The definition of "true love"

1 John 4:8 says that "God is love."

Note ... He IS love.

Not has love. Or displays love. Or even practices love.

"God IS love."

Meaning ... possibly ... (and this is just my humble opinion on the subject) ... when we love another human being ... we love them THROUGH God.

Since the very entity of Jehovah God Himself IS love, we probably could substitute the word "love" for "God" when we make a statement of love for someone.

This is why the love emotion is so serious and so important. I have always felt that romantic love too was sacred, even holy, and this is possibly why.

Consider ... when we love another human being truly from our hearts, we ... by virtue of having the audacity to claim an emotion, which originates in perfection with God, for ourselves ... we are automatically invoking God into the equation.

Yes! We love people through God, not outside of Him. That is how it all makes sense. Since God is the very essence and perfection of love, we cannot enjoy the fullest, most powerful love without involving Him. He is the very emotion itself. He says so!

But ..yes, it is true that the love that 1 John 4:8 refers to is agape. Yet, I believe that what we human beings refer to as "true love", should invoke all the facets of love rolled into one.

Not just eros. It should involve agape and the two others. In my opinion, for love to be elevated to the ranks of "true love", it simply has to be unselfish and accepting, and agape is the unselfish and accepting form of love. Eros, by itself, is simply just lust or blind attraction, which can fade away, IF it is unsubstantiated with the other forms. But, neither can you just have agape (which can be generalized to include groups of people) if you are looking for a strong one-on-one relationship.

Collectively, the four facets of love should complement each other and strengthen each other, making the bond of true love stronger and more durable over time. When all and every last one of the facets of love are present in you ... you have arrived at a breathtaking condition called "true love of another human soul".

This condition is why an 80-year old man can look at his 75-year old wife, and still find her attractive. Because he has love for her in all facets ... He sees her as a soul, and not just through the one-dimensional lens of eros. Her very lifeforce burning inside her heart and lighting up her eyes ... is alluring to him ... She doesn't have to do anything outside of her psyche or power to spark his love. Because she is she, and he is he, on the planet Earth, in the Milky Way galaxy ... they are in love with one another ... so much that they feel blessed to share airspace with each other.

This is also why people "fall out" of love. Most probably they (or their partner) did not love completely to begin with, did not properly embrace all the facets of this emotion.

Yes, you need that bond of family, you need that bond of comradeship, you need eros to individualize the bond and make it special between you ... and yes, you need agape, with its characteristic unselfishness and endurance, to eternalize it.

And God is in agape. God is agape. God is love.

And, if you have true love, which is all four forms of love combined, you, by default, have God in your relationship.

Yes, love IS very important to God. And in this cold world of ours we should not kid ourselves into being convinced that it isn't.

In fact, it was SO important that God put a love story into the Bible. It was SO important that God instituted the marriage arrangement, an arrangement that would've been absolutely inseverable, and hence eternal, in His original plan for humans.