Christianity Oasis Forum

[rain]

A friend of mine told me this week that and I quote:
"love is not an emotion, it's a choice. you choose to put someone or something higher than yourself. You choose to love or not to love, and more often than not, we choose not to."
What's truly amazing about the statement is that I am 5 years her senior. She's only 15 years old, yet she already knows who she loves and who she hates. What's more amazing is that she is 100% correct. Although we do consider love to be an emotion, it's not really. We pick and chose who we decide to grow close to and who we decide to hate for all eternity, and we make these decision all the time, and we have been making them for as long as we can remember.
Most people say that there is a fine line between love and hate. I believe that it's not a line but a decision. a way of sorting your friends from your enemies and all the people in between.
However this causes a multitude of inner conflict within a lot of people. From the time we were born until now we were taught not to hate and that we should love everyone, or at least most of us were. we never really stop to ask ourselves what love really is and we all have our own personal views of what love really is and who we decide to apply it to. If you refer to the dictionary to find the definition you'll find several different definitions for the same word that happens to be a noun, verb, or even an idiom. However there is one book that only gives one definition of love. The bible defines love as God and vice versa.
Through out the last few years I've constantly come to the conclusion that I don't know what love is but I've been wrong all that time. Love is not simply a word that you throw at people even though you're unsure of its origins. It's a manifestation of God, a choice to love people the way He loves us. We can't sort through the pile of people we think of everyday and say "I love them, but not them" because that's not what God does. He accepts everyone, literally everyone. From babies to teenagers, grown ups, the condemned, the lost, the never found, and the found again that make up the human race. no matter who they are, they are loved by at least one whether we realize it or not and whether we accept it or not.
Yes, we chose who we love. But should we? if love is universal then why do we have to chose who we love and who we hate? Has that person really hurt you enough to say that you have to stop loving them? most of the time we chose not to love and keep it all to ourselves, lift ourselves up and put ourselves higher than most and most of the time we aren't eve aware of the decision, if God had done that, then I wouldn't be here to write this today.

[foreverHis]

God is love..He has given us His love by the Holy Ghost...He told us to love one another..he loves us unconditionally, by this will all men know that you are my diciples, if you have love,one for another,....yes love is doing word, if we say we love,then fruits follow...yes, we can choose to love someone...choose love..not hate..

[flutemusic67]

Oh, rain. I believe love is an emotion and so much more. I FEEL love so much for my brothers and sisters. I am so full of love sometimes I think I will burst.

I've never made a conscious decision not to love someone or to love them. I merely see all people as children of God and love their inner beauty for Christ's sake. It is a simple and pure emotion taught to us by Jesus.

There is a study on love at Oasis.

http://www.christianityoasis.com/keyword/Love.htm

God bless you, rain.

[mlg]

Rain, you know we do have the choice to make of who we are going to love. But when we choose to love those that persecute us as well as those who are kind to us, is when we know that we are walking in the Lord's footsteps and not our own. Love is beautiful sis, it carries a promise of hope. Even when love hurts, it's still worth the pain, just in being able to enjoy the ability to have compassion for another. If we don't feel love then we are robbing ourselves and the Lord of the joy that He promises us through His commandment to love thy neighbor as you love thyself.

Thanks for sharing sis

luv ya

[lizzie]

Amen little rainy

Too many people base love on a feeling, but what happens when you dont 'feel' loving? What happens when someone does something you dont agree with,or particularly like? What happens when a spouse annoys you, or kids disappoint you? This is the danger of basing love on feelings. This is why so many relationships seem to fizzle out and die. Cuz love was dependant on a feeling, and when that feeling isnt there, people assume they couldnt possibly be in love with the other and seek out another who can give them that feeling again.

1Cor 13 tells us exactly what love is:

4-7 Love suffers long and is kind; love does not envy; love does not parade itself, is not puffed up; does not behave rudely, does not seek its own, is not provoked, thinks no evil; does not rejoice in iniquity, but rejoices in the truth; bears all things, believes all things, hopes all things, endures all things.

It is definitely a choice we make. It is something we do.Love is an action word.

Will we love someone when they dont love us back? When we dont get that warm fuzzy feeling within, will we still treat them like a brother/sister and child of God? If we feel hurt and offended, will we still react lovingly towards the one who hurt us? This is the true measure of love, cuz it is really easy to like someone when they are agreeing with us or making us feel good.

God loved us when we were still sinners... when we grieved Him and disappointed Him and sinned against Him. He loved us first. This is unconditional love. This is what we strive towards.

God bless u lil rainy