What Is Love?

The Constitution & Structure of Love 

A. Love Fights:  Every day we live in a battleground of spiritual warfare. The man who loves is keenly aware of this, and so lives accordingly.  Love fights for what is right, to herald the Kingdom of our Sovereign LORD, Jesus.

     Christ and Christ alone is our model of love. We worship what Jesus said concerning love, and we beg the Lord to send His Spirit to empassion us, enabling us to strive mightily to embody the actions, commands, and moral lessons from His parables, so that our lights shall so shine before men that they cannot but see that "we have been with Jesus," and see some ineffaceable aspects of the glory, beauty, and wonders, of God.  In this, we work out our salvation with fear and trembling.     

   "God is love."  (John 4:8)  God had all power in creating the universe, but He chose to limit His power over human beings, in giving them free will. We have freedom to be snooty, to get up late from bed, lying there as inveterate sluggards, frittering our lives away, storing up regrets as tepid fodder to amplify future despair.  God gives us even the freedom to scoff at life: "Lions, and Tigers and Bears, Oh My!"
   Love puts on the armor of God and afresh, daily takes up that noble and most gallant fight against dissolution -- an abject, fleshly wallowing in the very latitude of freedom to misbehave, walk not with God, abusing the autonomy God has bequeathed unto us in creating us with Free Will. Without free will, we cannot love. For, love is a voluntary action, meaningless if not positively chosen and continually conjured from the depth of the individual will.  

Proverbs 6:10-11 ESV "A little sleep, a little slumber, a little folding of the hands to rest, and poverty will come upon you like a robber, and want like an armed man."  

The Inveterate Sluggard:  KJV:  "Yet a little sleep, a little slumber, a little folding of the hands to sleep: so shall thy poverty come as one that travelleth, and thy want as an armed man." 
  inveterate -- firmly established by long continuance, as a disease; chronic; settled or confirmed in a habit, practice, or feeling.  

Scoffers Delight in Self-conceit.  I should know, for I find that I am one. M. Scott Peck wrote that we can most confidently see evil by looking into our own hearts ... in his text, "People of The Lie: Hope for Healing Human Evil." I have found myself noticing a short person, and for an instant, imagining something that might be put into words as such, "Well, at least I am not short." -- gleaning an imagined sense of some superiority. Not from Christ. 
   To this I say that one who loves and walks in Christ should have a focus on a particular sin tendency he has noticed recently -- one to which the Spirit has called his attention -- and be systematically working on eliminating it. We must herein "Take Every Though Captive."  ("Casting down imaginations, and every high thing that exalteth itself against the knowledge of God, and bringing into captivity every thought to the obedience of Christ; And having in a readiness to revenge all disobedience, when your obedience is fulfilled." 2 Cor. 10:5-6)  I need to learn to imagine myself as a short person, glad to be alive, short, and thriving in Christ! Wholly unconcerned with physical stature. 

   Scoffing is public when one calls out in derision.  However, to scoff is a private sin when one has a scoffing thought but withholds it from outward expression.  Yea, scoffing requires not even moral agreement with the thought; even the flash of a checked thought of ridicule, disdain, or value judgment of a person that is divorced from that person's unassailable status as being fashioned in the image of God constitutes scoffing.  

EG. 1:   For example, I am exposed to much scoffing among the students in the high school where I work as a long-term substitute teacher (hereafter merely, "Long Term Sub," using the loose and free, clubby vernacular of public school staff parlance).  This exposure has heightened my attention to instances wherein I may be infected by this attitude of despair, self-worship, and vanity.  And, I can find it, and pray that the Spirit work with me to root it out, cleansing me from this vacuous temptation to walk in a way that is not one of sincere, steady prayer without ceasing. But we are called out of the world; we believers should take no pleasure in other's infirmity or misfortunes. Rather, precisely when we find those in want, we are called upon to address and remedy their needs. 

