Seeking purity and understanding true love in a sensual culture

What is love?
I used to ask myself this question alot. I mean, people tell us that they love us, but...we have also heard them say that they "love hamburgers."So what is your definition of love? In our culture today, so many people confuse love with lust. People believe that a base, sexual desire to "get" satisfaction from another person constitutes love - nothing is further from the truth. My definition of love is that real love involves giving, a sharing of plans, hopes, and dreams between two people who want to build a life together until death does them part. My pretty cool pastor, Bro Jerry Backus, broke it up like this - there are two kinds of love that I guy and a girl can have for eachother.

The first love is eros, from which we get the English word ‘erotic.’ Eros is the word used to express sexual love or the feelings of arousal that are shared between people who are physically attracted to one another. The second love is agape. The essence of agape love is self-sacrifice. Agape love doens't refer only to romantic or sexual love. Nor does it refer to close friendship or brotherly love. It is the deepest love someone can have for another, and this love is not self-centered. Everything is centered around the one who is loved. Agape love is unique and is distinguished by its nature and character.

 So we all have agape love, right? How do we know? Well now that we know the definitions of these two different kinds of love, I have come to the conclusion that true love (agape) waits, lust (eros) doesn't.

If we want God's best in our present/future relationships, we have to do this His way. God didn't give us all the details about how to go about in our relationships, but He gave us some clear guidelines.

Ephesians 5:1-5
Therefore, be imitators of God, as dearly loved children. And walk in love, as the Messiah also loved us and gave Himself for us, a sacrificial and fragrant offering to God. But sexual immorality and any impurity or greed should not even be heard of among you, as is proper for saints. Coarse and foolish talking or crude joking are not suitable, but rather giving thanks. For know and recognize this: Every sexually immoral or impure or greedy person, who is an idolater, does not have an inheritance  in the kingdom of the Messiah and of God.

Ouch...so that means if we only have eros love...which is basically just lust for another person, we aren't seeking God's best and we are disobeying Him. Just because you think that you may have fallen in love doesn't mean that you will never fall out of love. Look at the world around us, do you think that all these divorced couples got married when they weren't even in love? Of course they were, but this is where agape love is different. It goes beyond feelings, it's a decision.  So, decide what kind of love you have right now, or that you want to have in the future. Keep it real, love God, pray, and check out what He has in store for you, because I can promise you that it is His very best. Don't get in a rush and fall for Satan's best, God's choices for us are always better. :)