Agape Love

Agape love is define in the dictionary as selfless, sacrificial, unconditional love especially love that is spiritual in nature. Agape is love which is of and from God, whose very nature is love itself, as John affirmed  in 1 John 4:8 "Whoever does not love does not know God, because God is love." 

True Love is the kind that Jesus offers us, 

He Loves us unconditionally.

God's love was supremely expressed 

in the life of Jesus Christ. 

You have a perfect, 

complete picture of God's kind of love 

in the birth, character, teachings, life, 

death and resurrection of His Son.

In Romans 5:8, "But God demonstrates his own love for us in this: While we were still sinners, Christ died for us", clearly proves to us that God’s agape love never does anything to merit His love  We too are called to love others sacrificially as in the parable of the Good Samaritan that Jesus gave as an example of sacrifice for the sake of others, even for those who may care nothing at all for us, or even hate us, as the Jews did the Samaritans.

Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind.

(Matthew 22:37)

Whoever has my commands and keeps them is the one who loves me. The one who loves me will be loved by my Father, and I too will love them and show myself to them.

(John 14:21)

Let us love one another, for love comes from God. Everyone who loves has been born of God and knows God.

(1 John 4:7)

If you love me, keep my commands.

(John 14:15)

No one can serve two masters. Either you will hate the one and love the other, or you will be devoted to the one and despise the other. You cannot serve both God and money. (Matthew 6:24)

A new command I give you: Love one another. As I have loved you, so you must love one another. 

(John 13:34)

Love is patient, love is kind. It does not envy, it does not boast, it is not proud. It does not dishonour others, 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 perseveres. Love never fails. 

(1 Corinthians 13:4-8)

The parable of the prodigal son, as recorded in Luke 15:11-32, illustrates God's unconditional love for His children. God demonstrated His love for us before we were Christians, but this story makes it obvious that God continues to love his child who has strayed far from Him. He eagerly awaits his return to the Christian family and fellowship. Even when you are disobedient, he continues to love you, waiting for you to respond to His love and forgiveness.

Luke 15:11-31

11 Jesus continued: “There was a man who had two sons. 12 The younger one said to his father, ‘Father, give me my share of the estate.’ So he divided his property between them.

13 “Not long after that, the younger son got together all he had, set off for a distant country and there squandered his wealth in wild living. 14 After he had spent everything, there was a severe famine in that whole country, and he began to be in need. 15 So he went and hired himself out to a citizen of that country, who sent him to his fields to feed pigs. 16 He longed to fill his stomach with the pods that the pigs were eating, but no one gave him anything.

17 “When he came to his senses, he said, ‘How many of my father’s hired servants have food to spare, and here I am starving to death! 18 I will set out and go back to my father and say to him: Father, I have sinned against heaven and against you. 19 I am no longer worthy to be called your son; make me like one of your hired servants.’ 20 So he got up and went to his father.

“But while he was still a long way off, his father saw him and was filled with compassion for him; he ran to his son, threw his arms around him and kissed him.

21 “The son said to him, ‘Father, I have sinned against heaven and against you. I am no longer worthy to be called your son.’

22 “But the father said to his servants, ‘Quick! Bring the best robe and put it on him. Put a ring on his finger and sandals on his feet. 23 Bring the fattened calf and kill it. Let’s have a feast and celebrate.24 For this son of mine was dead and is alive again; he was lost and is found.’ So they began to celebrate.

25 “Meanwhile, the older son was in the field. When he came near the house, he heard music and dancing. 26 So he called one of the servants and asked him what was going on. 27 ‘Your brother has come,’ he replied, ‘and your father has killed the fattened calf because he has him back safe and sound.’

28 “The older brother became angry and refused to go in. So his father went out and pleaded with him.29 But he answered his father, ‘Look! All these years I’ve been slaving for you and never disobeyed your orders. Yet you never gave me even a young goat so I could celebrate with my friends. 30 But when this son of yours who has squandered your property with prostitutes comes home, you kill the fattened calf for him!’

31 “‘My son,’ the father said, ‘you are always with me, and everything I have is yours. 32 But we had to celebrate and be glad, because this brother of yours was dead and is alive again; he was lost and is found.’”

