I recently preached on
Mark
12:28-31,
the famous passage where Jesus says that the greatest commandment is to love
God and the second is to love your neighbour. As part of my preparation, I
spent some time thinking about what “love” means. The dictionary definition
was too generic to be of much use:

• Warm affection
• Benevolence
• Charity

The trouble is, we use the word love to describe everything from the type
of food we prefer to anyone we feel sexual attraction to. Pop culture
defines love mainly in terms of the feelings or emotions we have towards the
object of our love.

In his Systematic Theology, Wayne Grudem’s says that love is “self-giving
for the benefit of others”. I found this interesting because it moves the
focus of love onto action, and yet this definition is surely lacking in that
there is no mention of emotion.

So for my talk I came up with my own definition of love:

• Love is affection expressed through action
• Action without affection is merely duty
• Affection without action is sentimentalism

The next step was to define exactly what emotions or feelings must be
present for me to say I love someone. I thought of three things:

1. I desire their good (I want them to be happy, safe etc)
2. I desire their company (I want to be with them)
3. I desire their affection (I want them to feel the same way about me)

These three desires must then turn into action if our love is genuine:

1. I act for their good (I do and give what I can to help and please
   them)
2. I act to be with them (I make time for them)
3. I act to express my love for them (Verbally, physically etc as appropriate)

I’m sure much more could be added to these lists (feel free to add suggestions
in the comments). Together these lists provide a simple way of testing whether
we can truly say we love someone, or that we love God.