What Is Love? - February 11

Read John 13:34-35

Do not be conformed to this world, but be transformed by the renewal of your mind, that by testing you may discern what is the will of God, what is good and acceptable and perfect.

Reflect

“A new commandment I give to you, that you love one another: just as I have loved you, you also are to love one another. By this all people will know that you are my disciples, if you have love for one another.”

Love. It’s a word we use all the time and yet we struggle to define it. Is it an attraction? Is it affection? Is it admiration? Is it an attachment? Some say that love is love. Some say that love is blind. The Beatles say that “love is all you need.”

Defining love is extra confusing because it is both a noun and a verb. We are “in love” and we “love each other.” Miriam-Webster offers nine definitions for love as a noun and four definitions of love as a verb! You see, the world doesn’t always agree on what love is, where it came from in the first place, or how to do it well.

So let’s go back to the Bible and see what God says love is and how to love His way. The apostle John wrote a lot about love, especially in his first letter. In 1 John 4:7, John told us where love comes from: “Beloved, let us love one another, for love is from God, and whoever loves has been born of God and knows God.”

God is the only reason that love exists in the universe. If it weren’t for God, we wouldn’t know love at all. But God chose to reveal His love to us. How? “...God shows his love for us in that while we were still sinners, Christ died for us” (Romans 5:8). Or maybe you know this one: “For God so loved the world, that he gave his only Son, that whoever believes in him should not perish but have eternal life” (John 3:16).

God’s love for us is not self-seeking or self-serving. It is sacrificial. That is the kind of love that Jesus says is the greatest: “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). If we want to love the way that God loves us, we love sacrificially.

In fact, in today’s verses, Jesus said that this is how the world will know that we are Christians. When we love each other the way that Christ loved us, the world takes notice because the world doesn’t understand how this kind of love between people is even possible.

You may be wondering the same thing. How is this kind of love possible? Do you know anyone who is difficult to love? You’ve probably realized by now that it’s really hard for us to love anyone the way that Christ loved us. Some days, it’s even hard to love our own families that way!

Thankfully, this kind of love is not something that we have to conjure up on our own. In fact, we can’t love the way God has loved us in our own strength or by our own efforts. Expressing Christ’s love is not a human work. It is the evidence of the Holy Spirit’s work in us and through us.

In Galatians 5:22-23, the apostle Paul listed out nine character traits that are evidence of our salvation and of the Holy Spirit’s work in our lives. He called these the “Fruit of the Spirit” and love is the very first one listed.

You see, according to God, love is so much more than what the world makes it out to be. As Christians, it’s our job to submit to the Holy Spirit and let Him work in our hearts so that, as His love pours out of us, the world gets a glimpse of what love really is.

Respond

Lord, thank You for Your incredible, sacrificial love. You loved me though I was unlovable and undeserving. I want to love others the way that You’ve loved me but I can’t do it on my own. Holy Spirit, change my heart. Teach me to love like You so the world will know that I am one of Yours. Amen.

Reveal

Ask God to show you how to express His love to someone who needs it today.