Selfish love
65Agape Love [cute version]
How to Love your enemies
You have 2 watch this, sooo cute!
Selfish Love -vs- Agape Love
This world seems to Love only those who Love them.On what do I base my statement? First I'll ask that great old question:What is Love?. There are many point of views and descriptions of Love and it is a very extensive subject and many arms of it so lets just skip all of that and go to the highest form of Love; Agape[ah-gah-pey]which is self sacrificial Love,it involves an act of will where one seeks the best for another it is not led by emotion rather genuinely heart felt.It is continous;not minding the good or the bad of the person bieng loved.Unchangeing under any circumstance. BEAUTIFUL!! Seems doable when it comes to the motherly care for her child or towards your loving mother but what about that 'idiot' that just cut you off on a jammed highway,on the worst day of your life then right then he turns out to be the cutting off point, making you sit an extra hour in traffic!? 'stupid idiot!!!' UGHH!!!!' Understandable. As humans we will react humanly.So,how can we demonstrate that type of Agape Love in every situation? We can't. Atleast not by ourselves. (read on below)
Do you have that Agape Love?
Let's see,how can I go about this? I'm not fond of alot of blah,blah,blah. Understand, also, I'm not religious in the sense as to following a set of religious rules either but to further explain Agape Love, I have no escape but to go to the root of it all.[I like roots]. Here we go,like I said we cannot do this by ourselves even if we try and succeed for a time, it will fail us sooner or later because of our human nature,praise our efforts,we mean well but get this, if Love is not rooted in something it will soon die off, wear off, fade away, whichever. Just like a plant!.Plant it,soil it,water it,watch it grow but with those flimsy roots,they will surly make it die off.
Agape Love: to highly value,unconditionaly to have at heart the genuine welfare and best interest of another.It includes a rational commitment and motivation to maintain a relationship even in the face of problems.It directs kindness,respect and loyalty toward another.
So,how can we truly live in Love that is Pure?
Who is the creator of Love? Where are its roots? We've heard "God is Love" [John 4;8] Ok, well that to me says He is.I can't say 'I am Love' but I can say 'I am Loved' let me further explain this just a bit,see, if i say 'I am Love' well, i can't, I'm human, a bound to fail human! Noway that I'm the root of Love! but as a human I do delight in it. Ok then,how can we have His Pure True Love flowing through our daily lives? [Yes,with all of our fellow human kindreds; the good the bad and the ugly] John 15;5 tells us that without Him we can do nothing that we must abide[dwell,sink deeper] in Him.How? Obedience.Further down it tells us [v.10] that if we keep His commandments[His word] we will abide in His Love.You may say 'Great!!, obedience?' 'So now, to truly Love we have to keep these religious commandments?'
Well don't quit just yet. This a a a- gape Love thing is so much easier done once discovered.Discover it by relationship with Him. See, let me quickly explain, I've learned that a person obeys by submitting oneself to authority out of fear to avoid consequences;an external act.[ex:obeying traffic laws.] Now submission is to put oneself willingly under the order of an authority with an internal joy.It is to obey with delight! and not to avoid consequences;so this is an internal act.get it?
Relationship Relationship Relationship
See when you start having a relationship with Him you start knowing Him, the more you know Him the more you start experiencing this True Agape Love naturally within you.It will come easy for you to joyfully obey Him and to genuinly Love others.Not externally wearing you religiously out and feeling even more frustrated.
Extracting
Ok, so,we accept our human bound to fail nature,we can't do nothing by ourselves [genuinely],Love is the greatest gift of all and we try to exercise it the best we know and understand how.Lets see,the root of Love is God,therefore true genuine Love only can come from Him, so now how do we extract from that Love? Abiding in Him in keeping His commandments,which is His word.
Now in Matthew 5:44-48 we are told to 'Love our enemies,to bless those who curse us,and to do good to those who hate us...for if we Love those who Love us, what reward have we? and if we say hi to our known only, what do we do more than others?' We are to do the unusual! I mean who in their natural mind would bless the woman that 'stole' her husband, destroying and ripping the family apart or bless the man that ran away with your hard earned goods? no one! but guess what? it is possible.I've done it many many times and quite honestly, I'm much happier and content because of it.Think about it,why carry that load on you. Life happened to you, shove it off and move on.I Love myself to hurt myself.
Practicing
Even if in our judgment people don't fit to deserve our blessing, bless anyhow, make it a habit, start in your mind and in small actions.Example: the next time you're at the grocery store parking lot and you're just about to pull in the ever wanted front space and ...zoom!! out of nowhere, right under you, this 'jerk' pulls right in..... STOP! THINK! and say 'bless your heart' even if you have to grin and bear it. Now, if you want to go a bit further, pick up your hand, put a smile on and wave [DO NOT PICK UP ANY SINGLE FINGERS!]and dont forget to pull away,gently. Believe me, over time you will be a much happier soul.
Lets sum it up!