EG. 2: 

 
2 Corinthians 10:1-6: 
   I, Paul, myself entreat you, by the meekness and gentleness of Christ—I who am humble when face to face with you, but bold toward you when I am away!— I beg of you that when I am present I may not have to show boldness with such confidence as I count on showing against some who suspect us of walking according to the flesh. For though we walk in the flesh, we are not waging war according to the flesh. For the weapons of our warfare are not of the flesh but have divine power to destroy strongholds. We destroy arguments and every lofty opinion raised against the knowledge of God, and take every thought captive to obey Christ, being ready to punish every disobedience, when your obedience is complete.

2 Peter 3:1-8: 
   This is now the second letter that I am writing to you, beloved. In both of them I am stirring up your sincere mind by way of reminder, that you should remember the predictions of the holy prophets and the commandment of the Lord and Savior through your apostles, knowing this first of all, that scoffers will come in the last days with scoffing, following their own sinful desires. They will say, “Where is the promise of his coming? For ever since the fathers fell asleep, all things are continuing as they were from the beginning of creation.” For they deliberately overlook this fact, that the heavens existed long ago, and the earth was formed out of water and through water by the word of God, and that by means of these the world that then existed was deluged with water and perished. But by the same word the heavens and earth that now exist are stored up for fire, being kept until the day of judgment and destruction of the ungodly.

1 Corinthians 13:4-7
     "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."  

B. Personal Observations: 

Negative: 
  a. If a man loves you, he will never raise his voice at you. 
  b. He will not interrupt your speech. 
  c. He will never leave you.
  d. He will not turn you away. Rather, he will always welcome you and listen to you when you come to speak with him about anything. 
  e. He will place no condition upon your behavior in order that you might abide with him. 
  f. He will not be aloof, not leave you hanging, wondering what he wants. Rather, he will consistently tell you want he wants of you. He will always share his preferences, else you can never know him. (This is a serious sin in any relationship, but particularly within marriage. It is the sin of abandonment, one of the two scriptural behaviors which stand as a valid cause for divorce.)
  g. He will not be quick to anger, or deal in unrighteous anger with you, but he will have left the qualities and distinctive features of The Old Man behind (Colossians 3)
  h. He will not be proud or arrogant, difficult to be with. (Proverbs 16:5)
  i. He will not relish the life of low morals.
  j. He will never throw in the towel. He will never give up on you. For Love never gives up, for "Love bears all things, believes all things, hopes all things, endures all things." (1 Corinthians 13:7) 

Positive: 
  a. He will enjoy your company. 
  b. He will remember what you say. 
  c. He will trust you. 
  d. He will freely share his heart so that you can know him: 
      i. He should share his feelings and desires, but not require compliance as a condition of his love.
         Rather, he would use language such as, "I want for you to do this." rather than "Do This!" or, "If you do not do this, you lose my company. I will no longer listen to you."  (I could be wrong, and I realize that I am extreme. Other people practically do place conditions and restraints, but I cannot agree.)
      ii. He will answer your questions. (ie. He will not keep secrets.) 
     iii. He will tell you the truth, no matter how much it may hurt him or compromise his station in life.    

  e. He will keep the Sabbath. One day each week, this man will seek ways to reflect habitually upon God (God's past actions and God's promise of a future rest). Without keeping the Ten Commandments, no one can truly love in the fuller sense of Christ.   
  f. By his passion for maintaining and cultivating and maintaining strong moral character (through which alone he can truly love you) he will steadily structure his lifestyle to avoid the influence of bad company). Do not be deceived: “Bad company ruins good morals."  (1 Corinthians 15:33) 

Love does not demand or command beyond clear Biblical prescriptions. Even Jesus tells clearly what people should do, even as being Himself the Truth, does not force people to believer in Him, stay with Him, or Walk with Him... though He makes it clear that it is in their best interest to Walk with Him and abide with Him.  

(20 March 2025 update)   These descriptions of love enable a young woman to perceive with greater clarity of mind whether a young man who may be courting her actually loves her.  Women have stronger abilities to feel and operate by intuition than men do.  But, they need to work to develop reason in discerning evidence of mature love in Christ ... and not be deceived by men who come bearing gifts, professing "Romeo Love." For, not all young men have the character to seek a young lady's hand in the best of intentions.  

Every father should model this love for his daughter(s).