What is Love?

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nw2u

Guest
#1
#1
Okay. This is difficult to put in words. If love is a decision, then how do you know the difference between love and using someone? Need help with this one. I thought love was an emotion that grew stronger over time spent with someone whom I enjoyed being with. If love is a decision, is there no emotion involved? Is it just that we look at someone's status in life and say to ourselves, "That's where I want to be"? Do we then hope that lust turns into something more? Need some help on this one. Hope I am posting in the right forum. Thanks for your responses.
 
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nukreation

Guest
#2
#2
Hope that 'lust turns into something more'? I don't think 'lust' is the word you meant, perhaps 'attraction' is what you are refering to?

Lust is about pleasing ourselves, whereas love is something that we share with someone else.

Attraction is what draws you to someone, but it can come and go. This is where the decision to love someone comes in.

Relationships requires investment. If we don't sew into the relationships then we won't reap, and it may feel like we are having to choose to love, whereas if we lean in and sew into the relationship then loving will come naturally.

A relationship in my opinion needs a focus beyond ourselves. The kingdom of God makes for a great focus. I believe that if a couple lean in together on God with a common purpose of building Gods kingdom you can't go wrong.
 
shawntc

shawntc

Senior Member
#3
May 7, 2010
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#3
I'm with nukreation on this one. Love is not those tingly feel-good sensations associated with having a crush on someone. That's called infatuation. We want to call that love because of the romantic implications we've come to associate with it. But love is not strictly an emotion, as much as it's an action. The Greek word that describes the love God has for us is agape, which is a love where someone puts the needs of others above their own. Love means putting in the effort to engage in the other person's life, work out conflicts that will inevitably pop up, compromising to find the happy medium, and so on. The sense of attraction does ebb and flow, although if you're with the right person I don't think it would permanently disappear.

I'm not sure what you mean by hoping lust turns into something more.
 
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SpaceCowboy

Guest
#5
#5
Love is selfless and doesn't seek it's own. So regardless of whatevers love always hopes and trusts and cares. True love is self sacrificing. The passions of the flesh is NOT love. How much we understand true love is directly related to how much we know Jesus because he IS the perfect personification of love. We as humans have no concept of this divine love and in fact try to compare it to shallow lust.

Love is much more then that.
 
Nautilus

Nautilus

Senior Member
#6
Jun 29, 2012
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#6
Spartacus got it right. Thats all I thought of too.
 
Snackersmom

Snackersmom

Senior Member
#8
May 10, 2011
1,472
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#8
I honestly don't see love as a decision that we make. Neither does it have anything to do with lust. You can love someone without having any idea what they look like.

Love is so much more than an emotion; I would describe it as a force. It can hit you when you're least expecting it.

It is impossible to quantify, properly explain, or fully understand (until we get to heaven).

Love is patient, love is kind; true love doesn't give up when someone disappoints you.

Some confuse attraction and infatuation with love, but they aren't the same (although they sometimes accompany love). If you stop caring about someone after they reject you, then you probably never truly loved them in the first place, you were merely attracted to them or infatuated with them.

We are called to love everyone with a pure love, the love that Jesus gives us. However, some people will be extra-special to you, and there's nothing wrong with that ;)

Love can grow and mature over time, and there are things we can do to "nurture" it. But I don't see true love as something that you can fall "into" and "out of" at the drop of a hat.
 
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AsifinPassing

AsifinPassing

Senior Member
#9
Jul 13, 2010
3,608
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#9
Nice question, bro. This is an area I am studying myself.

Well, needless to say, there are countless books, discussions, views, ideas, theories, philosophies, theologies, and yada yada yada...of love for what it is, how it's applied, ext.

So, seeing as I wrote a paper of this earlier in the summer, I'll try to locate my notes or power point presentation and figure out a way to post them here. "Just a moment!"
 
