A Blog Post on Love on Valentine's Day

I was going to blog about a small insight I gained yesterday evening, but this being Valentine's Day, I figured I should blog about love instead. But what, specifically, about love should I blog about? Love One Another? Love God With All Your Heart? God's Love for Us? There are a number of things about love that I could blog about in a gospel-related setting. Perhaps that's because love is a central attribute of the gospel of Jesus Christ.

Love is the first and greatest commandment, and also the second one. Love is a defining characteristic of the Savior. "Love is the measure of our faith, the inspiration for our obedience, and the true altitude of our discipleship. Love is the way of the disciple" (President Deiter F. Uchtdorf, The Love of God, October 2009). I get the feeling that love is kind of important.

If love is so important that it's a central feature of nearly all religions, including our own, it may be important to get a good definition of love, so we all know exactly what we're talking about. However, finding a good definition for love in the dictionary or online can be difficult because, as the Wikipedia article on the subject points out, "Love refers to a variety of different feelings, states, and attitudes that ranges from interpersonal affection ('I love my mother') to pleasure ('I loved that meal')." The article goes on to say that "Ancient Greeks identified four forms of love: kinship or familiarity (in Greek, storge), friendship (philia), sexual and/or romantic desire (eros), and self-emptying or divine love (agape)." What we're looking for is probably closest to that last one, Agape, but to understand the meaning of love, as it's used in the scriptures, perhaps a better source would be from LDS.org.

Deep devotion and affection. Love for God includes devotion, adoration, reverence, tenderness, mercy, forgiveness, compassion, grace, service, gratitude, kindness. The greatest example of God’s love for his children is found in the infinite atonement of Jesus Christ. 

We manifest our love for Heavenly Father by keeping His commandments and serving His children. Our expressions of love for others may include being kind to them, listening to them, mourning with them, comforting them, serving them, praying for them, sharing the gospel with them, and being their friend.
- Gospel Topics, Love

These paragraphs place an emphasis on application, so I guess I'll talk about that next. On Valentine's Day, we traditionally think of expressing our love by giving our loved ones love notes, gifts of chocolates and/or flowers, hugs and kisses, and acts of service such as a massage or special meal. I suppose those would fall under the categories of "being kind to them" and "serving them," as listed above, but there are many other (and usually less romantic) ways to show love for your friends, family members, and acquaintances, many of which are also listed above. We can show love for someone simply by listening to them and comforting them, or by praying for them (or perhaps with them) and sharing the gospel with them, if they don't have it already. There are many ways to express love to the people you love.

How do we express love for God? This can be a little trickier, since we can't give Him chocolates or flowers, like we might give someone else, but there are some things we can do for Him, and He has given us a few ideas, a wishlist, if you will.

As quoted above, "we manifest our love for Heavenly Father by keeping His commandments and serving His children."
If ye love me, keep my commandments -John 14:15

Simon, son of Jonas, lovest thou me? ...Feed my sheep -John 21:16

There are also a few ways in which we can show love for God that are similar to ways that we can show love for others. We can listen to Him, perform acts of service for Him, and spend quality time with Him. The more we do this, the stronger our relationship with Him will become and the more we will feel His love for us.

I just accepted a last-minute invitation to go teaching with the missionaries, so I had better wrap this up and get ready.

Love is a big part of our religion and nearly all others. It's a defining characteristic of God, so as followers of God, we should make it a defining characteristic of us as well. Love should be something we preach and practice frequently. I think everyone would agree - the more love there is in the world, the better off the world will be.