What is love???

February is almost over and so there goes the month of love. Recently, I happened upon a discussion on the topic of love. This issue was treated in earlier blog posts - Why should I get married? and Tough love is real love but I feel an urge to expand on the issue of love more specifically.

Almost all the religions of the world hold love in paramount esteem. The message of Christ is based on Love: “Love for God and Love for one’s neighbour.” Almost all the prophets talked about the importance of love. But what exactly is love? Since love is very important, we should know exactly what love is. But there is more than a thousand definition of love, some definitions very contrary to others. We here definitions like: "Love is jealous, love is blind and etc" Other definitions say: "God is love, etc"

The Bible tells us that love is patient and kind, it is not jealous it does not brag, it is not proud, neither is it rude or selfish and it cannot be made angry easily, it does not hold grudges, it is not happy with people who do wrong, but always happy with the truth. Love never gives up on people, it never loses hope, nor does it stop trusting. It never quits, and It has no end.

For me, love can be defined as the total submission of one's mind, body and soul for the spiritual development of another disregarding the benefits of what one stand to gain in doing so.

Having said that, The Love of God should be alive in the spirit. The Love of God that is in our spirit is much more powerful and can transform a man to being a servant of God. Rules, or earthly laws  concerning love will never achieve that.  Jesus has already shown us the way to love when he admonished "Love GOD with your whole being and love thy neighbour as thyself". If one genuinely does this a sense of responsibility will be awakened, he or she needs nothing else except to joyfully live by these admonitions. Love is something you do, so do not waste your time thinking of what love is, instead, just love.

Ijeoma Olujekun