In a relationship, what do you look for? Are you looking for how the other person can benefit you, or are you looking for how you can benefit the other person? Sadly, love today is usually selfish.
The World takes us to a silver screen on which flickering images of passion and romance play, as we watch, the world says, "This is love." God takes us to the foot of a tree on which a naked and bloodied man hangs and says, "This is love." God always defines love by pointing to his son. Jesus came to give us a point of reference, a living, breathing, revolutionary example of true love. And Christ's antidote to the poison of self-love is the cross. "If anyone would come after me," JEsus said, "he must deny himself and take up his cross and follow me" (Matthew 16:24).
Christ taught that love is not for the fulfillment of self but for the good of others and the glory of God. True love is selfless. It gives; it sacrifices; it dies to its own needs. "Greater love has no one than this," Jesus said, "that he lay down his life for his friends" (John 15:13). He backed up His Words with his actions-- He laid down His life first for all of us.
Christ also showed that true love is not measured or governed by feeling. He went to the cross when every emotion and instinct in his body told him to turn back. Have you ever read the account of Jesus' praying in the Garden of Gethsemane? He clearly didn't feel like enduring the beatings, hanging on the cross, and giving up His life. But He laid His feelings before the Father, giving Himself over to the Father's will. Jesus' feelings were not the test of His love, nor were they his master. Christ wants us to live the same attitude.
-Joshua Harris