Agape Love – The God-kind of Love
Agape love is the God-kind of love. It is the love that God is, the love that flows from Him and the love that indwells every born-again believer. It is the love that must be present within marital love, brotherly love and familial love. Every human being has within them natural human love which is resident in our human spirits. Everyone has the potential to love, care for, and sympathize with other people. But, natural human love can and does turn into hate, vengeance, and selfishness for any number of reasons. Many crimes over the centuries have been perpetrated by individuals whose love turned to hate. Natural human love is the only love an unbeliever has residing on the inside.But God…….
Now, if anyone is enfolded into Christ, he has become an entirely new creation. All that is related to the old order has vanished. Behold, everything is fresh and new. 2 Cor. 5:17 (TPT)
When we accept Jesus Christ as our Savior, we become a new creation in Him. He came to indwell our natural human spirits and brought all that He is with Him. We have His full character living on the inside of us, including His agape love. We now have the ability to love as He loves, forgive as He forgives and see others as He sees them. This means everything He commands us to do where love is concerned is within our ability to obey. He never commands us to do anything that we cannot do.
The Word of God has much to say about how we should act, walk, live and respond in agape love. Love, God’s love, is the greatest character trait we can develop in our lives. Our obedience to His love commandment is a demonstration of our love for Him. Our faith works by love, unbelievers will know us by our love, we overcome our enemies by the love of God and our ability to receive everything God has for us is increased when our love walk is right.
Natural human love operates by feelings and emotions. Agape love is a DECISION. We choose to walk in love or walk in disobedience. This is why it is important to know how to walk in agape love. We must know what it looks like, what it sounds like and how it acts. But God, being the loving Father that He is, has given us a handbook that tells us exactly what we need to know. We will learn all about agape love in the days ahead.
For now, just know that no matter who you are, what you’ve done or what your circumstances are, YOU are valuable, YOU are precious and YOU are loved!!