I know I will be bursting many “bubbles” by saying this, but God’s heart doesn’t go “pitter-patter” when He thinks of you! Since we often associate love with a romantic type of love we may think He loves us in that way, but when we talk about God’s love, we need to recognize that God’s love for us is not a romanticized type of love, it is much, much deeper than that. Show More
I drive a 14-year-old car, but it rides like no other car I’ve ever had. Recently, while taking a ride into town I said to my wife “I love this car”! She quickly corrected me and said, “no, you like your car and you love me”! She reminded me that I can be very casual about the word love.
We often throw around the word love without thinking about what we are really saying. If I say “I love you” the phrase means different things to different people. If I say it to my wife Dee, she knows I am speaking in a romantic sense. If I say it to my children, they know I mean it as a parent. If I speak it to my closest friend, Frank, he would understand that I mean it as a brother.
This poses an important question for us. The Bible is filled with God’s expressions of love for us. The question is, “what does God mean when He says that He loves us, and how are we then to exhibit this kind of love?
Four words for love
As we have said in the last post, in the New King James Version of the Bible the word love is used 230 times. In the original Greek language, there are at least 4 words for love and each is translated as the word love in English.
- Eros – romantically based
- Storge – family based
- Phileo – friendship based
- Agape – Unconditional, it is based upon a decision to love;
- “Living your life for someone else’s good”!
Note that the first three are connected to emotions or feelings. Eros- romantic or passionate feelings of love between a man and a woman. Storge love is that feeling that “blood is thicker than water”, or family love. Phileo love is that feeling towards your BFF.
Agape, on the other hand, is not based upon feelings or emotions, it is the love of decision or commitment. Agape love is a decision to love!
We often hear of people who “fall in love” and then “fall out of love”. So many marriages and relationships are based solely on “Eros” or romantic love. A relationship based on Eros only can not last. What must follow Eros is Agape. Agape is the decision to love, to live sacrificially for someone else. A conscious decision to live your life for that person’s good.
So, what are the characteristics or traits of agape love? We can find the answer in the Love chapter of the Bible, 1 Corinthians 13:4-8 “Love suffers long and is kind; love does not envy; love does not parade itself, is not puffed up; does not behave rudely, does not seek its own, is not provoked, thinks no evil; does not rejoice in iniquity, but rejoices in the truth; bears all things, believes all things, hopes all things, endures all things. Love never fails…”
As you can see these traits don’t come naturally. In the natural, we bestow our love on those we feel deserve it. It’s easy to love the lovable, and so hard to feel love towards those we decide don’t deserve our love!
Let’s take the time to examine the terms of love and check to see how we stack-up to agape love. We will break the verses up into 6 points.
- Love suffers long (or patient).
- and is kind;
- Are you patient for long or do you have a short fuse? are you caring, compassionate and gentle while being patient?
- love does not envy;
- love does not parade itself,
- Do you resent others who have what you don’t have?
- Do you pretend to love to impress others?
- is not puffed up or proud and haughty;
- does not behave rudely,
- does not seek its own,
- is not provoked,
- in other words, we don’t see ourselves as better or more deserving than others.
- thinks no evil;
- does not rejoice in iniquity,
- Examples of iniquity are sin, evil, injustice or immorality
- but rejoices in the truth;
- bears all things,
- believes all things, hopes all things,
- endures all things.
- Love always sees the “cup as half full and not half empty”. Agape love always wishes the positive and not the negative.
- Love never fails… because it is not based on what I can get from someone else. Whether they exhibit love to me or not, I still choose to love. That’s living your life for someone else’s good! That’s agape love! The kind of love God extended to you by sending Jesus for you when you were still a sinner and rejecting Him (Romans 5:8). He looked at your potential rather than who you were at the moment.
In deciding to love others you put in motion an important principle in God, “What you sow, you will eventually reap” (Galatians 6:7), but that principle only works when you take the first step in faith.
As the Holy Spirit leads you “make a conscious decision to “put on true love”. Remember, as a Believer the Holy Spirit lives in you and the fruit of the Holy Spirit is Love!! (Galatians 5:22,23) Agape Love is in you… let it out!
