“True Love Defined”
What is love? Love is a decision to meet another person’s needs for life without expecting yours to be met. Why? You must decide to love without this condition because your needs might not be met. This concept is agape, unconditional love. The Bible says that Jesus laid His life down for you while you were yet a sinner (Rom 5:8). He had no guarantee that you were going to respond. For this reason, agape is the most beautiful love in the world.
If you have a reason for love, the reason has to be maintained in order for love to remain. That expectation is too much pressure. If God had said, “I love you because you are holy,” that pressure would be too great for us. God never does that. He simply says that He loves us. The closest we get to God having a motive for love is John 3:16, which states, “For God so loved the world, that he gave…” However, He does not tell us why. That keeps the pressure off of us. This is the beauty of agape. It has no reason or condition.
The Bible says that while you were yet a sinner, Christ died for you (Rom 5:8). This statement means that He showed His love for you while you were yet a sinner. This quality of love is awesome. That means that there is nothing that you can do to stop Him from loving you or to cause Him to begin loving you because He loved you when you were at your worst.
In Matthew 22:37-39, Jesus said, “‘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 neighbour as yourself.’”
According to Jesus Christ, you cannot love anyone beyond your love for yourself. You can only love me to the same degree that you love yourself. Therefore, it is more important for you to love you than to love me. When you love you, I am safe. Whatever you hate about you, you hate about everybody else because you cannot love beyond your love for yourself.
For instance, there are marriages that are suffering from self-hatred. When you love yourself, you have a clear self-concept that is worthy of love. That means you are madly in love with you, and you understand how you should be treated. You treat yourself to lunch and order the best. When you love yourself, you do not need someone to approve you to feel important. You understand your self-worth. That is the kind of person that you want to marry. If people do not love themselves, they will be a parasite in the relationship. Parasites in a relationship depend on the other person for value and affirmation. Why? They do not love themselves.
Agape is love without conditions. God commands us to love each other as He has loved us (Jn 15:12). Agape is the model love for all relationships.
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