Agape
Notes
Transcript
8 He who does not love does not know God, for God is love.
Unselfish love is the main attribute of God. Everything that God permits, everything that does is motivated by love for He is the embodiment and source of love. Love desires the best for his children, as such John wrote:
2 Beloved, I pray that you may prosper in all things and be in health, just as your soul prospers.
God wants us to prosper in all that we do. Soul refers to the whole person. God wants us to flourish mentally, physically, socially, and spiritually.
36 “Teacher, which is the great commandment in the law?”
37 Jesus said to him, “ ‘You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, with all your soul, and with all your mind.’ 38 This is the first and great commandment. 39 And the second is like it: ‘You shall love your neighbor as yourself.’ 40 On these two commandments hang all the Law and the Prophets.”
Love does not do away with the Law, rather it is the foundation of God’s Law. God’s Law is a law of freedom and not bondage.
25 But he who looks into the perfect law of liberty and continues in it, and is not a forgetful hearer but a doer of the work, this one will be blessed in what he does.
God’s love is unfathomable. Many have tried and failed to capture the depth of God’s love with concepts and words.
8 “For My thoughts are not your thoughts,
Nor are your ways My ways,” says the Lord.
9 “For as the heavens are higher than the earth,
So are My ways higher than your ways,
And My thoughts than your thoughts.
Human loves tends to swing between “Feel good, sentimental” love,
and “Stern, keep the rules because it’s good for you” love. God is neither
wishy-washy, nor dictatorial. In meekness we come to Him to be taught
firstly: What is love? And secondly: How can I experience and then share
love? His love is as far above ours as the infinite is above the finite
Many are confused about God’s love and as a result they live in fear of God.
Compare different words for love and different religious concepts of love.
16 Now behold, one came and said to Him, “Good Teacher, what good thing shall I do that I may have eternal life?”
Even those who claim to worship the true God can be mired in false beliefs about God’s love like the rich young ruler who “went away sorrowful.” The question that he asked is a classic example of God’s helps those (salvation) who help themselves (good works).
6 For when we were still without strength, in due time Christ died for the ungodly. 7 For scarcely for a righteous man will one die; yet perhaps for a good man someone would even dare to die. 8 But God demonstrates His own love toward us, in that while we were still sinners, Christ died for us.
There is no story of the the Bible of the sheep running after the shepherd, or the coin finding its owner. No in Luke 15:1-31...
It’s the other way around, it the Good Shepherd finding the sheep,
and the owner searching dilegently and finding the lost coin.
Even the story of the prodigal son, it’s clear that it is his father’s love that draws him back home.
4 Or do you despise the riches of His goodness, forbearance, and longsuffering, not knowing that the goodness of God leads you to repentance?
20 “And he arose and came to his father. But when he was still a great way off, his father saw him and had compassion, and ran and fell on his neck and kissed him.
I would like to suggest to you, the only way that the father could have seen him a “great way off” is because the father was looking out for his son every day, longing for his son to come home.
1 And you He made alive, who were dead in trespasses and sins, 2 in which you once walked according to the course of this world, according to the prince of the power of the air, the spirit who now works in the sons of disobedience, 3 among whom also we all once conducted ourselves in the lusts of our flesh, fulfilling the desires of the flesh and of the mind, and were by nature children of wrath, just as the others.
4 But God, who is rich in mercy, because of His great love with which He loved us, 5 even when we were dead in trespasses, made us alive together with Christ (by grace you have been saved), 6 and raised us up together, and made us sit together in the heavenly places in Christ Jesus, 7 that in the ages to come He might show the exceeding riches of His grace in His kindness toward us in Christ Jesus. 8 For by grace you have been saved through faith, and that not of yourselves; it is the gift of God,
16 For God so greatly loved and dearly prized the world that He [even] gave up His only begotten (unique) Son, so that whoever believes in (trusts in, clings to, relies on) Him shall not perish (come to destruction, be lost) but have eternal (everlasting) life.