Sunday, December 7, 2008

Love (Living Beyond Yourself by Beth Moore)

Love is a very popular topic these days but the Greek have three different words for love that the English word for love can encompass. The Greek words are: Eros meaning the sexual, physical attraction kind of love; Philo meaning brotherly love and Agape meaning sacrificial, unconditional love that is the kind God has for us.

Song of Solomon beautifully describes the Eros type of love. This is the kind every marriage should have. I love my husband's touch.

God is the one who initiated love. I John 4:19 says We love Him because He first loved us. I first discovered this verse as I was reading the Bible one day as a child and thought wow! That's exactly right! That is why I love Jesus because I thought then, as I still do by the way, how amazing and wonderfully that Jesus would die for me! That just makes me want to please Him and live for Him all the days of my life.

When we are filled with the Spirit, the first fruit (or proof) is that we are able to love others with agape love! Through the power of the Holy Spirit, we can not only forgive others who hurt us or those we love, but can actually love them! This is a divine agape love that is described in I Corinthians 13:4-8 as follows:

4Love is patient, love is kind. It does not envy, it does not boast, it is not proud. 5It is not rude, it is not self-seeking, it is not easily angered, it keeps no record of wrongs. 6Love does not delight in evil but rejoices with the truth. 7It always protects, always trusts, always hopes, always perseveres. 8Love never fails. But where there are prophecies, they will cease; where there are tongues, they will be stilled; where there is knowledge, it will pass away.


If we say you love God, then we must love others (with agape love). See I John 4:19-21:

19We love because he first loved us. 20If anyone says, "I love God," yet hates his brother, he is a liar. For anyone who does not love his brother, whom he has seen, cannot love God, whom he has not seen. 21And he has given us this command: Whoever loves God must also love his brother.


Who have you shown love to today? Jesus said others will know we are his disciples if we have love one for another. Let's be sure to not focus on ourselves, but show a genuine interest in others and let God's love shine through our lives to others.

5 comments:

The Florida Furkids said...

Nice post - something to really keep in mind.

Sniffie and the Florida Furkids

Anonymous said...

Ah! yes LOVE.

Karen,

Just too sad that love is not lived in the manner it is meant to be.

Peeps are just too much in love with their ownselves and for reasons that have meaning unto themselves. :(

God Bless you!

The Silver Age Sara said...

Karen, a most impressive and thoughtful post. Words to live by surely. It's a great message.

Anonymous said...

Those verses always confused me (1 John 4). It seems infinitely easier to me to love our creator but not His creation - YHWH doesn't do mean and horrible things, people do!
Also, showing "genuine" concern, how can we do that if we don't have it? It's not something we can do on our own, it has to be the spirit loving THROUGH us. That's how I see it anyway. I don't understand how "love" is an action but doing good things without love is meaningless. Is it the action or not?
I can take any simple thing and make it complicated, nothing ever seems simple to me.

Karen, author of "My Funny Dad, Harry" said...

Thanks for all your comments.

TMinut,

You do have a way of making things complicated and come up with interesting questions and thoughts. That's why I enjoy reading your blog.

I agree we can truly love others in spite of their faults/sin by allowing God's love to flow through us by being filled with the Holy Spirit.

Maybe I phrased it wrong saying love is an action. It seems agape love results in loving actions. Maybe viewing love as motivation might be a better way of putting it. God loves us (emotion) but sent His Son to reconcile us to Himself proving His love for us (action); We love God (emotion) which results in us showing kindness and forgiveness to others (action).

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