He turned away to get an enamel cup and the coffee pot off the stove in the corner. He poured the cup full, sat the steaming black brew in front of the man, and stepped back. ‘That’ll be a nickel.’”
He turned away to get an enamel cup and the coffee pot off the stove in the corner. He poured the cup full, sat the steaming black brew in front of the man, and stepped back. ‘That’ll be a nickel.’”
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
There was no telling what one man might accomplish. It was as if doubt and fear had never tortured him.”
The situation was in control of a man not in any sense ordinary”
–Zane Grey (The Mysterious Rider)
“For since the creation of the world His invisible attributes are clearly seen, being understood by the things that are made, even His eternal power and Godhead, so that they are without excuse.”
–Romans 1:20 (NKJV)
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22 — The LORD possessed me at the beginning of His way, before His works of old.
23 — I have been established from everlasting, from the beginning before there was ever an earth.
24 — When there were no depths I was brought forth, when there were no fountains abounding with water.
25 — Before the mountains were settled, before the hills, I was brought forth;
26 — While as yet He had not made the earth or the fields, or the primal dust of the world.
27 — When He prepared the heavens, I was there, when He drew a circle on the face of the deep,
28 — When He established the clouds above, when He strengthened the fountains of the deep,
29 — When He assigned to the sea its limit, so that the waters would not transgress His command, when He marked out the foundations of the earth,
30 — Then I was beside Him as a master craftsman; and I was daily His delight, rejoicing always before Him,
31 — Rejoicing in His inhabited world, and my delight was with the sons of men.
–Proverbs 8 (NKJV)
Is this the personified Christ? Most likely, there are theological arguments whether it is or not, but that is not my purpose. When the Lord speaks, it is wisdom pure and simple. His words are altogether wise. “In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. He was in the beginning with God.” (John 1:1-2, NKJV) The Word, the “Logos,” entails the idea of wisdom. This could read, “In the beginning was Wisdom, and Wisdom was with God, and Wisdom was God.” Get the idea?
Bob Beasley writes, “The truth of the Creator is self-evident in what He has created. Yet people suppress this truth, and the other truth that God has revealed to them in their unrighteousness.” Truth is there, wisdom is there, right in front of us all. Clear and easy to see, why is it then that men are so blind? The magnificence of the Creator stands before all creation, man and beast, to be seen and recognized, not ignored. We know this Person who created and ordered it all. We know Him through the natural laws we observe every day. “All things were made through Him, and without Him nothing was made that was made.” (John 1:3, NKJV) Even more, we can know Him personally through the Savior, Jesus Christ.
Ponder this, wisdom is not God, do not think it is, but wisdom is God’s. Wisdom directs us to the best ends and we see that wisdom was involved in creation. “The LORD possessed…” can mean “brought forth” or “created.” “God, who is ever wise, produced wisdom… Wisdom had a beginning only in the sense that God singled it out for special display at that time; insofar as it is one of God’s perfections, it has always existed.” (NKJV Study Bible) Wisdom was there, literally meaning, “it was anointed from everlasting.” Read the above verses again in light of the “Logos.” Another good thing to compare this with is God’s answer to Job, beginning in Job 38, “where were you Job?” But here in Proverbs we see that wisdom was there.
One more deep thing to have your mind wrap around and wrestle. Dan Dick says, “The mind of God is amazing. From the very beginning of time, God has had each and everyone of us in His mind. He knows us completely.” Before the establishment of the earth and universe, we were on God’s mind. Yes, He might have even chuckled at the thought of some of us. There was nothing, it was even before those words of Genesis, “The earth was without form, and voice, and darkness was upon the face of the deep.” (Genesis 1:2, NKJV) Here, in the above verses we see, “with wisdom’s skill, God created the universe.” (NKJV Study Bible) However, even before that you were on His mind, I was on His mind, and more than that, He had the plans of salvation in His mind. Oh! What a magnificent and awesome God we serve!