Agape

Agape

The Greek term agapē, in the New Testament is the fatherly love of God for humans, as well as the human reciprocal love for God. In Scripture, the transcendent agape love is the highest form of love and is contrasted with eros, or erotic love, and philia, or brotherly love.

While it is a selfless and sacrificial love it is also unconditional but in a manner that includes rebuke, correction, and even that which may be perceived by the recipient as punishment in a form that is experienced as "hot coals" or even the "wrath of God".

The demise of desire may be the birth of the charity of love.
There are two types of "love". That love that desires to give life and the one that desires to recieve. The latter has expectations, the former is of God.
John 15:13 ""Greater love hath no man than this, that a man lay down his life for his friends." John 15:13

Two Kinds

There are two kinds of love.

• One kind of love is about what you desire for yourself, what you can get from a relationship with people or things. It is about lust or wantonness and feelings of personal self-gratification.
  • It may include doing nice things for others
  • Giving gifts and sacrificing time and energy for others
  • It may include our own ideas about God and religion and faith.

But ultimately it is experienced, pursued, or drawn by a desire to receive something.

• The other kind of love is not about personal desir, benefit or gain. It is a love that gives life and liberty to others where a relationship with people or things become an opportunity or instrument of service and sacrifice. It is the gifting of life to others with little or no hope of personal gain or gratification.

The only real freewill we may have or are capable of manifesting in our minds is the choice between or the acceptance of the draw produced by one or the other of these two types of love.

One love is about a sacrifice of self for another and does not desire the sacrifice of others.

This is The Way of God, the Truth and the kingdom of God and His righteousness found in the image of God.

The other love is one about gain, through the sacrifice of others, which includes covetousness practices.

How do you know which love you have?

They both may look very similar but they will have the opposite effect on others and in you.

They will produce different fruits in others and in you.

God is love and the life He gives is that love or at least the evidence of it.

In the beginning

In the beginning, mankind was created in the image of God who breathed life into him. His spiritual and physical DNA was designed by God after God's own character.

Man was given dominion over the garden and that which lived in the garden and was told to dress it and keep it.

A warning

In the garden there was a warning about the tree of knowledge of good and evil and the of life. One we could eat from and the other we could not eat of without serious repercussions.

It was in God's character that we should be given choice. If we ate of the Trees of life then God the Father was the source and the standard by which we lived. The tree of knowledge was supposed to make us gods. By eating of that fruit we could create a standard by which to live but we had to have an alternative source for our life.

Is God your Father

Man has created an alternate form of love that is reciprocating which has no infinite source. It is about taking and receiving within a closed system and not always freely and will at times depend upon elements of coercion or the force of the world and "the fathers of the earth".

Until man returns to God and the tree of life he may imagine that he knows God's love, and he will remain deceived by his knowledge of good and evil.

Jesus said unto them, If God were your Father, ye would love me: for I proceeded forth and came from God; neither came I of myself, but he sent me." John 8:42

How do we know

How do we know if we love God or merely an image of God that we have created in our own mind?

1 John 4:7 Beloved, let us love one another: for love is of God; and every one that loveth is born of God, and knoweth God. 8 He that loveth not knoweth not God; for God is love.

1 John 4:16 And we have known and believed the love that God hath to us. God is love; and he that dwelleth in love dwelleth in God, and God in him.

• "He that hath my commandments, and keepeth them, he it is that loveth me: and he that loveth me shall be loved of my Father, and I will love him, and will manifest myself to him... Jesus answered and said unto him, If a man love me, he will keep my words: and my Father will love him, and we will come unto him, and make our abode with him." John 14:21... 23

We know there is a form of love that is not the love of God but is a man-made love. The love of God is not about receiving but about giving.

• "Therefore doth my Father love me, because I lay down my life, that I might take it again." John 10:17

Jesus talked about sinners loving one another and said they already had their reward. John talked about God dwelling in us if we had that love that Jesus taught and to have that love we needed to be born of God. We need to come in the name of God and Christ which means in their Character.

• "If ye love me, keep my commandments." John 14:15

Are they talking about that love that is like power as Timothy relates it to a “spirit not of fear”? Paul talks about love “fulfilling the law” and the “law being spiritual”. Christ seemed to alter the laws of physics, with the power of His love, performing miracles.

