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Love is not an absolute, a truth, or a limited substance - that you're in it or out of it. It's a feeling that ebbs and flows depending on how you treat each other. If you learn new ways to interact, the feelings can come flowing back, often stronger than before.
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"Real Love involves sacrifice... There is no greater love than this: for a man/woman to lay down his/her life for his/her friends." (Read John 15:13 or watch Shrek 2)
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"Some say love is life, but love without hope and faith is an agonizing death."
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There are times when choosing to love someone comes at a great cost. You have to sacrifice something; time, money, energy, and sometimes the greatest cost will be giving up your own life so that someone else can live. When it really costs you something to persevere in a relationship or to help someone, that is the real test to find out if you truely love that person. If you bail out... guess what, you have just proved that you love yourself more than the person who needs your help. If you do whats best for the other person even though it is hard or costly for you... you have discovered real love. A love that you choose to execise regardless of how you feel.
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1 Corinthians 13:1-13
1If I speak in the tongues of men and of angels, but have not love, I am only a resounding gong or a clanging cymbal.
2If I have the gift of prophecy and can fathom all mysteries and all knowledge, and if I have a faith that can move mountains, but have not love, I am nothing.
3If I give all I possess to the poor and surrender my body to the flames, but have not love, I gain nothing.
4Love is patient, love is kind. It does not envy, it does not boast, it is not proud.
5It is not rude, it is not self-seeking, it is not easily angered, it keeps no record of wrongs.
6Love does not delight in evil but rejoices with the truth.
7It always protects, always trusts, always hopes, always perseveres.
8Love never fails. But where there are prophecies, they will cease; where there are tongues, they will be stilled; where there is knowledge, it will pass away.
9For we know in part and we prophesy in part,
10but when perfection comes, the imperfect disappears.
11When I was a child, I talked like a child, I thought like a child, I reasoned like a child. When I became a man, I put childish ways behind me.
12Now we see but a poor reflection as in a mirror; then we shall see face to face. Now I know in part; then I shall know fully, even as I am fully known.
13And now these three remain: faith, hope and love. But the greatest of these is love.
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But the greatest of these is love. This is probably one of my favourite chapters in the Bible b'cos I want to give this kind of love.. to my family, my frens.. my enemies.. everyone. Loving everyone as I would myself wish to be loved, as Christ loved us.. As per my shopping goddess, Donna Karen, Love is still the Answer.Now, let's talk about romantic love....
Romance has its ups and downs, but it is a rare young girl who lolls about her bedroom, listening to music and dreaming of the day that someone will come along who will grudgingly tolerate her, or not bother the least bit to be romantic or even tell her every day how much he loves her.
Love = a feeling + a decision
Love is so much more than a feeling. We usually think of it as one, but it's actually a decision too.
Let me explain: We can deeply love someone but not always feel loving toward them. That's when the "love is a decision" concept comes into play. We irritate and even tick each other off. Often. But even when we don't feel loving, we can make a conscious decision to love. If we never did this -- if we bolted whenever we felt irritated, or distant, or whatever -- there probably would be no such thing as relationships.
Relationships are hard work. It's a shame most of us devote more time to polishing our golf swing or improving our job skills than we do to making sure the primary relationship in our life is in good shape.
