Feelings...

[GoldenEagle]

20 minutes ago, shiloh357 said:

There is not ONE reference to love as a feeling in Scripture.  So, no they didn't.

Shiloh I would tend to disagree:

On ‎10‎/‎15‎/‎2016 at 3:22 PM, Out of the Shadows said:

Love is not just a verb...

http://www.desiringgod.org/articles/love-is-not-a-verb

Two weeks ago, I encouraged us all to make a 2014 resolve to “pursue love” (1 Corinthians 13:5). Based on the following statements by Jesus, I would say that love is the most important thing to pursue this year.

[The greatest commandment:] You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind. This is the great and first commandment. And a second is like it: You shall love your neighbor as yourself. (Matthew 22:37–39)

This is my commandment, that you love one another as I have loved you. (John 15:12)

By this all people will know that you are my disciples, if you have love for one another. (John 13:35)

However, we must be clear on what love actually is or else we will find ourselves lost in the pursuit of it and lose our resolve.

Love Is Not Only a Verb

John Mayer’s catchy song captures the way many people end up defining love in total: “Love Is a Verb.” The problem is that’s not the whole truth. Love is not only a verb.

Now, I know what Mayer’s getting at. He means that lip-only love isn’t love. Love is displayed in action. That is true. The apostle John agrees when he says, “Little children, let us not love in word or talk but in deed and in truth” (1 John 3:18).

But it’s still a massive and potentially dangerous oversimplification. If we reduce love to mere action, we will miss love at its source. Making love only a verb will likely make us Pharisees. Because just like you can talk loving without really loving, you can act loving without really loving. That’s what Paul meant when he said, “If I give away all I have and deliver up my body to be burned, but have not love, I gain nothing” (1 Corinthians 13:3). We can look like we’re fulfilling 1 John 3:18 and still not love.

To understand love correctly, we must see that love originates as a noun that necessarily produces verbs.

Love So Amazing, So Divine

Let’s turn to the “Apostle of Love” for help with this:

• “God is love.” (1 John 4:8)

• “God so loved the world, that he gave his only Son, that whoever believes in him should not perish but have eternal life.” (John 3:16)

• “By this we know love, that he laid down his life for us, and we ought to lay down our lives for the brothers.” (1 John 3:16)

“God is love”: By saying this, John is pointing us to the origin of love. In the previous verse, he writes, “love is from God” (1 John 4:7). True love is a part of and comes from the most beautiful, most valuable, most satisfying Treasure that exists: God.

“God so loved the world, that”: It is true that love is a verb. In English, we use forms of the word “love” as nouns, verbs, adverbs, and adjectives. But that doesn't change the fact that love in its divine origin is an action-producing noun. Even used as a verb in this verse, we end up understanding love as a noun. The word “that” makes all the difference. It tells us that God’s love for his Trinitarian glory, and for the Bride he determined to purchase for his Son, was the motive that moved him to the action of giving his Son.

“By this we know love”: True love is revealed in Jesus’s death on the cross. He laid his life down for us “for the joy that was set before him” (Hebrews 12:2) in glorifying his Father (John 17:1), receiving glory from his Father (John 17:5), and the full eternal joy of his redeemed Bride (John 15:11). That’s what love looks like.

The most helpful single sentence definition of love I have found is from chapter four of John Piper’s Desiring God: “Love is the overflow of joy in God that gladly meets the needs of others” (119).

Love is not merely the action of meeting others’ needs; it includes the motive of the action. True love cherishes God supremely as the supreme Treasure and therefore wants others to also cherish the supreme Treasure and be eternally happy.

God is love, and love is from God. Therefore, loving others is doing whatever it takes for them to have as much of God as they can.

Demands My Soul, My Life, My All

This has huge implications. It means that true love can’t flourish apart from God.

Anything that looks like love that we do for others — being patient, kind, not boastful or irritable or resentful, giving away our possessions, even martyrdom (1 Corinthians 13:4-5, 3) — that isn’t done for God’s glory and with a desire that others may taste and see that God is good (Psalm 34:8) is not true, vibrant love. Godless love is a hollow shell, a love that has lost its soul, a flower cut from its root. Godless love is sin (Romans 14:23).

It makes you catch your breath, doesn’t it? How often is your “love” sin? O how wonderful is the precious gospel! Jesus fulfilled the greatest commandments for us sinful lovers! There is therefore now no condemnation for us if we are in Christ Jesus (Romans 8:1).

But, if you’re like me and see the frequent hollow sinfulness of your love in light of biblical love, you’ll realize that this whole “pursuing love” thing is a much deeper issue than we first thought.

