Valentines Day: What is love really?

As Valentines Day came around I began asking myself this question: what is love? So, I set out on a quest to find the answer. I began by asking some of my friends from church and school. Here are a few answers I recieved:

"Love is sacrifice, a selfless care for others, a commitment to think of others before yourself, a vulnerability that is also the greatest strength, a devotion and giving-of-heart to something or someone. Love is the most powerful thing in existence."

"True love is when you are willing to do anything for that one person. No matter how many flaws other people see, you can look past it and see them for who they are."

"Love is the willingness to live for another person, when you feel like it and when you don't, with your entire being."

"Love is willing to die for the person you love."

"Love is when two people can care about each other more than themselves, and turn that care into actions...also I think it's more of a motion rather than an emotion."

"Love is the ultimate acceptance- celebrating the best and bringing it out in other people. Love is being able to be yourself and allowing others to do the same."

"True love endures."

After pondering these for a while, I began to wonder what an adults veiw of love would be. So, I asked some adults in my life what they thought. Here are some of their responses:

"True love is drawing the one you loved closer to God. It includes hard work, sacrifice and forgiveness but is one of the most rewarding and desired connections people can have."

"It is God-centered, unselfish, sacrificing, faithful, consistent over time, humble, rejoicing in the other's successes and sharing in the struggles."

"True Love is sticking together with whomever no matter what happens. "

"True love is sticking together year after year, in spite of each other's faults, managing to look for the good in one another, putting the other's needs above your own...and managing to really like each other most of the time."

These too I pondered for a time. All of these definitions made me wonder: what does God's word have to say about love? I found my answer in 1 Corinthians 13: 4-8a:

"Love is patient, love is kind. It does not envy, it does not boast, it is not proud. It is not rude, it is not self-seeking, it is not easily angered, it keeps no record of wrongs. Love oes not delight in evil but rejoices with the truth. It always protects, always trusts, always hopes, always perseveres. Love never fails."

I found yet another definition in John 15:13:

"Greater love has no one than this, that he lay down his life for his friends."

Going back several chapters, I found the greatest example of love in all of history:

John 3:16
"For God so loved the world that he gave his one and only Son, that whoever believes in him shall not perish but have eternal life."

Thus ended my quest. I found myself completely in awe of the depth of God's love for us. No matter how hard we try, we can never really fully explain the wonder of True Love: God's love for us. I hope I have given you something to think about. Happy Valentines Day! God bless!