word states that “Love is patient, love is kind. It does not envy, it does not boast, it is not proud. ⁵It is not rude, it is not self-seeking, it is not easily angered, it keeps no record of wrongs. ⁶Love does not delight in evil but rejoices with the truth. ⁷It always protects, always trusts, always hopes, always perseveres. NIV

When you read the New Testament and see the word love the best thing for you to do is read the surrounding passages to see the context of how the word love is being used.  The reason for this is that the New Testament was written in Greek and the Greeks unlike us had various words that meant the degree to which you loved someone.   For our purpose we will be talking primarily about the agape love, which is an unconditional love.  I.e. no strings attached.

To understand what love is we must first understand who the source of love is. 

God is Love: (Agape)

1 John 4:8 states that God is Love.  So it stands to reason that God is the source of love. God does not merely love: He is love.  What He did for us and continues to do for us was done out of love.

For century’s man has been trying to understand what the concept of love really is   Well if you use the dictionary definition you will see two words that I feel can best describe God’s love and the model God wants us to use when we show what true love is.   Those words are kinship and oneness.  God created us, no matter who we are, out of love.  We are made in his spiritual image so we are all related spiritually and are all one in God. 

In our society we have ceased to realize that because we have taken God and His love for His unique Creation out of everything.  So when man is no longer seen as being special and created out of love, by God, life no longer has value.  This is evident in the rise of violent crimes such as murder.

The minute we again begin to realize that we are all one in God, created out of love, we will again start to love as God loves us, unconditionally, and we will stand to see the evidences of love as found in 1 Corinthians 4:13, Love is patient, kind.”   People have forgotten that God’s love for us was evidenced in the birth of Christ and then in His death on the cross.  How many people would die for their enemies out of love?

God’s love in Christ

If we are to exist Jesus’ example of love should be the model of our love, of our kinship to others.  To show His kinship with us, God’s love came to us in the form of Jesus.  The Bible says in John 3:16 that God so loved the world that He sent His Son, to what?  The answer is easy, to die for us.

Jesus came to us out of love, God’s love.  What God’s Word says in 1 John 4:10 sums it up best when John says that “Herein is love, not that we loved God, but that God loved us and sent His Son”.  The righteous God came and died for the unrighteous, He who had no sin died for the sinners.

Jesus’ Love for Us

We have already talked about how Jesus came to die for us, but that is not the whole story.    Jesus did not come out of duty, or because He was required to. Jesus loved us unconditionally (agape) other wise He would not have come. Jesus did not put any attachments or amendments to His love He came for us, died for us and all we have to do in return is love Him unconditionally (agape).  This means that we cannot say to Jesus I will love you if you do this or I will love you if you do that.  No it must be an as is and heartfelt love.

Jesus not only showed us love by dying for us He showed us love by physically healing those He came in contact with and after His resurrection spiritually healing us when we come to Him.

See the stripes but also see the hands in acts of kindness and true love

Jesus loved the rich young ruler Mark 10:21

Jesus loved Mary, Martha and Lazarus John 11:5

Jesus love

The list could go on and on and on. Jesus is love, everything he did on earth was to show love and teach us how to love God.

It is amazing to think that God could now touch His creation in a physical way and show love in a way that was not possible before.  Think about it as Jesus grew he felt the love of His mother, the love of His earthy father and the love of His friends His fiends.  Even with all that love, God also felt the rejection of His creation.  I can hardly imagine the sadness that Jesus felt as He looked down upon the city of Jerusalem and wept.   That is love.

Loving God

Now we are left with one of two choices to love God or reject God’s love

Out of love God chose the nation of Israel to be His messengers and to spread the Gospel, but as all humans are prone to do they and we rejected the love of God. 

The Bible says that because we ‘turned from the truth”, Jesus was crucified.  What is the truth that God loves us and wants us to come back to Him.  From of the moment of creation we were meant to love God, but when our eyes were opened we tried to come up with all kinds of ways to replace God.  Why? Because sin requires a replacement for truth in order to satisfy a desire that can only be filled by God.  Kind of Ironic isn’t it?  We seek to replace God but only God ‘s love and our love for God can satisfy our deepest need which once again is?  You guessed it, Love.

So all the time that we do not have “the love of God in our hearts”, John 5:42 we are seeking false hopes, false desires and false loves.  That is why there is so much sadness in this world because love is not true love from God, only Satan’s misrepresentation.  The father of lies, Satan, seeks to make us feel that we know better than God as to what love is, by showing us what it isn’t.

In the end we can only love by becoming one with God in heart, mind and soul.  Then will see and feel love.

The question still remains, What is Love?   The answer has to be giving everything we have to others with no strings attached that is what Jesus did and what we are called to do here and now?

The first fruit is love because you must have love before you can experience the other fruits of the Spirit.