What is love?

Happy Tuesday, everyone!

What is love?

There are so many ways we use that word that its meaning can become easily lost. We can love a TV show, love a sandwich, love someone's sense of humor, love our neighbor or friends, love our spouse/partner, and love our dog or cat.

The Greeks had 6 words they used to describe love:

• Eros - erotic or sexual love
• Philia (or Phileo) - deep friendship
• Ludus - playful love
• Agape - love for everyone (considered the highest form of love)
• Pragma - longstanding love
• Philautia - love of self (two types - one is healthy, the other is narcissistic)

God's love is often described using the word Agape. It's where you give everything you have and are to show love to someone else. It's selfless, giving and caring. It is more concerned with the other person than themselves. It's sacrificial.

This type of love is foreign to most people. We are often more concerned about our own well-being than the needs of others. We become greedy, hoarding money and possessions for a myriad of reasons - most of which are unhealthy.)

Jesus Christ, on the other hand, showed us God's Agape love by pouring Himself out for others. In His ministry, He taught, He supplied people's need for food, healing and relationship with God, He died an ugly, terrible death to save us from ourselves and our sins.

But then He also rose again to give us new life. He didn't have to do any of this, but He chose to do it. So, I would submit that love is also a choice.

There is a chapter in the Bible that is referred to as "The Love Chapter." It's 1 Corinthians 13:

"If I speak in the tongues of men or of angels, but do not have love, I am only a resounding gong or a clanging cymbal.

If I have the gift of prophecy?and can fathom all mysteries?and all knowledge,?and if I have a faith?that can move mountains,?but do not have love, I am nothing.

If I give all I possess to the poor?and give over my body to hardship that I may boast,?but do not have love, I gain nothing.

Love is patient,?love is kind. It does not envy, it does not boast, it is not proud. It does not dishonor others, it is not self-seeking,?it is not easily angered,?it keeps no record of wrongs.

Love does not delight in evil?but rejoices with the truth. It always protects, always trusts, always hopes, always perseveres.

Love never fails. But where there are prophecies,?they will cease; where there are tongues,?they will be stilled; where there is knowledge, it will pass away.?For we know in part?and we prophesy in part,?but when completeness comes,?what is in part disappears.

When I was a child, I talked like a child, I thought like a child, I reasoned like a child. When I became a man, I put the ways of childhood?behind me.

For now we see only a reflection as in a mirror;?then we shall see face to face.?Now I know in part; then I shall know fully, even as I am fully known.

And now these three remain: faith, hope and love.?But the greatest of these is love."

Show the love of God to all you meet today. It can change people's lives.

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