It's not easy to distinguish between lust and true love. Most people have grown up believing in the idea of true love.

Film loves to feature romantic stories in which an attractive girl and boy meet and although they do not know one another at all, they fall in love with one another instantly, knowing that they have been made for each other. In the scope of a movie this might be necessary given that they run only two hours. But is that realistic? If so film romances strike faster than lightning! While they show this relationship as love, is this true love?

Let's face it, if you don't get to know somebody then you cannot love them. Sure you can get a crush. A whim starts quickly. Maybe, a boy may be attracted to a girl who smiles kindly at him. He might be the only one that feels something, but she may understand his attraction and respond. The idea of being attractive to another person ignites a certain amount of excitement. When it is fresh and new, everyone wonders, "What's happening to me? I've never felt this way before. I'm probably in love. I think I've finally found the right person for myself."

But has that person really fallen in love with the other person—or have they fallen in love with love! If everything feels like it has fallen into place it might be coming from internally. It takes a greater understanding and connection to safely say: "I'm in love. I think I've finally found the right person for me."

That beautiful feeling of being in love is never a permanent condition without something deeper coming from both partners. Without mutual understanding it's a feeling and feelings come and go. You may be on cloud nine with this beautiful feeling, but if you expect to find it so easily can you expect to hold on to it as easily? Can you accept that you have found it and not become board with it? To think that you will live the rest of your life at that top you will be setting yourself up for a great disappointment.

True love, is more than a beautiful feeling—it's a commitment. A commitment is a decision backed by actions.

Many love relationships develop into solid partnerships, especially when emotional communication proves to be stable and sustainable outside the sexual aspect of a relationship. In a love affair in which no partnership is sought or expected, or which is conducted in parallel with an existing partnership, one speaks of a love affair, a liaison, an extramarital sexual relationship in which sex is paramount. In all these cases can one really speak of true love?

Love is the search for a partner one can trust and share a life, this is why people marry. In true love they are sure in each other's love, despite the presence or absence of romantic feelings at that current moment.

Lust itself is a form of selfish love. First and foremost it is a love generated by what the other person can do for him or her at that point. That form of love always seeks convenience and well-being, not that of the other person's wellbeing. It's selfish and one sided. It's erotic at its heart, that's why it's called Eros after the Greek god who ruled over "Lust, Sex, Eroticism and Sensual Desires" . The person who only has that kind of love uses the other person and does not care about the welfare or the relationship. They live according to their feelings and not according to a commitment.

The opposite of Eros, Agape is a Greco-Christian term referring to love, "the highest form of love, charity," which can be seen as a form of true love. It is a constant love. The partner always wants the best for the other person.

This kind of love is true love. Don't settle for selfish love, a love that only thinks of itself. Seek true love, love Agape, the love it gives, and gives, and continues to give. Seek God first to experience that love and you will never again settle for selfish love or be a person you selfishly love. It's really worth it.

Love gives, it does not take.