Agape Love

[OneAccord]

I'd be interested in different people's definition of Agape love. What is God's agape love for us, for the world?

How should agape love be expressed by a Christian?

[angels4u]

Hi OneAccord,

This is how Jesus loved us with agapy love:

Jesus loved us with agape love, that is love that does not think of oneself but sacrifices for the sake of the other. Jesus is our model for loving with this sacrificial love, agape love, loving the other for their benefit without putting ourselves first. When does Jesus show us that agape love most of all? When he died on the cross for us.

“A man can have no greater love

than to lay down his life for his friends.”

Agapy love to me means imitating Jesus love for one another, this is also the first commandment, that we love one another, just as Christ loves us.

I have to admit ,I often fail.... :x: thanks for the reminder

GBU , angels

[WayneB]

Jesus described it best ....

John 15:12 My command is this: Love each other as I have loved you. 13 Greater love has no one than this, that he lay down his life for his friends

Blessings,

Wayne

After I posted, I came back to add a question. I am confident that most of us would all be willing to lay our life down for our family and friends. I wonder though how many of us would be willing to lay our life down for the bum on the street or the thief who robbed our home or the killer that murdered our child. Kind of makes you think, huh? Makes me think...it also makes the Cross much more meaningful.

Romans 5:7 Very rarely will anyone die for a righteous man, though for a good man someone might possibly dare to die. 8 But God demonstrates his own love for us in this: While we were still sinners, Christ died for us. 9 Since we have now been justified by his blood, how much more shall we be saved from God's wrath through him!

[Hvnly1Rose]

One Accord,

There is a great book that I think truely gives a wonderful understanding of Agape Love and puts it into perspective when it comes to our natural love. This book is called "The Way of Agape" by Chuck and Nancy Missler.

Here are some bits and pieces I got from this book:

"Agape Love is and unconditional giving of yourself for another with no strings attached. Loving with God's Love is a Love that keeps on loving even when the object of that Love ceases to please or even tries to stop that Love from coming. God's Love is patient, kind, never jealous or envious, never boastful or proud, never haugthy or selfish or rude, does not demand its own way, its not irritable or touchy, doesn't hold grudges and will hardly even notice when others do it wrong, its never glad about injustice, but rejoices whenever truth wins, loyal whatever the cost. An unfailing love.

God's Love can do these things because it is not a human love. It is a supernatural Love. It is not dependent or based upon human understanding, desires or emotions nor upon the other person's responses or the circumstances we are in.

In the Greek language, God's Love is called Agape . Agape represents something greater than what most of us can even imagine because Agape is God, and no one can really fully comprehend God. Everytime it is used in Scripture it means, without exception, God's pure and divine Love. Besides the Bible, there is no other usage of the word Agape in literature.

God's Love is:

unconditional because it loves no matter what

one-sided because it doesn't have to be returned to be kept alive

freeing- it frees the person loving from his own expectations and presumptions and frees the one being loved by making no demands upon him and allowing him to respond from his real feelings and not from his defenses

other-centered because it always puts the other person's interests above and before its own."

I would like to type out the 3 chapters of this book that cover God's Love and the three Natural loves (storge, eros & phileo) a little bit at a time and put it here for you all to read. Do you think that would be a problem or wrong? Let me know what you think.

Rose

[Guest Teri]

Matthew 5:44-45 You have heard it said, You shall love your neighbor and hate your enemy. But I tell you, love your enemy and pray for those who persecute you. To show that you are the children of your Father Who is in heaven; for He makes His sun rise on the wicked and on the good, and makes the rain fall upon the upright and the wrongdoers alike. For if you love those who love you, what reward can you have? Do not even the tax collectors do that? And if you greet only your brethen, what more than others are you doing? Do not even the Gentiles(the heathen) do that? You, therefore; must be perfect, (growing into complete maturity of godliness in mind and character, having reached the proper height of virtue and integrity), as your heavenly Father is perfect. Amplified Bible.

God throughout scripture defines who His enemy is, it would be anyone not following one of His commands, this being probably the highest after loving Him. If one loves the Father truly He can not help but to love the other works of the Fathers hands, which would be every other living being regardless of what they believe or where they are at in this present moment. Or what they did to me. Those people are only a part of my existence to test me and refine me, to purify me of the dross of the old Adam in me. the Father does this for me because He loves me. As He says to spare the rod is to spoil the child. And when I come to fully know the Father I love all the moments with Him even the hard ones. And I come to appreciate the hard things because I know it is He who sends them for my purification.

