What is Love?
All we need is love. At least, that is what the Beatles told me. Along similar lines, Jesus taught that the two most important things in life begin with love- to love God and love neighbor. Yet, the more our culture talks and writes about love, the less clear love seems to become.
For Christian's, love begins with God. In fact, "God is love" (1 John 4:8). This means that God defines by His Word and His actions what love is and isn't. Biblically, love is not simply a noun used to describe a warm fuzzy feeling. Neither is love an adjective that we put on a relationship to determine whether we have fallen "in" or "out" of it. Love is a verb.
Rather than being an experience we fall in or out of, the Bible describes love as something we "put on" like clothing. Colossians 3:14 says, "And above all these put on love, which binds everything together in perfect harmony." This verse functions as a summary statement for the previous verses which answer the question, "What does love look like?" Colossians 3:12-13 offers five descriptions of true Christian love.
"Put on then, as God’s chosen ones, holy and beloved, compassionate hearts, kindness, humility, meekness, and patience, bearing with one another and, if one has a complaint against another, forgiving each other; as the Lord has forgiven you, so you also must forgive."
Colossians 3:12-13 begins by teaching that we cannot give what we have not received. Christian love cannot be given until Christ’s love is received. Only the "beloved" can truly "put on" love. In short, until we have received, by faith, the paradigm for love found in the ministry of Jesus Christ, we can never love as we ought. Through His perfect life, substitutionary death on the cross, and His victorious resurrection from the dead, God put flesh on and spilled blood for what love means. But, until we are recipients of this good need through repentance and faith, true love will look foreign.
Colossians 3:12-13 defines Christian love with five characteristics. As those beloved and chosen by grace through faith in Christ, Christian love begins by "putting on" compassionate hearts. The KJV translates these words as “bowels of mercy.” Paul, under the inspiration of the Holy Spirit, is asking that the deepest part of us be filled with mercy. Christian love is a posture that is ready to display the mercy we have received rather than the justice that is deserved.
He continues to help define love as kindness. In the Scripture, God is shown as the prime example of kindness. Just as God does, His People are to display unearned, undeserved, unmerited kindness.
The picture becomes clearer as he shows us two distinct, but related characteristics, humility and meekness. Humility means thinking with a proper perspective of ourselves while meekness is simply power under control. Love demands we use our power or position, no matter how great or how little, with great care.
Finally, the fifth characteristic is probably one of the hardest of all. We are told to "put on" patience. In verse 13 he describes what this patience looks like, “bearing with one another and, if one has a complaint against another, forgiving each other; as the Lord has forgiven you, so you also must forgive.”
Love will require bearing with one another. Love will require putting up with each other. True love doesn't "cancel" but rather forgives offenses and patiently serves those who may oppose you. Jesus died for annoying and offensive people and He commands us to love them.
In fact, Jesus is the embodiment of all these virtues. Not only because He is God in flesh, but He is presented throughout the Scripture as the measure of our love. Verse 13 concluded, “as the Lord has forgiven you, so you also much forgive.” In misdefining love, we end up misdefining Jesus. When we are confused about love, we become confused about forgiveness, meekness, humility, kindness, and mercy. Ultimately, when our view of love gets confused, our view of all things follows suit.
All we need is love. Yes, but that iconic phrase must be met with another, "What is love?" We are not called to simply talk about love, but to the hard walk of love. This is not done by simple emotion or raw willpower, but a whole embodied life of love empowered by the Holy Spirit. May our love not be undefined or misdefined, but love as Jesus commanded.
“This is my commandment, that you love one another as I have loved you.”
- John 15:12