Valentines Day!

Today, as I'm sure you're well aware, is Valentines Day. I've been thinking a lot about this holiday as it approached. Valentines day is basically a holiday of love. But what does that mean? In order to have a holiday devoted to love we really have to understand what love is. So I did some experimenting. I went on yahoo-answers and asked for a definition of love. Here a sampling of the answers I received:

Answer 1. Loving someone means seeking the interest of the other person. Treat him/her as you would want to be treated.


Answer 2. You can ask 100 different people this question, and get 105 different answers...

Love means something different for everyone...

Just be careful of any answers that are purely emotion. If love is only an emotion, then the moment you're mad at someone you no longer love them and that's simply not possible.


Answer 3. Love is God and God is Love....

oh u mean in the human aspect...

well when u take a breath, u can smell them..when u eat..u can taste them..when u think ur thoughts are of them..u see your life as u know it being consumed by them...when u open your eyes u see them..when u look at your hands u see theirs on your or vice versa...when u hear a voice or a wonderful medley u hear them..

Answer 4. A deep, tender, ineffable feeling of affection and solicitude toward a person, such as that arising from kinship, recognition of attractive qualities, or a sense of underlying oneness.
A feeling of intense desire and attraction toward a person with whom one is disposed to make a pair; the emotion of sex and romance.

Sexual passion.
Sexual intercourse.
A love affair.
An intense emotional attachment, as for a pet or treasured object.

if you like someone soo much that you wanna hav him forever then that means your in love..(other cases also there)


Answer 5. Love is priority.

Answer 6. you'll know that feeling of love when you're with someone and it's totally different than anyone else you have been with.

love can't really be defined. it's just a feeling that no one can describe until you're in it. love is special. it's something different to loving your friends and family. loving a boyfriend/girlfriend will come over a period of time. not instantly. don't expect to be in love by 2 weeks of a relationship. love will come to you when you're ready.
i think that if you look for love it won't come to you.

there are different forms of love.
it's a different feeling from anything else.

Answer 7. When you really care about someone. your willing to do anything for that person not matter what. be there

Answer 8. you just know, theres no way to explain or define it, it just happens

It's sad to me that the majority of the answers either basically said, "Love is selfish." or "Love just happens and it can't be defined because it's just emotional warm fuzzies." I mean, I really didn't expect any better. In fact, I was surprised by the few I got that were different. Number 1 and 2 for example were shockers for me. I really didn't expect to see anyone talk about looking to the interests of others or not leaving it to emotions. Those two really don't fit the cultural norm that I thought I would see. And it's sad that I would expect so little, but such is the world we live in.

Okay, so the point of doing that? Well, I was just trying to make a point which will be more evident after examining the Biblical definition of Love. There are tons of verses that talk about Love, but I've been told my posts are always way too long so I'm only going to look at a few. The first being an obvious one to anyone that is at all familiar with the Bible.

1 Corinthians 13:4-8

With this alone, we could come up with a pretty sufficient definition of Love. But there are a few more that we have to look at as well.

1 John 3:16, 18, 4:7-12

Okay, now we really have what we need to define Love. First, we see what love is not. Then what it is.


Love is not envious, boastful, proud, rude, self-seeking, or easily angered. It keeps no record of wrongs, it does not delight in evil, and it never fails. It is not just words, but actions done in truth. It is patient and kind, always trusting, hoping, persevering, and protecting. It rejoices with the truth. Love sacrifices all, even to laying down one's life for a brother.

So now that a proper definition has been established, how can this be applied to the holiday? Well, not by buying candy and roses, that's for sure. It's something more than that. And I'm not really sure yet. This is a very recent way my thoughts have been going. I generally don't think that much about love but because of a couple conversations with a friend I've thought about it more in the last week or so. But yeah, I really don't know how to change the way of looking at this holiday. Just that I think the way Christians celebrate it should differ from the world's way. Any input/ideas/thoughts on the idea would be appreciated. And maybe I'm nuts. Maybe there is nothing wrong with the way the world goes about celebrating 'Love'. I'd love feedback, even if it is just to tell me I'm off my rocker.