He was learning that to speak of love is not easy when the feeling is deep and strong.”
–Louis L’Amour (The Burning Hills)
“And we have known and believed the love that God has for us. God is love, and he who abides in love abides in God, and God in him.”
–1 John 4:16 (NKJV)
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The Supreme Court confirmed it, “love is love”, so says the governor of Colorado. Not so! The Colorado governor is mistaken. Love is love cannot be right for there are many ways the term is used and there is also false love, emotional love, pseudo-love, and deceptive love. This term is misused and misunderstood by most everyone. I may say, “I love apple pie,” and then turn to my wife and say, “I love you, honey.” They do not equate.
The Greeks understood this to an extent. They used “phileo” to mean “tender affection,” a brotherly type of love or deep friendship. “Storge,” which is familial love and “eros,” which is romantic, passionate love. We see “agape” and “phileo” in the New Testament. Greek thought that “agape” or “agapao” love was impossible for man to show as it was a god-type love and was seen only in their literature. How can man love like the gods, they thought?
So when the governor of Colorado is speaking of love he cannot be thinking of “agape.” For “agape” is pure love; it is God love. It is the love that says, “For God so loved the world, that He gave His only begotten Son, that whoever believes in Him should not perish, but have eternal life.” (John 3:16, NASB) It is the love that Jesus spoke of when He said, “Greater love has no one than this, that one lay down his life for his friends.” (John 15:13, NASB) I would ask my apologetics class, “Do you love me?” Most would answer in the positive, while the intelligent ones would not reply. One student, in the front row was emphatic in her declaration. I proceeded, “I am old, lived most of my life, and you are just getting started in yours, so am I to believe that you would willingly die for me?” Well, that caught her, and she crawfished. She was beginning to understand a little about “love.” I will say, later in the year she came to me and confirmed her earlier statement by informing me, “Mr. Adkisson, I would die for you.”
There was one time, while walking down the halls at school, a parent walked by me and said, “Love you, brother,” and continued on. “Love me,” he doesn’t even know my name. Then there are those individuals, the worst being youth evangelists who spout out, “I love you all.” Hmmm? This brings me to my point. “Love,” what the Greeks thought only the gods could have, is a mystical, supernatural love. It comes from God. For us to love like Him, we need to have the Holy Spirit in our lives. When Paul writes in 1 Corinthians 13, we need to remember that he is writing to believers, not those in the world.
I have always been careful in expressing my feelings using the term, “love.” It can be so flippant, so easily spouted out of the mouth with honestly no real meaning. So can a person say, “I love you” without knowing you? Only through the love of God. Can an evangelist honestly say that he loves everyone in front of his voice? Perhaps, but only through the love of God. That love which is so powerful, so giving, so sacrificing has to come from God. This love is not an impulse that spurts out from emotions. Love is thoughtful. I cannot love a piece of apple pie with “agape”; if that could happen then that piece of pie, which I would soon consume, would become an idol. See, “apage” is an attribute of God that shows His essential nature. With the Holy Spirit living within us, we can truly (at times) say, “I agape you.”
We are moving closer to Christmas so let me say that this time of the year we can show “agape” as the Holy Spirit leads us. It was the Incarnation that showed one of the greatest aspects of “agape.” God sent His Son–a gift–a gift because He loved man so much to want to redeem him. The Father sent “Agape” because He “agaped” mankind. O the great, wonderful, magnificent, deep love of God.
O, the deep, deep love of Jesus,
Vast, unmeasured, boundless, free!
Rolling as a mighty ocean
In its fullness over me!
Underneath me, all around me,
Is the current of Thy love
Leading onward, leading homeward
To Thy glorious rest above!
–Samuel Trevor Francis