Love By Definition

Love by definition

Cagy D'oulos

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Love by definition

Copyright © 2016 by Cagy D'oulos. All rights reserved. eBook.

No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system or transmitted in any way by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopy, recording or otherwise without the prior permission of the author, through the publisher, except as provided by USA copyright law.

Scripture taken from the Holy Bible, New American Standard Bible®, NASB®, Copyright © 1960,1962,1963,1968,1971,1972,1973,1975,1977,1995 by The Lockman Foundation. Used by permission.

Scripture quotations marked (KJV) are taken from the Holy Bible, King James Version,

Cambridge, 1769. Used by permission. All rights reserved.

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Book design copyright © 2016 by Cagy D'oulos. All rights reserved.

Cover design by Cagy D'oulos

Interior design by Cagy D'oulos

Published in the United States of America

ISBN: 978-1-365-47964-9

1. Religion / Biblical Criticism & Interpretation / General

2. Philosophy / Religious

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Table of Contents

Love

by definition

Dedication

Tribute to Love

Discovering Love

A Starting Point - Dipping into the Bucket of Love

Popular Definitions - Bending Truth to Our Will

Greek Love - A New Testament Myth

Objective Subjective - When Opposites Attract

Definition or Description - Love Pattern 13 by Paul

Purpose of a Definition - Do I Really Care?

To Know the Truth

To Avoid Deception

To Evaluate Uncertainties

To Apply Accurately

7 Keys to Love - Resurrecting the Truth About Love

1. Sourced in God

2. Exists Through Obedience

3. Revealed as Cross Based

4. Involves Affection for Another

5. Requires Active Implementation

6. Expressed by a Willing Heart

7. For God's Glory

Jesus' Final Prayer - A Testament to the 7 Keys

Putting Love Back Together - Love Equals

Dedication

To the Lover of my soul...

He who first loved me, and awakened within, that

recognition of complete acceptance and desire, despite my

awkward brokenness. While I remained dedicated to

myself, he chose to dedicate himself toward restoring and

loving me.

I here acknowledge that

Jesus is Lord and God-with-me.

His love has made all the difference, and continues to

generate the flood waters of grace to all who incline to

worship him as Savior. He is the source and conduit of

God's love to all.

Whatever love I may possess or express, it simply reflects

his glory, and images who he is

...in me.

Tribute to Love

A Rose

A rose is known among them all,

A flower of class that stands up tall.

Its delicate pedals of silky red

Remind a man of woman it's said.

Attractive by nature, their fragrant beauty

Does drive the quest towards love and duty.

'Tis the thin but sturdy stem

That holds up high that Princess gem.

The diamond cut, a woman's friend,

Is the rose, to them one send.

Blooming heirs of royalty,

They are the symbols of quality.

Special gifts from God they are

Of lasting beauty not to mar.

Entrusted to man to nourish and keep,

Treasures from life's garden deep.

Their shapely design down through the ages,

Inspired poets to fill their pages.

Lines that drip, words that quip,

Secret whispers from the lip.

'Tis the rose 'twill make the head

Remind a man of woman it's said.

Discovering Love

From beyond the carnage of human error, rises the eternal and unquenchable specter of genuine love.

No other idea has spawned such passionate search than to identify and experience the depths of love. Love is mysterious. Long life has captured the fantasy of many. Sustainable health has grabbed the attention of numerous followers. Money, power, and happiness all have their immense fan base, but nothing equals love.

Poets have long pondered. Lovers have universally embraced. Thinkers and actors have all danced the tune. Whether discussing love for God, love for another, or love of some thing; love is the leading desire of the human heart.

And yet, it is arguably the most misunderstood, most abused and adulterated, expressible quality in human history. More hearts have been broken, lives dismantled, nations lost, and souls destroyed by misplaced infatuations than can be calculated.

Still, we cannot let go of it. It forever draws us forward, like some enchanted orb of promised satisfaction or hope. That is the allure of love. In all its fanciful forms, for right or wrong, love exerts an intoxicating power without equal. And there is a very real reason for this: God is love!

To understand love is to know God. To know God is to pass through and dwell within the spinning vortex of true love. For that matter, life itself, in terms of anything lasting or fulfilling, hangs upon the threads of the greatest of these: love.

However, its true beauty remains obscure to humanity at large. There do exist real and viable human-based versions of love, recognizable to varying degrees by careful observers, but they are distant replicas of their source. Real love can be tasted, ever so subtly, but never grasped as our own outside of knowing God. Yet, knowing God is not so simple as going to church or making a momentary profession of faith. Therefore, even among Christians, love is often but a ghostly specter, a shifting trace of shadowy promise, claimed by many but drifting just beyond reach.

