Over the past couple of years, I have spent a great deal of time working out what it means to love others as a follower of Christ. It has benefited me greatly in so many areas to understand this real love; the love that Jesus demonstrated and spoke of. As someone who was most frequently led by my emotional, gut feelings of love, this understanding has helped me tremendously. It has given me a standard which I can use to compare what I felt was loving to what God says really is loving. I have often found that my motives were less then selfless, kind, or from a place of being long-suffering.