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Liz01

Guest
#11
#11
I think that the love is a decision.
If God put as first comandment to love Him and then love others and our enemies and tell to husbands to love their wives then definitely love is a decision but i think that real love is only possible when we have faith in Him.

Matthew 22:36-39 "“Teacher, which is the greatest commandment in the Law?”Jesus replied: “‘Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind.’This is the first and greatest commandment. And the second is like it: ‘Love your neighbor as yourself."

Matthew 22:36-39 "But I tell you, love your enemies and pray for those who persecute you"

Ephesians 5:28 "In this same way, husbands ought to love their wives as their own bodies. He who loves his wife loves himself."
 
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nw2u

Guest
#13
#13
Thank you all for responding. I guess I have a lot to learn. I thought lust was the starting point. I guess that is attraction. Attraction then, is just a feeling that I would like to get to know someone better? Then I was thinking that it takes a desire to get to know someone for the attraction to start moving in the direction of love. I know there have been many times I have thought it might be interesting to talk with someone but, I knew I would not be interested in anything more than a platonic relationship. That is not attraction then? This is where the line gets fuzzy for me. I thought love was the emotion, the feeling and doing things that please her and make her happy were the products of love. Caring for her, sharing with her, protecting her and listening(hearing what she is talking about), I thought were the external evidence of the internal feelings(of love). Still thinking. Still learning. Thank you so much.
 
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Jordache

Guest
#14
#14
Love is a decision because real love requires action. If we love Jesus, we serve Him. We decide in our own will to move. Love does have its place in the emotions, but its core is in the will. We love becaus God first loved us. It was an action. He made a choice in his will to give us grace. He healed people. He delivered people. He spoke to people. He performed actions which I'm sure at times he may have had other ideas. But in love he reached out.
We chose to love by getting up in the middle of the night to pickup your teen from the party they weren't supposed to go to. We'd really rather stay in bed, but we choose to love. We love by giving the last bit of your favorite dinner to someone else because we really would have rather eaten it ourselves. We love when we hold our tongues. We love when we admit our faults. These are not emotional reactions. They are willfull choices. If they were emotional we would have done the opposite.
 
LightningClap0002

LightningClap0002

Senior Member
#15
Feb 10, 2008
3,371
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#15
nw2u said:
Thank you all for responding. I guess I have a lot to learn. I thought lust was the starting point. I guess that is attraction. Attraction then, is just a feeling that I would like to get to know someone better? Then I was thinking that it takes a desire to get to know someone for the attraction to start moving in the direction of love. I know there have been many times I have thought it might be interesting to talk with someone but, I knew I would not be interested in anything more than a platonic relationship. That is not attraction then? This is where the line gets fuzzy for me. I thought love was the emotion, the feeling and doing things that please her and make her happy were the products of love. Caring for her, sharing with her, protecting her and listening(hearing what she is talking about), I thought were the external evidence of the internal feelings(of love). Still thinking. Still learning. Thank you so much.
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I think the world has corrupted love and has portrayed it as a feeling. It's the dumbed down, overly simplified and in many ways harmful view of love. Especially when you consider that God IS love... God is so much bigger than a feeling. And then of course this is 'Greater love has no man than this that he lay down his life for a friend.'

Love in its most pure form is self-sacrificing; as others have said.
 
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Beloved57

Guest
#16
#16
One of my favorite Christian Musician of all times is Don Francisco, and he has a song with these words Love is not a feeling it is an Act of your will. In so many words he saids Jesus didn't died for you because it was fun, but it had to be done (in other words when our Lord and King, was dying on the cross, we can be certain Jesus wasn't saying I feel good about this, but He did it for us; because of His great love for us (John 15:13). This kind of love in called Agape in the greek, and we as Christian are also called to it (I John 3:16). In other words it is saying I care for you so much I uncoditional give my all for you, no matter what.

There are two other greek words used for love in the New Testament to my knowledge, there might even be a fourth.
Phileo--is like the love parents have for there offsprings.
Eros--I think you can understand, without translation.
 
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