The purpose here is to raise up what the Bible objectively declares as non-negotiable absolutes about the wellspring of godly love, to separate it from those attractive but deceptive alternatives masquerading under the same label, and provide a working definition for how God reveals this most important trait. This is not a training manual on how to love. Such responsive appreciation of love, and its application toward others, must extend from a healthy understanding of what love actually is in the first place. That is the primal territory we shall explore: the definition of love.

The hope is that by refocusing our attention on what God reveals about his kind of love, we who desire to know God may discard the impostors within our natures, cultures, and churches in how we approach God and also in how we interact with others. Simultaneously, by rightly embracing and thereafter expressing godly love, we will forever glorify the One who has graced us so abundantly with himself. Through all this, according to all that is promised in our hope of glory, love will so fill our entire being that we will ride the eternal waves of euphoria, filled to overflowing with the greatest extent of satisfaction and happiness available. This is the gambit of promised glory--betting everything for love.

As much as we all desire pleasantries, this path will require sturdy boots. In a broken world awaiting the full glories of Christ yet to come, we remain surrounded by distractions and deceptions from without and from within. Jesus reminds us all that it takes work to believe; some of that effort is messy, some is humbling, some is painful, and thankfully much is exciting, but it all takes a willingness to truly hear what he says, as well as a faithfulness to put it into practice. Specifically, that means that in order to highlight the truth about biblical love, we will also need to counter errors that attempt to claim to be valid alternatives to love. That has its own challenges whenever our minds already have ideas we find comfortable.

The presentation will likely be blunt at times. Part of the reason for such direct language results from the objective nature of the subject, which does not allow for wishy-washy statements. Also, such clinical language is necessary to help penetrate through the layers of fat cells that easily attach to our ideas and hearts on what is popular about love. In order to identify the genuine from the impostor, real love from attractive longings, we will benefit most from words that speak with the authority of biblical truth.

People deserve to be treated gently; however, the ideas about love, which we intend to consider here, ought to be approached with less opinionation, and more careful words. This is about defining the truth contained in a familiar word called love, rather than a presentation on how to lead someone out of incorrect thinking (although hopefully that can occur as well). Error, wherever it arises, should never get pandered with a grandmotherly pat on the head. It must be identified and exposed to the light. There is simply so much un-truth circulating about, that in order to highlight what is real and precious about love, we need clear statements that are not weighed down with flowery niceties or two inches of powdered sugar. There is a place for our sugars to get decorated, but this view into the meaning of love is not such a place.

All this is awkward. These are not just empty ideas that get raised or lowered like pallets in a warehouse by some mental forklift. The pulsating beliefs about love are reflections of our own minds and heart-felt desires. There are people involved and feelings to consider. To confront, or suggest improvement, is messy. The problem we face is that if we only pluck at the surface, the root will remain entrenched in the ground and eventually it will sprout with renewed vigor and threaten the planted seeds. To allow someone to dig at our heart takes trust that God is in control and he won't let anything harmful happen, even though the procedure can be difficult.

That makes the success of this method not dependent upon you or me, but upon our faith in God's love for us. It means we can travel through difficult territory, possibly losing some things we formerly valued, but fearless of failure because he promises to sustain us in him and graciously give us everything we need. Truth is not something we sign up for and get handed a treat bag as we enter the fairgrounds. It is something we must hunger for, choose to apply, seek, ask and knock with persistent passion toward. Grasping love, like most other things of true value, takes significant personal investment.

If you find yourself shrinking back from ideas or statements presented here, catch yourself and pause to think about the reasons why such words may be making you uncomfortable. You are encouraged to measure everything to God's word, rather than to your religion or your preferences. It may be that something within that has long enjoyed a dark corner is finally coming into the light and would be worth allowing exposure to a fresh breeze of thought. That twinge of awkward feeling could result from your church background or religious tradition getting exposed to what the Bible actually teaches. It may be that you are simply facing something entirely new, and the unknown is often a bit scary. Regardless as to why, it is a stated fact that the living word of God is a stumbling block to everyone with human nature, not just to unbelievers, so it would be wise to check your responses carefully, so that you don't end up thinking you are dismissing stray ideas about love, when in truth, you may well be missing something of eternal value.

