Love is Not a Feeling

The Popular Understanding of Love is Incorrect

What if I told you that love is not a feeling?

Nor is it a fleeting joy you experience with someone you fancy.  That is the definition of infatuation.  You cannot "fall out of love".  What people mean to say is "I fell out of infatuation".  (No wonder people don't say that...it sounds terrible!)

It is a sad thing that so many people have confused "infatuation" and "love".  Because infatuation doesn't begin to capture a fraction of what true love is all about.  This post hopes to rectify this situation by teaching the true meaning of love.


Love as a Sacrifice

As discussed in the Biblical Definition of Love, the term "love" that we use in society today originated as the Greek word "agape". And in early Christianity, Love came to mean Sacrifice.

But if Love is Sacrifice, our understanding of the language is completely transformed. Love stops being about our feelings and starts being about our actions, our will, and our decisions.

• "I love you" really means "I sacrifice for you"
• "True love conquers all" really means "True sacrifice conquers all" 
• "God is Love" really means "God is Sacrifice"

Sacrifice as a Decision

Everybody knows that making a sacrifice requires willpower. Sometimes even small sacrifices require a lot of willpower. Whether it is going on a diet, giving of your treasure like in the parable of the widow's mite, or laying down your life for another, sacrifices are hard.

So nobody enters into a sacrifice accidentally. In every sacrifice, a mental decision is made to alter behavior away from what you naturally want to do. The decision is key. Without it, no sacrifice would ever be made.

Love as a Decision

Well the same is true of real love, the kind of love Christ had for us on the cross. I guarantee you He wasn't having happy feelings, pleasant thoughts, or even doing what he wanted to do. Rather, He chose to sacrifice His life so that you and I might be made free.

His love is the model after which we base our own love for one another. And to make sure we didn't miss it, He even told us this explicitly:

"This is my commandment: love one another as I love you. No one has greater love than this, to lay down one's life for one's friends." (John 15:12-13)

So, as Christians, when we say "I love you", we should mean "I love you as Christ loves me", or put another way:

Conclusion

Love is the most celebrated idea in the world. It has been championed time and again as the force that conquers all. Do we really think that "ephemeral happy feelings and nice thoughts" is the greatest thing in existence?

Or is it more likely that the love that has inspired the poets through the ages is the love that Christ showed for His Church, a decision to sacrifice all that you are for another because they are that invaluable and cherished?

I think it's time we started using the real definition of Love, both in what we say and in what we do.

Keep Pursuing

Additional Material

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(This post is part of a mini-series on love.)

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Other ramifications of this redefinition of love:

• If love is an act of the will then you cannot "fall out of love". Love becomes a decision, every day, to choose the wellbeing of your loved one over yourself. This kind of love does not fail. 
• People thinking love is about happy feelings leads so many to marry for the wrong reason. When the "honeymoon phase" ends, as it always does, what will get you through. Marriage is supposed to be for a lifetime, and that is only possible with the Love of Christ.
• If love is about sacrifice and not about feeling good and Church is about the love of Christ, then we no longer go to Church for what we get, but because of what we give. It is our sacrifice at Mass that makes Church meaningful, not the songs, not the priest, and not the sermon.
• A popular saying is "God is love". This is true, but only if you use the correct definition of marriage. God isn't "happy feelings", God is agape.

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Lastly...Let me just go ahead and get this out of the way now...
YouTube - Jim Carrey SNL Original - What is Love
There.  It's done.  No more temptation.