What is Love?

Love is a decision. Many people are under the misconception that love is a feeling, an emotion. It is not. We express it emotionally but we have to first make a decision to love. Sometimes we have to make a daily decision to love. I know I do. God wants us to love the unloveable. What that means is that sometimes we have to make a conscious decision to love someone even though we may not want to or even when they may not deserve it. In Matthew 5:44 we are told to love our enemies, so we as Christians should want the best for everyone, even the people we do not like. A priest at my parish told me something that really had a lot of meaning to me and it was that "We are our most loving when we choose to love even when we don't really feel like it." WOW! We can be our most loving when we make a choice to love when we are feeling unloving.

By dying on the cross, Jesus showed us the ultimate love. He showed us that sometimes love requires sacrifice. He loved us so much that He died for us and for our sins so that we may have eternal life. Jesus was sinless but He died for our sins! What an act of love! Maybe if we remembered that in our daily lives it would be so much easier to show acts of love to everyone, even the unloveable. 

True Christian love should inspire us all to do both the corporal and the spiritual works of mercy. The corporal works of mercy are as follows:

• Feed the hungry
• Give drink to the thirsty
• Clothe the naked
• Shelter the homeless
• Visit the sick
• Ransom the captive
• Bury the dead

The spiritual works of mercy are:

• Instruct the ignorant
• Counsel the doubtful
• Admonish sinners
• Bear wrongs patiently
• Forgive offenses willingly
• Comfort the afflicted
• Pray for the living and the dead

Jesus tells us that we must show our love for others or pay the consequences. In John 15:2,4,16 He says to us: "Every branch of mine that bears no fruit, he takes away and every branch that does bear fruit he prunes, that it may bear more fruit. Abide in me, and I in you. As the branch can not bear fruit by itself, unless it abides in the vine, neither can you, unless you abide in me. You did not choose me, but I chose you and appointed you that you should go and bear fruit and that your fruit should abide; so that whatever you ask the Father in my name, He may give it to you."

We should all try to show our love for others by doing acts of kindnesses, doing the spiritual or corporal acts of mercy, even just smiling at everyone. You never know when one small act of love can make a huge difference in someone else's life.

Here are some other scriptures on love:

Matthew 22: 37-40: And he said to him, "You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, and with all your soul, and with all your mind. This is the great and first commandment. And a second is like it, You shall love your neighbor as yourself. On these two commandments depend all the law and the prophets."
 

1 Corinthians 13: 1-8, 13: If I speak in the tongues of men and of angels, but have not love, I am a noisy gong or a clanging cymbal. And if I have prophetic powers, and understand all mysteries and all knowledge, and if I have all faith, so as to remove mountains, but have not love, I am nothing. If I give away all I have, and if I deliver my body to be burned, but have not love, I gain nothing. Love is patient and kind; love is not jealous or boastful; it is not arrogant or rude. Love does not insist on its own way; it is not irritable or resentful; Love bears all things, believes all things, hopes all things, endures all things. Love never ends; as for prophecies, they will pass away; as for tongues, they will cease; as for knowledge, it will pass away. So faith, hope, love abide, these three; but the greatest of these is love.
 

Romans 13:8-10: Owe no one anything, except to love one another; for he who loves his neighbor has fulfilled the law. The commandments, "You shall not commit adultery, You shall not kill, You shall not steal, You shall not covet," and any other commandment, are summed up in this sentence, "You shall love your neighbor as yourself." Love does no wrong to a neighbor; therefore love is the fulfilling of the law.
 

Galatians 5:22-23: But the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, self-control; against such there is no law.
 

1 John 3:13-19: Do not wonder, brethren, that the world hates you. We know that we have passed out of death into life, because we love the brethren. He who does not love abides in death. Any one who hates his brother is a murderer, and you know that no murderer has eternal life abiding in him. By this we know love, that he laid down his life for us; and we ought to lay down our lives for the brethren. But if any one has the world's goods and sees his brother in need, yet closes his heart against him, how does God's love abide in him? Little children, let us not love in word or speech but in deed and in truth. By this we shall know that we are of the truth, and reassure our hearts before him.
 

1 John 4:7-21: Beloved, let us love one another; for love is of God, and he who loves is born of God and knows God. He who does not love does not know God; for God is love. In this the love of God was made manifest among us, that God sent his only Son into the world, so that we might live through him. In this is love, not that we loved God but that he loved us and sent his Son to be the expiation for our sins. Beloved, if God so loved us, we also ought to love one another. No man has ever seen God; if we love one another, God abides in us and his love is perfected in us. By this we know that we abide in him and he in us, because he has given us of his own Spirit. And we have seen and testify that the Father has sent his Son as the Savior of the world. Whoever confesses that Jesus is the Son of God, God abides in him, and he in God. So we know and believe the love God has for us. God is love, and he who abides in love abides in God, and God abides in him. In this is love perfected with us, that we may have confidence for the day of judgment, because as he is so are we in this world. There is no fear in love, but perfect love casts out fear. For fear has to do with punishment, and he who fears is not perfected in love. We love, because he first loved us. If any one says, "I love God," and hates his brother, he is a liar; for he who does not love his brother whom he has seen, cannot love God whom he has not seen. And this commandment we have from him, that he who loves God should love his brother also.
 

May each and every one of you find Peace, Joy, Love and Blessings in your daily life.
Valerie