Loving With God’s Love
We are where we are today because of the choices we’ve made. Choices made in a broken world are not always in our own best interest. However, Jesus Christ came to set us free from a broken world and its consequences. God created each of us with freedom of will. We were originally born with a sin nature that we inherited from Adam. Our fallen nature cannot be changed because it’s who we are as natural men of body and soul. There is no way to perfect the flesh. As Paul said, “in my flesh dwelleth no good thing.”
Jesus came to set us free from the old nature of sin and death so that we might know and understand the love of God. When we confessed Jesus Christ as Lord and believed that God raised him from the dead, we were born again of God’s holy spirit of life in Christ. Our new nature is the nature of the holy spirit. We were given the gift of the spirit because of God’s loving grace. The love chapter is 1 Corinthians 13. According to the “charity checklist,” the love of God suffers long and is kind, is not boastful or prideful, is not envious, is not easily provoked. The unconditional love of God does not think about itself but thinks about the needs of others. Love keeps no record of wrongs done. Love bears all things, believes all things, hopes all things and endures all things. Now abides faith, hope and love but the greatest of these is love.
There are several Greek words translated “love” in the English bible. One is “epithumia” often translated “lust.” These are “over desires” of the flesh that we inherited from Adam. Anything that takes precedence over the love of God is lust. Eros is the Greek word for sexual love. This sensual love is also a desire of the flesh. Another Greek word for love is “storge” which is familial love. This is the inherent love that we have for our immediate and extended natural family. The devil will attempt to divide the hearts of brothers and sisters and break up this type of familial love. Another type of love is “phileo.” This is “brotherly love” or deep friendship love of a close knit circle of friends. What did Jesus say about relationships? Jesus asked Peter, “Do you love me?” He used the Greek word for the love of God, “Agape.” Peter said, “I phileo you. I’m fond of you like a brother.” Peter didn’t yet know the spiritual agape love of God because he didn’t have the capacity to love with God’s holy spirit until Pentecost.
Agape is the unconditional spiritual love of God. The ability to love with the love of God is part of salvation. When we’re saved we receive the spirit of God in Christ in us. The unconditional spiritual love of God is the subject of 1 Corinthians 13. This type of love hardly notices when others do wrong. The love of God is always eager to believe the best. It keeps no record of wrongs done. Agape love is not critical and loves unconditionally from the heart of Christ in us the hope of glory.
In marriage the husband and wife each have different expectations of the other party. These expectations are the seeds of “irreconcilable differences.” One question in marriage counseling is “will you hurt your wife?” The answer is “Yes.” The next question is, “will you mean to hurt her?” The answer is “no because I love her.”
One of the causes for the spiritual decline of America is the love of money over the love of God. There’s a story about a congressman who approached Mother Theresa while the press was following her. He knew that Mother Theresa had won the Nobel Peace Prize and he wanted to take advantage of a photo op, so he said to her, “I’d like to present you and your charity with this check for one million dollars to help the poor.” Mother Theresa said to him, “Please give your money to someone who needs it more than we do. God has always provided for our needs and will continue to do so. God works best with nothing.”
To find out where a person’s heart is, the question is, “where do you think you’ll spend eternity after you die?” Most men will list the good things they have done to justify why they think they will go to heaven when they die. However Ephesians 2:8 says, “for by grace ye are saved through faith and that not of yourselves, it is the gift of God not of works lest any man should boast.”
Where’s your heart? Out of the abundance of the heart the mouth speaketh. A critical spirt is the sign of an ungrateful heart. As Proverbs says, keep thy heart with all diligence for out of it are the issues of life.
Jeremiah said, “the heart is deceitful above all things and desperately wicked. Who can know it?” According to John 3:20, “he who doeth evil hateth the light neither cometh to the light lest his deeds should be reproved.” However, as men of God, our commission is to share the Gospel of the good news of the love of God. It’s not the wrath of God, but rather the goodness of God that calls a man to repentance. It’s not sin that keeps sinners from heaven, but rather failure to confess the savior from sin.
When men speak evil, it shows their nature that they inherited from Adam. They are not the enemy. For we wrestle not against flesh and blood but against spiritual wickedness from on high. Our challenge is to love others with the love of God, especially those who “oppose themselves.”
As Suzan said, “never let how others treat you affect how you treat them.” Jesus said, bless them that persecute you and despitefully use you and say all manner of evil against you falsely for my sake, for great is your reward in heaven. Agape love means to love the unloveable, not because of who they are but because of who He is.
The key is to love your wife as Christ loved the church and gave himself for her. Love is the nature of God himself. Only the Holy Spirit of God in Christ in us enables us to love like Christ loved. Jesus said, ““A new commandment I give unto you, That ye love one another; as I have loved you, that ye also love one another.”
May we ever live to the praise of the glory of His grace!
Your brother in Christ,
Michael