What is love?
That is a question that has a multitude of different answers to many people.
The statement “Love is not a feeling” captures the different idea and picture I now have of the concept of love from what I was taught by society, social media and television at large.
Read till the end to get more info on the different types of love!
Emotions and feelings can be fleeting. I can imagine in our personal experience, we have felt good about somethings that we either at the time and afterwards now know to be bad, and we have felt bad about things that turned out to be good. So for those like myself who at some point thought Love is a feelings based idea, this statement was a bit of a shocker.
So when we ask what Love actually is, we especially in the Christian space would refer to the scripture 1 Corinthians 13:4-8a
“4 Love 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.”
A good english definition as well is this: Love is a collection of the actions that we go through for the benefit of someone/something else and isn’t done for reward.
Love is not a feeling, love is an action!
John 3:16 says “For God so loved the world, that He gave…”. What we give in terms of our time, our emotions, our attention, our affection, our efforts, our money, etc reflect what it is we truly love.
The original and greatest form of love is the love of the Father to us all, we didn’t need to exist, God chose for us to exist because He wanted us to, so He could fellowship with us. Imagine the creator of the entire universe who didn’t have a need for us choosing to say, I want these humans to exist, to be in my image and to be create to spend time and fellowship with Him. Even after the fall, He gave up Himself in Jesus for us, went through so much suffering just to reconcile us back to Him. And till now, that’s what the Father truly desires from us, just spending time with Him, walking with Him as a Friend and a Father!
Realizing this love of the Father in my opinion is one of the most liberating things ever and is what enables us to actually love others unconditionally because we can’t give what we don’t have! It’s from this love we receive from God that flows into the love we have for ourselves and then others. I believe your capacity to love yourself is limited by the amount of love you have for and receive from God, and the love you have for others is limited by the love you have for yourself.
I have so much to say on this but we will visit those on another blog post.
For now, I will wrap up with some more surprising discoveries I made about love.
Love does not mean being a pushover!
As much as we should be patient and forbear in certain situations, there are some circumstances that require we stand up for ourselves.
Jesus gave a parable of turning the other cheek, in Matthew 5:39 it says:
“39 But I tell you, do not resist an evil person. If anyone slaps you on the right cheek, turn to them the other cheek also”
Yet in John 18:22-23 we see:
“2 When Jesus said this, one of the officials nearby slapped him in the face. “Is this the way you answer the high priest?” he demanded.
23 “If I said something wrong,” Jesus replied, “testify as to what is wrong. But if I spoke the truth, why did you strike me?””
The essence of this is the principle underneath where we don’t harbor anger, bitterness and retaliation when things like these happen, but we don’t need to put ourselves in harms way or refuse to remove ourselves from harms way when we are able to.
In John 8:59:
“59 At this, they picked up stones to stone him, but Jesus hid himself, slipping away from the temple grounds.”
In this instance we see Jesus removing Himself from harms way when it was in His power to do so. The event of the cross was different because it was a prophetic act that was predetermined and He even asked for it to be taken way if it could have. The point again is not for us to rebel, or act rash and brashly in those situations, but prayerfully, in communion with the Holy Spirit for the wisdom on how to, we should find ways to set up boundaries and or remove ourselves from hurtful or abusive circumstances.
With that being said, going back to the scripture 1 Corinthians 13:4-8a, I had a personal experience with this scripture.
It was recommended that I meditate on it for 30 days by a pastor so I recorded those verses in my voice memo and played it on repeat on my phone for about 5 minutes daily. In the middle of this experiment, I noted one day in particular, I was having a conversation on the phone and the conversation was going south, I could and honestly would have responded in a certain way, but I noticed the words from the scripture was imprinted in my mind. I don’t know how to fully describe this experience but it wasn’t just audibly or a remembrance of the scripture, it was as if I felt the weight of the scripture imprint in my mind! That’s the only way I can actually describe this experience!
So in knowing personally the power of meditating on this scripture (and on the Word in general tbh!), I recorded this again properly with a better mic than my phone and put it online so it’s accessible to you now!
Please listen and try meditating on this frequently, you can do a 30 day challenge if you’d like and come back to tell me whether or not you had an encounter from this!
As promised!
Personally, I categorize love into 3 groups, the love we have for God, the love we have for ourselves and the love we have for others. But as a general overview, the 8 types of love as classified by ancient Greek scholars are listed below and more info on each can be found here!
- Eros (sexual passion)
- Philia (deep friendship)
- Ludus (playful love)
- Agape (love for everyone)
- Pragma (longstanding love)
- Philautia (love of the self)
- Storge (family love)
- Mania (obsessive love)
