Agape-Love

[cavell]

"It is my prayer that your love may abound more and more - Philippians 1: 9, RSV

This is agape-love. Now I know that is the Greek word for love; but I say it that way because this is not mere human affection, it is not sentimental love, it is certainly not erotic or a sensual love, in the sinister or the more legitimate meaning of sensual love.

This is the love that , as someone has said, supplies its own motives. You see, it begins with God: God did not love us because we deserved it; we deserved hell. But He loved us because of the grace that was within His heart; that is, He loved us as an expression, not of our deserving, but of His compassion. And in that love and as a demonstration of that love, He gave us His well-beloved Son, Jesus Christ.

Now this love is reciprocal: that is, when we receive it, when we really gaze upon Calvary, and the Holy Spirit enables us to realise that, by a love we did not deserve, through a holiness of which we can never be anything but unworthy, we have been redeemed. We have been transformed. We have been fashioned anew, and are being conformed to the image of His Son. It is reciprocal love. Then we begin to know the meaning of the simple lines.....-

My Jesus I love Thee, I know Thou art mine.
For Thee all the pleasures of sin I resign
My gracious Redeemer my Saviour art Thou,
If ever I loved Thee, my Jesus , tis' now.

 

[jacks]

What a beautiful sentiment. It reminds me of 1 John 4:7

"Beloved, let us love one another, for love is from God; and everyone who loves is born of God and knows God."

 

[Emmy]

Dear cavell. In Luke 10: 25-28: Jesus is asked: " Master, what must I do to inherit eternal life?" Jesus answered: " You know the two Commandments:
Love God with all thy heart, with all thy soul, and with all thy mind, also:
Love thy neighbour as thyself? DO THIS AND YOU SHALL LIVE."
In Matthew 22: 35-40: Jesus tells a Lawyer: " The first and great Commandment is; Love God with all thy heart, with all thy soul, and with all thy mind: the second is like it: Love thy neighbour as thyself." Then Jesus points out in verse 40: " On these two Commandments hang all the Law and the Prophets." God is Love, and God wants loving men and women. All we say
and all we do, all we advice and all we stand for, should be from Love for God
with all our hearts, with all our souls, and with all our minds. Also: we should always treat our neighbour as we would love to be treated, kindly and always with friendly words. ( our neighbour is all we know and all we meet, friends and not-friends.) God has Agape-Love for us, could we call our love selfless?
I say this with love, cavell. Greetings from Emmy, your sister in Christ

 

[dayhiker]

I was reading a while back how this Greek work for love was used by the Greeks in the same way that we use the word love today. This was quite a contrast to the idea I'd heard that the Greeks didn't have a word for the Godly type so the apostles created the word agape. Well, now I know that isn't true.