In Yeshua's neverending mercies

Teri

[Adstar]

After I posted, I came back to add a question. I am confident that most of us would all be willing to lay our life down for our family and friends. I wonder though how many of us would be willing to lay our life down for the bum on the street or the thief who robbed our home or the killer that murdered our child. Kind of makes you think, huh? Makes me think...it also makes the Cross much more meaningful.

You have just described agape love A willingness to love your enamies.

Luke 23

34Then Jesus said, "Father, forgive them, for they do not know what they do." And they divided His garments and cast lots. 35And the people stood looking on. But even the rulers with them sneered, saying, "He saved others; let Him save Himself if He is the Christ, the chosen of God." 36The soldiers also mocked Him, coming and offering Him sour wine, 37and saying, "If You are the King of the Jews, save Yourself."

Now thats agape love :il:

All praise The Ancient Of Days

[OneAccord]

I watched the movie "The Hiding Place the other night about Corrie TenBoom, powerful movie. In it I saw an example of agape love that moved me to my core.

In the concentration camp, after a particularly brutal scene, the sisters prayed to the Lord: "Lord, please forgive these poeple, do not charge this against them, forgive them, for they do not even know to ask your forgiveness for themselves." In another scene, Corrie was praying fervently that she would not come to hate the Nazis for what they were doing, that Jesus would take any hate out of her heart and fill it with His love.

Now that's agape love.

[WayneB]

I watched the movie "The Hiding Place the other night about Corrie TenBoom, powerful movie. In it I saw an example of agape love that moved me to my core.

In the concentration camp, after a particularly brutal scene, the sisters prayed to the Lord: "Lord, please forgive these poeple, do not charge this against them, forgive them, for they do not even know to ask your forgiveness for themselves." In another scene, Corrie was praying fervently that she would not come to hate the Nazis for what they were doing, that Jesus would take any hate out of her heart and fill it with His love.

Now that's agape love.

Great movie...and you're right. Great example.

[Guest Teri]

Thanks Adstar,

But it is not just willingness to do it, it is in fact doing it. And each and everyone of us get tested on this level almost daily. As we pass each test the test's become less frequent. But if we resist they heat up and we get sent into the fire to be completely refined. It can be a gut wrenching process but very much needed for God's purposes for us to reign with Christ. How in the world could he ever trust us with the total works of His hands out there, if we can't even get over the neighbor who cut down our tree, or the fear we feel when in a neighborhood of people of different color. We have a long way to go as a people to learn Agape love, or even here on these boards where we lash out at each other when someone tells us something they learned from God that God hasn't told them personally. All around us are towers of babble, no one can hear or understand each other. From couples in marriages, to the government, the UN, religion. No one is listening to each other. All around people are throwing verbal stones at each other, and bombs, and no one will back up and relent because we want to be right, we want to have all the answers without realizing God made us all and I mean all, from the scientist to the pastor, from the street bum, to the Mr. Gates for His own purposes. Those of us wrapped up in religion think because we can read about God that we know God. There is a big difference there, because anyone who truly knows Gods heart, knows He would never harm the works of His own hands. But alas he doesn't have to because we are the ones who are so good at doing the hurting to our fellow man. Yes it's a long road from here to Agape love. So now that we intellectually know what Agape love is, maybe we should try to put it into action, put down all our arguing and pointing the wrong in everyone else. Just lay it aside and ask God so how do you feel about what's going on in this world, in this country, in this church, in this neighborhood, in this marriage. I have read and re-read the Bible backwards and forwards and now I seek to know Gods heart. I can't get that from pages written and re-written over the ages. No I can only get that by having a very personal relationship with my Creator, and in that I find the essence and peace of His Agape love.

In Yeshua's neverending mercies

Teri

[Guest Calamity]

There is a big difference there, because anyone who truly knows Gods heart, knows He would never harm the works of His own hands.

Pss.28

[5] Because they regard not the works of the LORD, nor the operation of his hands, he shall destroy them, and not build them up.

Gen. 6

[5] And GOD saw that the wickedness of man was great in the earth, and that every imagination of the thoughts of his heart was only evil continually.

[6] And it repented the LORD that he had made man on the earth, and it grieved him at his heart.

[7] And the LORD said, I will destroy man whom I have created from the face of the earth; both man, and beast, and the creeping thing, and the fowls of the air; for it repenteth me that I have made them.

Mal.3

[6] For I am the LORD, I change not; therefore ye sons of Jacob are not consumed.