If "God is love", What is Love?

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Writer_for_God

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Hi everyone,
I went to a young adult group that is held at my Church. We watched a short video that was focused on the idea that God is Love, that God loves us unconditionally etc. My first serious introduction to the Catholic faith years ago was literally the phrase “God is love”, which was presented to me in the title of Pope Benedict’s first encyclical.
I think my whole journey to God has been centered around knowing the meaning behind the phrase “God is Love”. For me it was a redefinition of what I thought love was and also a redefinition of what I thought God was. Intellectually I think I know that God is love. But the question has always come to me “What is love?” For most, I think people think love is just a good feeling. For me, love is something I do especially when I don’t feel like doing it.
But I wanted to pose the question “What is love?” Often it seems that we explain love in terms of itself. I really want to have a better appreciation and understanding and experience of what love is. In addition to asking for any suggestions for reading and other forms of media on what love is, please pray for me and for all people, especially those who do not know or believe God loves them unconditionally, to experience this overpowering love in their hearts, their souls, and minds, etc.
But I would love to hear any attempts to better explain or convey what love is. And also, please pray that we allow the Holy Spirit to teach us about this Love that God is.
Thank you for reading.
God bless you all. Amen.
 
Writer_for_God said:
But I wanted to pose the question “What is love?”
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“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.” I Cor. 13: 4-8

Substitute “God” for every instance of “love” or “it”. Then, put your own name there, to find out what God wants you to be in the world.
 
Love is the bond that unifies our apparent separation. It is the force behind reconciliation and community.
 
Consummate good
For the sake of good
And the giving of all things good.
 
I am physically incapable of hearing the question “what is love” without getting “baby don’t hurt me, don’t hurt me, no more…” stuck in my head. shakes fist at title and goes to try to remove the earworm song
 
Alex337 said:
I am physically incapable of hearing the question “what is love” without getting “baby don’t hurt me, don’t hurt me, no more…” stuck in my head. shakes fist at title and goes to try to remove the earworm song
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Roxbury guys!
 
If you truly love someone, you value them above everyone. You wish for nothing but their good. You long for their love in return. You want their company. You want to show your love to them. You wish to make them happy. You wish to know them, and to understand them. You wish for them to know you, and to understand you. You care, and will do anything for them. You will expect little in return.

I believe this is how God feels about us.
 
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What id God loves each and everyone of us as he loves himself?
 
Writer_for_God said:
Hi everyone,
I went to a young adult group that is held at my Church. We watched a short video that was focused on the idea that God is Love, that God loves us unconditionally etc. My first serious introduction to the Catholic faith years ago was literally the phrase “God is love”, which was presented to me in the title of Pope Benedict’s first encyclical.
I think my whole journey to God has been centered around knowing the meaning behind the phrase “God is Love”. For me it was a redefinition of what I thought love was and also a redefinition of what I thought God was. Intellectually I think I know that God is love. But the question has always come to me “What is love?” For most, I think people think love is just a good feeling. For me, love is something I do especially when I don’t feel like doing it.
But I wanted to pose the question “What is love?” Often it seems that we explain love in terms of itself. I really want to have a better appreciation and understanding and experience of what love is. In addition to asking for any suggestions for reading and other forms of media on what love is, please pray for me and for all people, especially those who do not know or believe God loves them unconditionally, to experience this overpowering love in their hearts, their souls, and minds, etc.
But I would love to hear any attempts to better explain or convey what love is. And also, please pray that we allow the Holy Spirit to teach us about this Love that God is.
Thank you for reading.
God bless you all. Amen.
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Jesus defined one who loves Him, with a conditional statement. It begins with “IF”. Obviously that means do everything He tells us to do.
 
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Myles_Falworth said:
If you truly love someone, you value them above everyone.
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But we are called to love everyone, even our enemies. Perhaps a better way of saying it is “I want the best possible outcome for person X.”
Myles_Falworth said:
You long for their love in return. You want their company. You want to show your love to them. You wish to make them happy. You wish to know them, and to understand them. You wish for them to know you, and to understand you. You care, and will do anything for them. You will expect little in return.
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I don’t think all this is a requirement for love (although it may happen in some circumstances). Love is a choice, not a feeling. You can love someone without wanting their company, making them happy, knowing and understanding them, or them knowing and understanding you. I suspect that most of the opportunities we are given to love another involve knowing that they will not ever know and understand you, or make them happy.

Jesus loves us despite the fact that many don’t want his company, don’t want to understand him, etc.
 
“I asked Jesus, ‘How much do you love me?’ And Jesus said, ‘This much.’ Then He stretched out His arms and died.”

