What is True Love?

A prayer from my book, The Heartbeat of God:

So when they had finished breakfast, Jesus said to Simon Peter, “Simon, son of John, do you love Me…?” John 21:15

O God, You are the God of True Love. And now, You ask each of one of us to be an outpouring of this same love. You explain with clear conviction in Your word: If you speak with the tongues of men and of angels, but do not have love, you have become a noisy gong or a clanging cymbal. And if you have the gift of prophecy, and know all mysteries and all knowledge, and if you have all faith, so as to remove mountains, but do not have love, you are nothing. And if you give all your possessions to feed the poor, and if you deliver your body to be burned, but do not have love, it profits you nothing. Dear God, these words are strong words, words that make me think about the motive of my heart and actions. Please Lord, help me to understand what true love is so that I don’t fall into “vigorous nothingness”. Your Word defines love by saying, “In this is love, not that we loved God, but that He loved us and sent His Son to be the propitiation for our sins.” Ah, so I see and understand that love begins with You. Indeed, we love, because You first loved us. I must receive Your true love inside of me before I can give it away; because if I don’t have You, I truly have nothing. But with You, I can bear Your fruit. Again, Your word attests to this: We know love by this, that He laid down His life for us; and we ought to lay down our lives for the brethren. So Lord, please hear my request for my own heart as well as others far and wide, “I pray that Christ may dwell in our hearts through faith; and that we, being rooted and grounded in love, may be able to comprehend with all the saints what is the breadth and length and height and depth, and to know the love of Christ who surpasses knowledge, that we may be filled up to all the fullness of God.” And then, as a result of this true love welling up inside of me, cause me to tend Your lambs…and shepherd Your sheep.

I Cor. 13:1-3; I John 4:5; I John 4:19; I John 3:16; Eph. 3:17-19; see John 21:15-16