What Is Love?

Do we understand what love is? We like to be loved, that is, to have other people love us, and live for us, and do things for us. We like the gratifications of love. But that is only miserable selfishness, if it goes no further. It is a desecration of the sacred name, to think that love, at its heart, means getting, receiving. Nay, love gives.

That is what God's love does--it finds its blessedness in giving. "God so loved the world that He gave His only-begotten Son." That is what Christ's love does--it pours out its very lifeblood, to the last drop!

The essential meaning of loving must always be giving, not receiving.

"Christ loved the church, and gave Himself up for her" Ephesians 5:25

(J.R. Miller, "Help for the Day")

No person can have right views of the love of Christ — who has not right views of the deity of Christ. His divinity gives lustre and glory — to His love. If He were not God — His love would be only a passion like ours, and would fluctuate and change. But being divine — His love is an infinite perfection, and remains immutably the same!

"Having loved His own who were in the world — He loved them unto the end!" John 13:1

~James Smith, The Love of Christ