– Unknown

God is Love and Love is God
 
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‘In finding himself “created” and not a product of chance or of natural mechanisms, man feels loved. In Jesus, then, the Logos-Creator takes flesh and reveals in greater depth the real design of love for man. The Logos becomes “this” man, Jesus of Nazareth, the Saviour.’ - Encyclical Deus Caritas Est
 
Francis said:
God is Love and Love is God
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I agree 100%, And that is the reason I think of love as “bringing God to others”.

I have a feeling people think of “love” as something they have to do to others, which is why want to know fully what “love” is. The effect therefore is like that of a tube closed in one end and love being squeezed out of the other like toothpaste: limited and prone to burn out.

There are others who know that “God is love” but it seems they cannot understand this “love”. They pray, they go to Mass, they do penance, because they ask for God’s love so they can be happy and love God and others back, but they do not “feel” or “understand” this love and so they get frustrated. They are like a tube open to God’s love in one end but they refuse to open up to others until they see His love flow in them, forgetting that as a tube movement only happens when both ends are open.

For this is how it should be: we must abide in God’s love, then love. We must believe and trust that “God is love”, not necessarily understanding what that fully entails for it is a mystery, and start loving God and other people even if we do not fully know what “love” is.

As Mother Teresa loved to say: “We are called to be faithful, not successful,” since, as G.K. Chesterton said, “If a thing is worth doing, it is worth doing badly.”
 
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Read 1 Cor 13 as it does a really great job of telling us something of what love is, and what it does. Love is self-sacrificing. It always supports, always forgives. It’s both an act and a feeling, a powerful drive if you will, to secure the good of another. In the presence of God they say that love is so “knowable” and thick it’s virtually tactile. It-He-brings a total and complete sense of peace and well-being- and joy, elation, tears.
 
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If you watched Frozen, it actually does a good job explaining it. It’s wanting what is good for someone else.

Now what we mean nowadays when we say we “love” someone? In general, there are 4 meanings (and more depending on how wide of a net you want to throw). They are as follow
  1. Caring for someone
  2. Are similar to someone
  3. Greatly admire someone
  4. Greatly desire someone
You may notice that the definition I gave above matches the first one. That is the true base definition. The others are only good when they add to the first, otherwise you step into corruption. If you pay attention, God has all 4 of those meanings when he says he loves us.
  1. He cares about us so much that he died for us
  2. He made us in his image and then became man. “God became man in order that man may become God”
  3. He admires us sort of like a father watching over his children. “How great is your faith!”
  4. He greatly desires us that he continually gives himself to us
 
One more thought is that God is Love is a proof that he is more than one person. If God is Perfect, and love is a key part to perfection, then God would need to be able to love someone beyond eternity. It is through the Love between the Trinity that he has this perfection
 
steve-b said:
Jesus defined one who loves Him, with a conditional statement. It begins with “IF”. Obviously that means do everything He tells us to do.
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Respectfully opinion only. Agree there is an IF and lots of IF’s within His Spoken Word, is this not true?

Lets ask Our Heavenly Father, to define what the true meaning of>> What Love is? Within His Spoken Word, Wisdom given for all to hear?

Matthew Chapter 5 begins with >> The Beatitudes << Blessed are…?.Love, Truth, Faithful devotion, Merciful, stand up for righteousness, True Love is Love in action?

Jesus his love, was love in action, was it not?

Matthew 5:44 > But I say to you love your enemies and pray for those who persecute you…

Matthew 5: 43 > You have heard that it was said, "you shall love your neighbor and hate your enemy. But I say to you, love your enemies and pray for those who persecute you…

Matthew 5:45> that you may be children of your heavenly Father, for he makes the sun rise on the bad and the good and causes rain to fall on the just and the unjust.

Matthew 5 :46 -48 For if you love those who love you, what recompense will you have? Do not tax collectors do the same? And if you greet your brothers only, what is unusual about that? Do not the pagans do the same? So be perfect, just as your heavenly Father is perfect.

A lot of >>if>> within this and else where, within His Spoken Word, is there not?

1 Corinthians 1-13 If I speak in the tongues of mortals and of angels, but do not have love, I am noisy gong or a clanging cymbal. And if I have prophetic powers and understand all mysteries and all knowledge and if I have all faith, so as to remove mountains, but do not have love, I am nothing. If I give away all my possessions and if I hand over my body so that I may boast, but do not have love I gain nothing. Love is patient, love is not envious or boastful or arrogance or rude. It does not insist on its own way…

1 John 4:7 Beloved let us love one another for love is from God and everyone who loves is born of God and knows God.

And Knows>> our Heavenly Father?
But you do not ask me, seek me, nor knock at my door.

There is a lot more bible verses on what Love is, what Love means, is defined within His Spoken Word, is it not?

Who better to ask, then our Heavenly Father, fullness of Love Himself > What is Love and Loves true meaning?

True Love is Love in action?

Easy to love your own, our Heavenly Father telling us>> even those who are unrighteous Love their own?

Peace 🙂
 
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