What is Real Love?

“Is love more than just a feeling?”

What is love? An Internet search engine indicated over 12 billion results for that question. Billboard’s top love song of all time is Endless Love, which held the number one position on the charts for nine weeks. Lionel Richie and Diana Ross closed their hit song with the words, “You'll be the only one, 'cause no one can deny, this love I have inside, and I'll give it all to you, my love…my endless love.” No matter if we are single, married, young or old - we want to know love. We want to find that special someone we can experience an endless love with.

The Merriam-Webster dictionary defines love as “a feeling of a strong or constant affection for a person.” I know this is a respected dictionary’s definition, but is this definition accurate? What if the feeling slips away over time? What if the feeling is for more than one person, especially after we are married? Is love really just a feeling?

 Love has a feeling nature to it. The Scriptures use beautiful imagery to describe this, “Many waters cannot quench love, neither can floods drown it. If a man offered for love all the wealth of his house, he would be utterly despised.” (Song of Solomon 8:7) This God-given romantic love between a man and woman has a mystical attraction that draws them toward one another. It is an attraction that cannot be quenched, drowned or purchased with all the riches in the world.

Love has a moral nature to it. The Scriptures speak eloquently about this, saying “Love is patient and kind; love does not envy or boast; it is not arrogant or rude. It does not insist on its own way; it is not irritable or resentful; it does not rejoice at wrongdoing, but rejoices with the truth. Love bears all things, believes all things, hopes all things, endures all things. Love never ends.” (1 Corinthians 13:4-8)

When words like patience, kindness, not envying, boasting, nor being arrogant or rude are used, it reflects the moral nature of love.  

When a woman uses sharp words to tear down her husband, children or boyfriend, that is immoral and no demonstration of real love. But when she shows restraint by being patient and not rude, that is love. 

Love has a deliberate nature to it. When a man is focused and determined in his work, he has a choice in how he will respond to that internal drive. Will he yield himself fully to his career and neglect his family, reflecting nothing of real love? Or will he not insist on his own way by deliberately loving his family, through focusing on them as well?   

How can we find this God-given romantic love, with high moral standards that puts others above ourselves? Is it beyond our reach? Is it possible for us to obtain it?

It starts with the author of love Himself - God. For the Bible says, “God is love,” (1 John 4:8) and true love can only be found in Him. Nowhere else.

To obtain this divine love, you must turn from your selfish ways and believe, or commit yourself fully to His Only Son – Jesus. The Bible says in John 3:16, “For God so loved the world, that he gave his only Son, that whoever believes in him should not perish but have eternal life.”

In Jesus, God demonstrated real love when Christ suffered, died and rose again for you. He did that so the greatest barrier to real love can be removed from your heart – your self-centeredness. And it can be replaced with a new nature, one that is God and others centered. A nature that is filled with His supernatural love and divine power, to enable you to live out that love, even in the most difficult situations.  

A prayer for you – Lord God, we confess how we have hurt those whom we have loved, because it has been all about ourselves. We desperately want real love, but we need your help. Change our hearts, O God. Remove our hearts of stone and fill them with your divine love. In Jesus’ name. Amen.