Love enemies

When Christ loves His enemy it is like hot coals, as the Old and the New Testaments tell us, but when He loves those who love him it is a healing warmth and strength.

• "[But] the stranger that dwelleth with you shall be unto you as one born among you, and thou shalt love him as thyself; for ye were strangers in the land of Egypt: I [am] the LORD your God." Leviticus 19:34

In fact, there is no grace if we only love those who love us.

So again Moses and Jesus were in agreement about this loving of your enemy.

This is because if you let God be the judge then God will judge rightly and bring His cause and effect against the wicked.

What happens when you love your enemy?

Can you love your enemy?

Have you ever loved your enemy?

Or is the only love you know the love of sinners?

Do you love those who like you, respect you, cater and caress to you, fondle and fill your desires, admire you, comfort you?

Is your love all about you?

Love neighbors of neighbors

Is your congregation gathering to make you feel good by conforming to forms and fancies, rules and rituals?

Is your love one of mutual back-scratching?

Is your love that reciprocating love of prostitutes and whores?

Or is your love like a rock of faith unshaken, steady, constant, peaceful, patient, invulnerable to the willful whims and whining of others as well as the wickedness and whips of your enemy?

If you cannot love your enemy with peace in your heart, then you are not ready for the ministry in a religious order.

You simply are not in accord with Christ.

You do not have the tools to do the job required of you and will be a long time in training.

If you are addicted to anger, or hooked on hate, fettered by fear annoyed by anxiety then you are still very much a part of the world and entering a congregation or a congregation of ministers, an order, will not take you out of the world for its spirit still lives in you and there is no place where real love can dwell.

In fact, if you are addicted to anything of the world then you are part of the world.

We can help you with freeing you from these bonds too, but it may take some hands-on training and a lot more repentance.

John 15:10 If ye keep my commandments, ye shall abide in my love; even as I have kept my Father’s commandments, and abide in his love.

For if ye love them which love you, what thank<Charis> have ye? for sinners also love those that love them. Luke 6:32

Matthew 5:46 For if ye love them which love you, what reward have ye? do not even the publicans the same?

Beloved, let us love one another: for love is of God; and every one that loveth is born of God, and knoweth God. 1 John 4:7

1 John 4:12 No man hath seen God at any time. If we love one another, God dwelleth in us, and his love is perfected in us.

2 Timothy 1:7 For God hath not given us the spirit of fear; but of power, and of love, and of a sound mind.

Romans 13:10 Love worketh no ill to his neighbour: therefore love [is] the fulfilling of the law.

If ye love me, keep my commandments. John 14:15

John 5:42 But I know you, that ye have not the love of God in you.

Malachi 2:10 ¶ Have we not all one father? hath not one God created us? why do we deal treacherously every man against his brother, by profaning the covenant of our fathers?

Matthew 15:3 But he answered and said unto them, Why do ye also transgress the commandment of God by your tradition?

Steady love

This zeal and passion seem great and to some it is exhilarating but faith is a slow and steady plow. Passion and ecstasy inevitably bring depression and confusion. A damn-the-torpedoes-full-steam-a-head attitude requires anger which is a form of aggressive fear.

We have to set these things aside.

Settling a dispute in an arbitration concerning receiving a gift at one of our Churches over the last few weeks I wrote something to the effect:

As some of you may know the early Church consists of two groups providing different services of the government of God. Men like the apostles and the 120 who were what we might call religious orders under the restrictions of Christ and the other were the people in freewill congregations as free souls under God. Most of those who would like to be free souls under God today are in the bondage of Egypt which is what Judea had descended to at the time of Christ.

Being in an order requires that you give up the right to everything you have and earn to Christ for his purposes which is to serve others, feed his flock etc... To not give the appearance of evil you do that by holding all things in common with the members of your religious order because no one man is a Church. 

I do not know any group that is doing that properly or really in one accord but it is my hope to see it someday.

The congregation does not own all things in common. They do not have to give up all and follow Christ who was rich but gave up all his wealth. They should care about others as much as themselves and love God with their whole heart, mind and soul. But I do not know any such congregations like right now although there is hope in some to be that way some day.

