What is Love?

Many, if not most people have a distorted view and expectation of what love is. Let’s begin by dispelling the most common myth before we explore what love actually is and how it will affect our lives.

If you watch TV, listen to music, or have any media input in your life at all, you will have one central theme drilled into your consciousness: love is determined by how you feel. According to our society, love is inextricably tied to sex and is targeted to all classes and ages. Why? Because sex sells, and because in this "enlightened" society, we are encouraged to make decisions based on preference (how we feel today) rather than commitment. Preference is living together, commitment is marriage, preference is settle for, commitment is go for. It is impossible to have any consistency if the rules change every time the wind changes direction. It doesn’t work, it is foolishness, and it creates confusion. Confusion causes chaos and Satan would like nothing better than the dismantling of our families because of the misrepresentation of such a foundational principle as love. How you look and act will attract someone and create the feeling society calls love. While it may be true that love can in fact create certain feelings, the reverse is not true. Just because you find someone appealing in some way does not mean that there is love. There may very well be attraction, but attraction is not commitment. 

God gives us the definition of love in 1Corinthians 13:4-8

⁴Love is patient, love is kind. It does not envy, it does not boast, it is not proud. ⁵ It does not dishonor others, it is not self-seeking, it is not easily angered, it keeps no record of wrongs. ⁶ Love does not delight in evil but rejoices with the truth. ⁷ It always protects, always trusts, always hopes, always perseveres.  ⁸ Love never fails.  

Let’s list the various attributes of God’s definition:

1. Patient
2. Kind
3. Not envious
4. Not boastful
5. Not proud
6. not dishonorable
7. not self seeking
8. not easily angered
9. keeps no record of wrong
10. does not delight in evil but rejoices with the truth
11. always protects
12. always trusts
13. always hopes
14. always perseveres
15. never fails

It’s not necessary to explain what these 15 attributes mean; they are easily understood however, not easily lived by. The reason God includes them is because we all fail in one or more of these constantly. If we never failed in them, God would have no need to define love this way. To give us a look into how God views Love, look at verse 13 in this same chapter:   
¹³ And now these three remain: faith, hope and love. But the greatest of these is love.

While it is obvious and an understatement to say that faith and hope are critical to Christianity, God says that Love is even greater.


A wise man once told me that love is a decision. Not only is love not a feeling, but it is a decision to make a commitment to these attributes God has given us. Pick the attribute(s) that you most commonly fail in and picture a situation in which you failed in that attribute. Now imagine making a conscious decision to view this situation according to God’s definition of love. How much better, stronger, encouraged, and united will your relationship be? It is a lifelong process but this is what God has for us. We will find and spread blessing as we grow in this because it’s Gods design for His creation. Us. God is the author of love, He defines it, He is perfect in it, and He desires us to be blessed by it. In fact, God is so serious about His love for us that:
Romans 5:8 But God demonstrates his own love for us in this: While we were still sinners, Christ died for us.

When you hear talk about love, or think about your own relationships, please remember to have God’s plan for your life as the foundation by which you make your decisions. Also, it would be a blessing to others to share this new found insight with them.