Love is a wonderfully loaded word. It can mean anything from gushy feelings, lustful passions, or those forbidden words. It fills our greatest songs, is the content of the best films, and is the words of the finest greeting cards. But when it comes down to defining love, another standard may be in order.
The Scripture speak of love definitively, leaving no question as to what love is and how we are to do it. Th apostle and elder John wrote more on love than perhaps any other New Testament writer. He writes this about love in his epistle:
"In this is love, not that we have loved God but that He loved us and sent His Son to be the propitiation for our sins. Beloved, if God so loved us, we also ought to love one another." (1 John 4:10-11).
He also writes in his Gospel:
"Whoever has my commandments and keeps them, he it is who loves me. And he who loves me will be loved by my Father, and I will love him and manifest myself to him." (John 14:21).
"This is my commandment, that you love one another as I have loved you. Greater love has no one than this, that someone lay down his life for his friends." (John 15:12-13).
These are but a snapshot of the Scripture's definition of love; but even so, it is clear that how God has loved us in sending His Son, Christ Jesus, as a sacrifice for our sins should compel us to love each other in a like manner. This is what love is all about. It is an action with intent. It is a purpose with feeling that plays itself out in deeds that support word. In the end, it is all about God, what He has done and what it means for us.
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