Reading this book will convey information, but transformation into truth is only likely if we are willing to press into the head-winds, ignore distractions, dispatch the overgrown brush that threatens, and clear a level path for the high mountain assent. Rather than passive consideration from the arm chair, it will require our willing participation and interaction between the material presented and our private thoughts. This is an invitation to a worthy adventure in pursuit of the headwaters of love.

There are several factors that must be considered and accepted before proceeding, if we are to travel at all within the realm of truth and avoid slipping into the fantastic or absurd. Not everyone operates from the same starting point, and so it might be helpful to consider up front the overarching views through which love will be discussed on our trek. Here is a brief list of several assumptions taken as evident and irrefutable:

Almighty God exists and alone defines both reality and truth.

Real love is sourced solely from God and cannot be self-generated in humanity.

Holy Scripture is divinely preserved, completely accurate and reliable for doctrine formation, including the defining of love.

Ultimately, understanding godly love is entirely dependent upon upholding the following identified key factors revealed in Scripture and simply compiled by this writer.

The hope and prayer is that, after reading what follows, the above points will become clear and equally appreciated, and that our travels--complete with all our own diversity, experiences, and preferences--will converge along that straight and narrow path of truth.

Love awaits.

A Starting Point - Dipping Into the Bucket of Love -

One of my favorite haunts growing up, although more rare than I would have liked at the time, was the local Baskin-Robbins 31 Flavors ice-cream shop. Bucket after bucket of colorful delights sat chilled just beyond the nose-smudged glass; presumably a new flavor for every day of the month. Pralines & Cream was my favorite. Over the years, an excess of 1000 varieties have been offered to attract our inner child.

It could be said over time that society has offered even more varieties of love potions. There certainly has been no lack of ideas on love. Perhaps the cobblestone markets of old had their own 31 flavors of love. Maybe behind the beaded curtains there was promoted something like Sugar-coated Love or Peanut and Caramel Love or Bubblicious Love. Every society, every culture, has produced ideals of love that reflected what they found attractive about how they related to the world around them. Every possible relationship has been explored for its contribution of possible satisfaction and pleasure. It seems the word love has become a catch-all for excusing whatever we want. Give it a new definition, and eventually it might even become an Olympic sport, or at least an accepted flavor for those who like that kind of thing.

The path of discovery has typically traveled the experiential, and relied upon personal feelings as the main factor in pointing to love. And yet, little thought has been historically given to where love comes from and why that source might have limits to what it offers in the name of love. Especially in a world so influenced by evolutionary thought, love is almost metaphysical--something beyond the explanation of science, and yet so powerfully evident within humans, that it cannot be denied. For many, it just seems easier to ignore its possible origins and focus more on what is desired about the reality of love.

In terms of identifying love, it is far more common to use the taste-bud test, rather than the by-product test. If we like the taste, then it must be good enough to be love. Taking time to review the resulting consequences, or the longer term by-product of what happens after we do whatever we like in the name of love, is a more mature method of evaluation that seldom gets much consideration. In most cases, if love doesn't work out for us, then we simply pick up our shattered pieces and try something else, rather than re-evaluate whether or not our beliefs about love might need to be corrected. By nature we don't like limitations.

Oh, to be sure, original and eternal love presents an almost limitless variety of expressions. The potential outlets for creative application are beyond number or full individual comprehension, but they remain forever presented behind nose-smudged glass in the person of Jesus Christ. The 31 flavors of the month are now all contained in one bucket. The available flavors attract each of us in a very special and unique way, but they must be selected from that single bucket. Much like those iconic little pink ice cream spoons, patrons of real love are invited to freely taste of whatever flavor catches their fancy from the One who is love (1 Pet 2:3).

The taste is free because grace is free to us, but stepping up to the full scoop requires that we surrender what we have of value: namely ourselves. To receive the full intent of the love of God, and thereafter to be able to live in it, and even express it toward others, requires that we accept the payment Jesus made to God on our behalf. The surrender of ourselves never earns God's love, nor could it ever pay off God. It only reflects our acceptance of his payment for our sins. Additionally, taking that scoop of divine love as our very own, to bite it as we like or to lick it slowly as it softens, requires that we appreciate it entirely within the limits imposed by God. Feeding it to our dog, or abandoning it to melt unappreciated in the cultural heat, puts our ability to ever come back for more at dire peril. This kind of love requires fidelity--a willingness to stay true in it.

To take love as our own, necessitates that we frequent with absolute brand loyalty that sole source of love offered through faith in Jesus. As Scripture reminds believers, he is the only door to all that God offers from beyond the glassy sea. This single source of real love will be further detailed shortly in the first key to understanding love, but it is stated clearly here to prevent confusion as we begin to consider what is often claimed about love.

