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[TRUTHSEEKER]

Love is spoken of throughout the scripture. 
It is the most important aspect of being like Christ, because God is love.
But what exactly is love?

While the Hebrew and Greek words for ‘love’ has various intensities of meaning, love whether of God or man, is an earnest and anxious desire for the well-being of the one loved.

So here I have searched the scripture, and looked to find the scriptural explanation.
There are hundreds of scripture concerning love, here are a few that can help our understanding of just what love is.

God not only loves, but God is love.  It is His very nature, for “he that abideth in love abideth in God, and God abideth in him”.

1John 4:16  So we have come to know and to believe the love that God has for us. God is love, and whoever abides in love abides in God, and God abides in him.

 The love of God is perfected or completed by the relationship of love between God and man.  When man loves perfectly, his love is the love of God.  His love owes both its origin and its nature to the love of God.

1Cor. 13:13  So now faith, hope, and love abide, these three; but the greatest of these is love.

All the gifts that we are blessed with in this life, will pass away, except faith, hope, and love.
Why is love the greatest, the whole of God depends on love.
Our love to God and man makes us obedient and useful.

Col 3:12-14  Put on then, as God's chosen ones, holy and beloved, compassion, 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.  And above all these put on love, which binds everything together in perfect harmony.

Love to God and man not only covers all we need to do, but also to unite and consolidate the whole.

1Cor 13:1  If I speak with the tongues of men and of angels, but I do not have love, I have become as sounding brass or a clanging cymbal.
v.2  And if I have prophecies, and know all mysteries and all knowledge, and if I have all faith so as to move mountains, but do not have love, I am nothing.
v.3  And if I give out all my goods, and if I deliver my body that I be burned, but I do not have love, I am not profited anything.
v.4-6  Love has patience, is kind; love is not envious; love is not vain, is not puffed up; does not behave indecently, does not pursue its own things, is not easily provoked, thinks no evil; does not rejoice in unrighteousness, but rejoices in the truth.
v.7  Love quietly covers all things, believes all things, hopes all things, endures all things.
v.8  Love never fails. But if there are prophecies, they will be caused to cease; if tongues, they shall cease; if knowledge, it will be caused to cease.

Any or all the gifts a man might have and think himself to be something special.  Yet with all these gifts, not having love, he actually is nothing.

1Cor. 8:1  … We know that we all possess knowledge. Knowledge puffs up, but love builds up.     

The danger is, that of being conceited with the knowledge we gain.

Mat 22:36  Teacher, which is the great commandment in the Law?
v.37  And Jesus said to him, "You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, and with all your soul, and with all your mind." Deut. 6:5
v.38  This is the first and great commandment.

Mar 12:29  Jesus answered, "The most important one says: 'People of Israel, you have only one Lord and God.
v.30  You must love him with all your heart, soul, mind, and strength.'
v.31  The second most important commandment says: 'Love others as much as you love yourself.' No other commandment is more important than these."
v.32  The man replied, "Teacher, you are certainly right to say there is only one God.
v.33  It is also true that we must love God with all our heart, mind, and strength, and that we must love others as much as we love ourselves. These commandments are more important than all the sacrifices and offerings that we could possibly make."
v.34  When Jesus saw that the man had given a sensible answer, he told him, "You are not far from God's kingdom." After this, no one dared ask Jesus any more questions.

2Thes 3:5  And the Lord direct your hearts into the love of God and into the patience of Christ.

We must see God in all things, think of Him at all times, and having our mind continually fixed upon God.  If we acknowledge Him in all things, this is how we know Christ is in us and this is how we love God with all our heart, mind, strength, and our entire life.

1John 2:4-6  Whoever says "I know him" but does not keep his commandments is a liar, and the truth is not in him, but whoever keeps his word, in him truly the love of God is perfected. By this we may be sure that we are in him:   whoever says he abides in him ought to walk in the same way in which he walked.

If true love exists in the heart, it will be carried out in our life.  Love and obedience are parts of the same thing.  One will be manifested by the other and where obedience exists, it is the completion or perfecting of love.

John 21:15  Then when they broke fast, Jesus said to Simon Peter, Simon, son of Jonah, do you love Me more than these? He said to Him, Yes, Lord, You know that I love You. He said to him, Feed My lambs!
v.16  Again He says to him, secondly, Simon, son of Jonah, do you love Me? He says to Him, Yes, Lord, You know that I love You. He said to him, Shepherd My sheep!
v.17  Thirdly, He said to him, Simon son of Jonah, do you love Me? Peter was grieved that He said to him a third time, Do you love Me? And he said to him, Lord, You perceive all things, You know that I love You! Jesus said to him, Feed My sheep!

Peter was conscious that he had incurred his Master's displeasure.  Now when Christ says, “Lovest thou me?” he uses the Greek word agapas (agapan has more of judgment or the love of esteem), and when Peter answers, he uses the Greek word philo (philein has more of attachment and peculiar personal affection), ‘I love’.  This is the usage in the first and second questions to Peter, but in the third Christ uses Peter's word. The question is affective, he does not ask, Dost thou fear me? Dost thou honour me? Dost thou admire me? but, Dost thou love me?  He solemnly appealed to Christ, as knowing all things, even the secrets of his heart, and with that being said, he was openly returned to be numbered with the disciples.  It is for our own good when our faults and mistakes make us more humble.  So in token of reconciliation, Christ spoke with him about it, as with a friend. Peter had reproached himself for it, and therefore Christ did not reproach him for it, but Christ let him know that he was as dear to him as ever.  The offence was not only forgiven, but forgotten.
 
Rom 8:38-39  I am sure that nothing can separate us from God's love--not life or death, not angels or spirits, not the present or the future,  and not powers above or powers below. Nothing in all creation can separate us from God's love for us in Christ Jesus our Lord!

There is so much more that could be brought out here, I appreciate what anyone else can add.

mercy, peace, and love
Kat

I think you answered your own question and then some.  You asked what is love?  Love can be defined in many ways.  Most importantly though is God's love which cannot be compared with.  Come to think of it... Do you really want to know what love is?  Just look unto Jesus.  He is the perfect example of what true love is and how it is supposed to be expressed.  As a side note, our human love is only a poor imitation compared with the love of God because when we as humans love we do it with preconditions.  I'll love you only if you meet these standards and requirements for me to love you.  Christ love is so beyond anything we can conceive as love that it almost boggles the mind.   Greater love hath no man than this, that a man lay down his life for his friends. John 15:13  Jesus did this without hesitation or reservation.

[Kat]

Hi TRUTHSEEKER,

Most importantly though is God's love which cannot be compared with.  Come to think of it... Do you really want to know what love is?  Just look unto Jesus.  He is the perfect example of what true love is and how it is supposed to be expressed.

I totally agree with this, Jesus being the perfect example of love.
But if we have Christ in us, then He can produce His love in us.

Rom 5:5  This hope does not disappoint us, for God has poured out his love into our hearts by means of the Holy Spirit, who is God's gift to us.

2Ti 1:7  God's Spirit doesn't make cowards out of us. The Spirit gives us power, love, and self-control.

Gal 5:22  But the fruit of the Spirit is: love, joy, peace, long-suffering, kindness, goodness, faith,
v.23  meekness, self-control. Against such things there is not a law.

To know Christ is to know love, and we know Christ, if He lives in us.

mercy, peace, and love
Kat