What is Love?

Most, I believe, are familiar with 'the love chapter', I Corinthians 13, which I've mentioned before. The Scriptures, when mentioning love, and particularly Paul, in this passage, speaks of it in the sense of action, of things that we do, of characteristics that we exhibit, when we love. There are times, even in Scripture, when love is pretty obviously felt, both in the reception, and in the inception. Conception definitely involves feeling, and often ( usually ) is very emotionally charged. Love, while it often does involve emotion, and usually leads to an emotional attachment, is, first and foremost, an action, almost, as some say, a duty. Much trouble has been caused through the modern, some might say 'secular' view of love, and even the Scriptural example of Peter, at the end of John's Gospel, where Peter could not allow himself to commit to anything but feelings of brotherly love ( 'phileo' ) for his LORD. Relationships are often plagued by this unfortunate fact. Feelings, like most of the things that Paul mentioned in the first passage that we are focusing on here, have an end. If we allow our emotions ( feelings ) to rule our relationships, then we have a very rocky roller-coaster ride ahead of us.

Don't get me wrong: I'm not all saying that emotions are a bad thing, and neither am I saying that we should strive to hide or stifle those feelings: but rather, we should strive to control those feelings and not to base our actions upon those feelings, but to base our actions upon our love for God, rather on the love of God, which is best displayed in John 3:16, 'For God so loved the world.............'

I can say with authority, and I'm sure that most have experienced this, that a relationship ( of any kind ) that is based largely, if not wholly, upon feelings, is often doomed, and most often headed for disaster. Why do I say this? Feelings change, we can't really control those ( though sometimes we can bring them under control ), but we can control our actions. As I've often repeated, 'We all make choices': we always, except perhaps in unusual, or extreme cases have a choice of whether to react or act, whether to wait for the actions of someone  else to determine our own actions, or to make a 'preemptive strike', and decide to fulfill our purpose, our destiny, you might say, to love!

As I said earlier: there is absolutely nothing at all wrong with having or exhibiting emotion; we all have them, we all feel them ( some to a greater or lesser extent than others ), but when we allow those feelings to determine our actions, we are not acting in love, but in lust!


Writing more for myself, than for anyone else,
Charles Haddon Shank