The idea of a limited source to love is a rare and unpopular claim. As one influential writer stated, in his introduction to a book of love poems: There is no suggestion of a single torch, kindled in ‘the dark backward abysm of time’, being passed from one civilization to another. Rather, it is clear that feelings of passionate love common to all mankind have, generally by a process of internal combustion, kindled the poets of different periods and places (Jon Stallworthy; The Penguin Book Of Love Poetry). This passionate love, referenced by this poet and so many others, has no single torch, because it speaks of a godless emotion. Such poets may well write as internally combusted, but the resulting ash pile is hardly a fitting pedestal for love. What we seek here is the original and unquenchable flame that has sparked the life-generating wildfire we call love.

Everyone seems to have their own idea of what love is to them. But neither the popularity of the subject, nor its volume of opinionated options, are capable of adding anything but confusion to recognizing the real thing. Love has been plagiarized--taken out of context--and promoted as something discovered from within. The attempt in this book will be to shed light on the actual source of love, what that original author has to say about what he created, and how we can rightly filter true love through our own personal intimacies.

This single source, and the evidence upon which the truth revealed from that source will be taken, provides a basis of authority that is often rejected by those who pride themselves on reason and natural law. The approach taken here will be a reason-able one, but not one that elevates human thought as the new god of truth. In the great halls of learning, it is unpopular to declare submission to a book as having greater authority than professors with PhD's. Education is very necessary to our ability to understand and benefit from what we discover, but it comes with an Achilles' heel that is located just above our shoulders. For whatever his reasons, the Lord has confirmed that God teaches truth only to those who are willing to accept revelation ahead of great learning (Lu 10:21). This is not because such truth is unreasonable, but rather because great education--like great money, or great power--entices the possessor to rely upon one's own resources, rather than depend upon that which is offered freely to everyone through faith in God.

Deism--that religious claim of acceptance of a Higher Power (who is said to have initiated life to operate under a set of natural laws which no longer need his personal involvement and that leaves reason as the key-stone foundation for all wisdom and learning)--is often expressed as the preferred compromise of many who seek to please both the secular and religious camps of thought. Although often confused with Christian doctrine, it arguably was the dominant religion in the founding of the United States of America, and continues to serve as the basis for ethical and moral thinking in the western hemisphere. Its popularity can even be found in the expressed beliefs and teachings coming out of many theological seminaries and churches today. Deism uses religious sounding tones and phrases, but it really is just another relic of the belief in humanism. And so, within these pages, it will be dismissed, in favor of biblical Christianity.

Everything that can be discovered about life has been intentionally injected with the evidence of a master Creator who continues to sustain and hold accountable that ongoing life (Rom 1:25). Human reason and the material used to form discoveries are all made by God, such that their use can never extend beyond their divine formation, rather they will always remain dependent upon a higher intelligence and purpose. Put another way, as even a secular philosopher pointed out, we cannot use reason to show that reason is reliable, because it depends on a form of circular reasoning (Internet Encyclopedia of Philosophy: www.iep.utm.edu/ep-circ/, 1.Alson on Epistemic Circularity, 3/15).

In contrast, to use philosophy, science, and human reason for the purpose of discovery and development, so long as it recognizes the preeminence of what God continues to make known through what he has preserved, is to unfold the layers of truth in their intended order and meaning. As such, what the mind of man thinks about love will be appreciated under, measured to, and adjusted in favor of what the Source of love has revealed in his own preserved word.

As any history buff can attest to, let alone anyone with good sense, individual opinions scar the landscape of love, and continue to prove unable to discover with finality what love is. Although social science, when measured through the dialogue of relationships, can enhance our understanding of how love is subjectively expressed, or in how such love impacts communities, it remains unable to provide objective criteria from which to define love. We all like to inject our views, but it is the painter who gets the last word on what his art means. The builder reserves the right to have the primary say in what his architecture represents. The thinker gets to define his own thoughts. The parent reserves the right to explain the intended meaning of their child's name. And, when it comes to a subject that random particles cannot produce, love is recognized best when we withhold our desires in favor of the original designer. It is the position of this author, that everyone on the side of truth, listens to Jesus' words (Jn 18:37).

In the course of our travels here, any shortcomings are entirely the result of this writer's own limitations and not suggestive of divine error. Although created to image God, and endowed by the Presence of the Holy Spirit, I remain susceptible to my own bent nature, as