The love that God has for you is far beyond our human comprehension, Christ's death on the cross has once and for all satisfied the wrath and justice of God for the believer's sin. God chastens and disciplines you to help you grow and mature spiritually. Such love is beyond our ability to grasp with our minds, but it is not beyond our ability to experience with our hearts.

We are commanded to love, Luke 10:27 "'Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your strength and with all your mind’ and, ‘Love your neighbour as yourself.'" Keep only these and you will find that you are obeying all the others. When individual Christians are vitally yoked to Christ and related to God and are walking in the Spirit, loving Him with all their hearts, souls and minds, they will fulfill God's command to love others as themselves. It is love for God and for others that results in righteousness, in fruit, and in glory to Christ.

2 John 1:6

And this is love: that we walk in obedience to his commands. As you have heard from the beginning, his command is that you walk in love.

You cannot demonstrate agape, God's unconditional love for others, through your own efforts. In your own strength it is not possible to love with God's kind of love. By nature people are not patient and kind. We are jealous, envious and boastful. We are proud, haughty, selfish and rude, and we demand our own way. We could never love others the way God loves us! It was God's kind of love that brought you to Christ. It is this kind of love that is able to sustain and encourage you each day and it becomes yours the moment you receive Jesus Christ and the Holy Spirit comes to indwell your life. 

The fruit of the Spirit is love. Everything about the Christian life is based on faith. You love by faith just as you received Christ by faith, just as you are filled with the Holy Spirit by faith, and just as you walk by faith. 

Hebrews 11:6

And without faith it is impossible to please God, because anyone who comes to him must believe that he exists and that he rewards those who earnestly seek him.

1 John 5:14, 15, God promises that if you ask anything according to His will, He hears and answers you. Relating this promise to God's command, you can claim by faith the privilege of loving with His love. God has an unending supply of His divine, supernatural, agape love for you. It is for you to claim, to grow on, to spread to others, and thus to reach hundreds and thousands with the love that counts, the love that will bring them to Jesus Christ.

Ask God to manifest His tender compassion through you in some way today. As you pray, ask Him to lay someone on your heart. When you sense God's love flowing through you to that individual, find out his need and begin ministering to that need. By following the leading of Gods Spirit, you can help those whom the Lord has prepared for His transforming touch, and you will become part of His miraculous provision. When God leads you to help someone, He will enable you to do what He leads you to do.

2 Thessalonians 1:11

With this in mind, we constantly pray for you, that our God may make you worthy of his calling, and that by his power he may bring to fruition your every desire for goodness and your every deed prompted by faith.

2 Thessalonians 1:12

We pray this so that the name of our Lord Jesus may be glorified in you, and you in him, according to the grace of our God and the Lord Jesus Christ.

1 Thessalonians 3:11-13

11 Now may our God and Father himself and our Lord Jesus clear the way for us to come to you.12 May the Lord make your love increase and overflow for each other and for everyone else, just as ours does for you. 13 May he strengthen your hearts so that you will be blameless and holy in the presence of our God and Father when our Lord Jesus comes with all his holy ones.

God’s love is absolutely unconditional, 

God saved all of us not only Christians 

but the whole world (John 3:16) His creation 

from our sins with  the  forgiveness, 

and the incredible depth of His love 

displayed on the cross.

John 3:16

For God so loved the world that he gave his one and only Son, that whoever believes in him shall not perish but have eternal life.

The goal is to have God's love (which exists unconditionally) living inside of us (which is conditional). We must enter into His love by turning in faith to Jesus Christ. His love must be perfected in us. If this is so, then our obedience will be the sign that we are abiding in that love (1 John 1:6-7).

1 John 1:6-7

6 If we claim to have fellowship with him and yet walk in the darkness, we lie and do not live out the truth. 7 But if we walk in the light, as he is in the light, we have fellowship with one another, and the blood of Jesus, his Son, purifies us from all sin.

God's love is fully unconditional, yet there is a condition to be qualified to experience the fruit of it for eternity. We must be in Christ Jesus our Lord. We must make the choice to be in Christ Jesus before we die.

If you haven't already made that choice, 

why not make it now? 

You have no assurance 

that you'll be alive tomorrow to make it.

Proverbs 8:17

I love those who love me,

and those who seek me find me.