What is Love?

But what is love? Drawing on the Christian mystics, Dr. Steve Deneff points out that there are actually two different flavors of “love.” The first is self-oriented or selfish love. It thinks it loves the other but in fact is self-serving. It is really about you, not about God or the other person you think you love. By contrast, true love is unselfish. It is truly about giving to the other.

This is such a helpful distinction because we can so easily fool ourselves. As teenagers, we might think we are head over heels in love with someone when in fact we are high on the feeling of infatuation. But it is not just young people who mistake their personal pleasure for real love. Deneff clarifies: “Unselfish love says I have no desires except the good of the other.”

Deneff then presents Bernard of Clairvaux’s (1090-1153) four categories of God:

1. We can love others for our own sake.
2. We can love God for our own sake.
3. We can love God for God’s own sake.
4. We can love others for God’s sake. 

The first two are types of selfish love. The second two are unselfish love. We cannot have unselfish love without the power of the Holy Spirit. It is not something we can try hard enough to do. It is only something that can happen when we give ourselves recklessly to God to the fullest extent we know.

Love is not a feeling, although feelings can be part of love. We can love another person even when we are angry with them. Love involves choices, but it is deeper than our choices. True, we can choose to love when we do not want to. We might be very unhappy with someone yet choose to do the loving thing. Love can come down to a choice we make regardless of our feelings or desires.

Love is a commitment for sure, but it is a commitment in our bones. It is a God-fueled disposition. It is a disposition God gives us from our relationship with him. Then, that relationship with God spills over into our relationships with others. 

Love, at its purest, starts with the love God has for us, which empowers us to throw all of ourselves recklessly into relationship with him. He then fuels our hearts with love through the Holy Spirit, unselfish love. That unselfish love does everything to the glory of God (1 Cor. 10:31) in the name of the Lord Jesus (Col. 3:17). As a result, we desire the good of the other for God’s own sake, which is for their sake too.