Lets sum it up.To my conclusion, without God in our daily lives we can't genuinly Love. He is Love.To extract any thing from Him we've got to have a relationship with Him.Now I know many have lived and loved in even decades of a beautiful marriage and yes I do believe that there is a Love that has kept them together and what about a mothers Love [which I feel is the strongest we humanly can experience naturally] but inviting and allowing the Higher Love in our lives makes it a complete bind that extends to even those that don't seem to deserve it in our own opinion.Just like an upgrade.Let our Love not be of a selfish manner Loving only those that Love us,lets invite agape Love in our lives.We need to plant ourselves and let our 'flimsy' roots attach to His,extracting that Agape Love to be executed everywhere!
Remember: You can't give what you don't have. Agape Love.
Agape Love = God
Do you feel a person needs a relationship with God to experience Agape Love?
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You picked a difficult topic to write about, and did well. Curious if hubs on Philia, Eros and Storge will be following. :)
sure,why not? lol
Great First Hub!!!
Very nice First Hub! It was well written out.
~thranax~
hey its jake i got a website for my school on here but my better one is http://engineeringprojectshomemade.blogspot.com/ also very nice website along with your wrightings pieces.
This is a well written article and I enjoyed reading it, but...sorry there is a but. But, a person can only have a relationship with God through Jesus Christ. John 15:5 is referring to Jesus. Jesus says in John 14:6 “I am the way, the truth, and the life. No one comes to the Father except through Me". First we have to admit we are a sinner and repent of our sins, ask Jesus to forgive us and accept Him as our Savior. Until we take that step, we are enemies of God and are unable to abide in Him because He does not yet abide in us. Upon salvation we receive the Holy Spirit and our body becomes the temple of the Holy Spirit. We are justified by our faith in Jesus Christ. Keeping commandments does not save us. Obedience does not save us. Submitting to God does not save us. Once we are saved we will want to keep His commandments and by abiding in Him (giving Him access to all of us) we abide in His love. His word that you made reference to is not God's commandments. The commandments are the law from the old testament. The two greatest commandments were to love the Lord your God with all your heart, all your mind, and all your soul and to love your neighbor as yourself. With the new covenant Jesus changed the command in John 15:12 when He said, "This is My commandment, that you love one another as I have loved you".
Jesus is the Word. If you look at John Chapter 1 it says, "In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. He was in the beginning with God. All things were made through Him, and without Him nothing was made that was made. In Him was life, and the life was the light of men. And the light shines in the darkness, and the darkness did not comprehend it. (Jesus was with God, he was and is the Word and was in the beginning with God)
John the Baptist came to bear witness of the Light (Jesus) that all through Jesus might believe. It is said of Jesus in this same chapter in verse 10 - 11 "He was in the world, and the world was made through Him, and the world did not know Him. He came to His own, and His own did not receive Him".
When we receive Jesus Christ into our lives we become children of God. No works involved here at all. Relationship with Jesus Christ guarantees access to the throne of grace, (God's throne)where we can enter His courts.
To become children of God we must believe in His name--Jesus' name.
This is clear in verse 12 - 13 that we need to be born again not of blood but of God.
Verse 12 - 13 "But as many as received Him, to them He gave the right to become children of God, to those who believe in His name: who were born, not of blood, nor of the will of the flesh, nor of the will of man, but of God."
Another place in the bible that talks about Jesus being the Word is in John Chapter 1:14
"And the Word became flesh and dwelt among us, and we beheld His glory, the glory as of the only begotten of the Father, full of grace and truth".
When Jesus came and died, was buried and ascended into heaven He came to fulfill the law. The spirit of the law is sin and death. God's word is Jesus Christ. Jesus became flesh when God stepped from then portals of heaven and was born of a virgin over 2000 years ago. Keeping religious commandments is no way to be saved, but is done in a works mentality to try to get saved.
Abiding in Him we will keep His commandments as an outpouring of the Holy Spirit who is within us. That is the only way we are able to love our enemies, to forgive those who hurt us, to be able to accomplish the calling to which God has called us. Yes, we need to submit to God's authority and willingly take up our cross and follow Jesus daily dying to our sin nature by giving our bodies as a living sacrifice and allowing the Holy Spirit to have access to us so God can work through us for His will and His purposes for our lives.
I have the impression that you believe that any person can have a relationship with God by obeying His commandments. I also get the feeling (and sorry if I'm wrong) that you think it is possible to bless the woman who stole the husband etc. because you have done it many times and you are much happier and content because of it. Positive thinkers can in their own mind do these things. They can accomplish what seems to be a Christian lifestyle by doing the right thing. But, until we accept Jesus as our Savior we are still in our own minds without the power of God to do the impossible. Those of us who choose Jesus Christ have the mind of Christ. Old things pass away and we are a new creature in Christ. Only by having peace with God (repenting of our sin, accepting Christ as Savior) can we have the peace of God that surpasses all understanding. I pray that you will have peace with God and the peace of God and be unashamed to share the gospel of Jesus Christ with others. Then you will never have to grin and bear it as you put it again.
Blessings
Sharri
- What is agape love?
What is agape love? How is agape love different from other types of love?
Kadmiels Level 3 Commenter 2 years ago
very well thought out and articulate really makes you think about in what aspect gods loves come across to the individual