From my very short life I have come to believe that love is something more than what plain english would allow us to realize. Believe it or not your emotions are just chemical reactions in your brain and I'd hate to tie something to God that we know for a fact is Earthly and basically not significant. Those feelings are merely a side effect, or a human reaction to love and need. Its taught and non-instinctual, and usually not even a reaction to love but more so a reaction to an emotional supplement. Many times we confuse love with need. Needing someone is when you have some sort of gain from them being around and doing things for you and not learning to live without that regular gain, thus causing need. Like if your lonely without them, then you will feel as though you need them and then feel as though you love them. So when they come around you will feel the emotional reaction of them supplementing you of your emotional need and call this love, but it is not love. There are many different things that can be confused with love and all of them are a supplement of some need whether it be emotional or physical.
Love is very difficult to describe seeing as that there is nothing like it. The best way to explain what it is is by looking at your priorities. For example, when you haven't eaten in a while, eating creeps up on the priority list until it hits #1 and then you eat and then it jumps right back down to the bottom and begins to creep up again. Everything is on this internal list because you have certain needs. Everything you do on this list is done for a reason. A favor, Homework, Exercising, Eating, everything has a purpose and a physical reason as to why you did it. In a relationship there is a mutual exchange of emotional and physical needs for one another. This can very quickly evolve into love but must not be confused with love itself. Love is when you begin to faithfully do things without any immediate or future gain. Love creeps up on the list for literally no physical reason at all. You don't gain from it. It exhausts you and you have and expect no payment or remittance. This is an extremely rare act and you may believe that you have done this before, but I'd like to point out something. Personal satisfaction is a form of gain. When you do something good to make yourself feel better(which is not wrong) is not an act of love. 
Here is an exercise which may make you think about yourself a little differently. Read the following quote and replace your name with every time it says or references love.

"Love is patient, love is kind. It does not envy, it does not boast, it is not proud. It is not rude, it is not self-seeking, it is not easily angered, it keeps no record of wrongs. Love does not delight in evil but rejoices with the truth. It always protects, always trusts, always hopes, always preserves."

The only thing similar to love i'd say is faithfulness. To pray everynight, to work for your family, to labor without seeking fruits. To love is to do without a earning for payment. Love is a very complex word and I am merely pointing out one of its many attributes. However, this is the raw meaning of the word love which is where all of the other meanings derive from.