And the remedy is far more than us trying to do more verbs — to produce more actions. We need a deeper transformation, a profound reordering of our souls’ affections. And this only happens by looking at the glory of the great Noun until we delight in him more than anything else.

So that’s where pursuing love begins: look at the Noun — gaze at God in his love. Dive into the greatest commandment before getting consumed in the second. In the long run, because of the actions it will produce, this is the most loving thing we can do this year.

 

For example OoTS shared this above article. Not that anyone actually took the time to read it.  

God bless,
GE

 

[GoldenEagle]

I could personally get behind the idea that Love is not just a feeling. It can be a feeling and it most often shows itself in our choices.

http://www.pursuegod.org/love-is-a-choice-not-just-a-feeling/

[missmuffet]

I think that we need to look to Scripture for the true meaning of love. I think that love can be an emotion, feeling and action. I don't know where psychology comes in all of this

[Running Gator]

A question for the "love is only an action" people.  If love is only an action and nothing more, how is it possible to do an action without an action?

13 If I speak in the tongues of men and of angels, but have not love, I am a noisy gong or a clanging cymbal. ² And if I have prophetic powers, and understand all mysteries and all knowledge, and if I have all faith,so as to remove mountains, but have not love, I am nothing. ³ If I give away all I have, and if I deliver up my body to be burned,^[a] but have not love, I gain nothing.

An action is not something you have, it is something you do.  How can anyone have an action?  Please explain this to me.

[RustyAngeL]

51 minutes ago, Teditis said:

Other's appealed to Scripture as well and came to a different definition...

I guess we'll have to agree to disagree.

Correct.

[RustyAngeL]

19 minutes ago, missmuffet said:

I think that we need to look to Scripture for the true meaning of love. I think that love can be an emotion, feeling and action. I don't know where psychology comes in all of this

Nor do I.  psychology and I have never been on a first name basis.

[missmuffet]

54 minutes ago, RustyAngeL said:

Nor do I.  psychology and I have never been on a first name basis.

You are not the first one to say that I have heard people call them the freeloaders of society

 

[Running Gator]

 

1 hour ago, GoldenEagle said:

I could personally get behind the idea that Love is not just a feeling. It can be a feeling and it most often shows itself in our choices.

http://www.pursuegod.org/love-is-a-choice-not-just-a-feeling/

Nobody has claimed it was just a feeling, but that it was more than just an action 

[Willa]

1 hour ago, GoldenEagle said:

In reviewing the thread it seems @Out of the Shadows, @RustyAngeL, @kwikphilly, @Teditis, and myself believe love is both action and a feeling.

It seems @Davida, @Ezra, @Yowm, @angels4u and @shiloh357 believe that love is only an action.

I have no idea where @gdemoss, @batarang, @Willa, @Dok, @Churchmouse, @enoob57, or @missmuffet stand on the topic.

Is this correct?

 

It's also clear that some people don't believe that psychology should have any bearing in the conversation about feelings. While others believe psychology can be a useful tool.

 

I'll state it again, a person who is wise will use the Bible, the Holy Spirit's guidance (prayer), logic and feelings to make decisions.

God bless,

GE

I believe love is a decision to commit that results in an action of unselfishness or giving, and that in turn may result in an emotion.  

Feelings are fickle.  They bend with hormones, illness or pain, and a host of other things. Human love expects to be loved in return.  Without a constant supply of God's Word to encourage us even God's love in us will dry up.  God's love is unending.   God's love is constant.  His commitment to us is sure.  We need His love to continue to fuel us or we are unable to give out to others.  He is the Vine and we are the branches. Corrie tenBoom said "Not good if detached."  

Joh 15:4  Abide in me, and I in you. As the branch cannot bear fruit by itself, unless it abides in the vine, neither can you, unless you abide in me.  Joh 15:5  I am the vine; you are the branches. Whoever abides in me and I in him, he it is that bears much fruit, for apart from me you can do nothing.

We may feel pity for someone that is drowning and succeed in pulling them to shore only to have them scream at us that we should have let them die.  God's love keeps on loving.  Human love dries up or is with held when rejected.  We choose to love with God's love till death do we part.  That kind of committed love never ends.  It responds with power  and kindness when rejected.  It casts out fear and is ready to comfort when the temper tantrum is over.  Eventually it may melt cold hearts when people know they are loved just the way they are.

[Ezra]

2 minutes ago, Willa said:

Feelings are fickle.  They bend with hormones, illness or pain, and a host of other things.

Other things such as the weather, news reports, phases of the moon, etc.  Indeed, feelings are fickle, and to rely on feelings is to delude oneself. Thus we have "Monday morning blues" as well as TGIF.

You summed it up nicely.