You don't give to the Church by throwing money in the door. You pick someone who you believe is meeting or trying to meet the obligations imposed by Christ and you give it to him. It must be given entirely with no strings attached. All you have is the hope that he will use it properly. If the Church is to accept donations it does not have to wait until someone with perfect intent comes along. They just have to make reasonably sure that the money is not stolen and that there are no strings attached and that the giver knows that there are no strings attached.

Then the minister has to make sure that he is doing God's will with those funds because they are not his but God's. That should be his biggest concern because that will make or break him as a man and a minister.

If only perfect people are allowed to give to the Church then you don't have to worry about any giving. If we are only allowed to give to perfect ministers then that is also the end of giving.

In every act of giving there is an element of forgiving and vice versa... or God has nothing to do with it.

Agape and Phileo

There are several words in the New Testament that are translated love. Agapao is the verb in the Greek. The noun "agape" is often translated charity when Paul uses it and is much different than the common verb Phileo, which is also translated love, is used to produce several words including philos which means friend.

John 13:35 "By this shall all men know that ye are my disciples, if ye have love one to another."

The word for love here is Agapen and was often translated charity when we see it used by Paul. We see it here in Corinthians.

"Charity suffereth long, and is kind; charity envieth not; charity vaunteth not itself, is not puffed up, does not behave rudely, does not seek its own, is not provoked, thinks no evil; does not rejoice in iniquity, but rejoices in the truth bears all things, believes all things, hopes all things, endures all things. 8 Love never fails. But whether there are prophecies, they will fail; whether there are tongues, they will cease; whether there is knowledge, it will vanish away." 1 Corinthians 13:4

Most of the charity among modern Christians is the "legal charity" provided through the welfare state provided by men who exercise authority and call themselves benefactors.

That is the "legal charity" Christ forbid because it is a part of those covetous practices that were warned about.

Early Christians went to their death rather than sign up for the free bread and benefits of the world of Rome.

Can you see the love. Christians used to have today. Do they take care of all the social welfare for Christians in America through charity alone?

Then came the New Deal, and state welfare by those men who exercise authority and call themselves benefactors and take from your neighbor to give you free stuff.

This was the old deal of Cain, Nimrod the mighty provider.

To desire those benefits is to covet your neighbors' goods.

How do people imagine they are Christians while participating in such ][iniquity]] and covetousness?

Secret love

Proverbs 27:5 "Open rebuke [is] better than secret love."

A secret love is one that does not show itself. It is ineffectual and unproductive. It is what Modern Christians do from the pew but fail to put into practice.

Hosea 2:12 "And I will destroy her vines and her fig trees, whereof she hath said, These [are] my rewards that my lovers have given me: and I will make them a forest, and the beasts of the field shall eat them."

Isaiah 1:23 "Thy princes [are] rebellious, and companions of thieves: every one loveth gifts, and followeth after rewards: they judge not the fatherless, neither doth the cause of the widow come unto them."

Here we see a reference to rebellious princes that are more interested in rewards or benefits. This was about a move toward socialism which weakens the people.

Hosea 9:1 ¶ Rejoice not, O Israel, for joy, as [other] people: for thou hast gone a whoring from thy God, thou hast loved a reward upon every cornfloor. 2 The floor and the winepress shall not feed them, and the new wine shall fail in her. 3 They shall not dwell in the LORD’S land; but Ephraim shall return to Egypt, and they shall eat unclean things in Assyria. 4 They shall not offer wine offerings to the LORD, neither shall they be pleasing unto him: their sacrifices shall be unto them as the bread of mourners; all that eat thereof shall be polluted: for their bread for their soul shall not come into the house of the LORD. 5 What will ye do in the solemn day, and in the day of the feast of the LORD?

Proverbs 25:21 "If thine enemy be hungry, give him bread to eat; and if he be thirsty, give him water to drink: 22 For thou shalt heap coals of fire upon his head, and the LORD shall reward thee."

In the Old Testament the word love appears many times. The word ‘ahab AlefHeyBeit בהא including ‘ahabah includes "human love for another, includes family, and sexual."

But ther forms like AlefHeyBeitHey or AlefHeyBeitYodMem is seen over 240 times.

Other words meaning mercy, compassion, desire or attending companion are also sometimes translated love.

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