Oh how we love...chocolate, puppies, cherubs, our favorite team, our favorite song, our favorite Christmas song, a trip to the beach. Oh how we love....our spouse, our parents, our children, our jobs, a "blood brother", sisters of choice, friends. Oh how we love....the girl or boy who sat behind us in 4th grade and made us blush, the star football player or cheerleader, our English teacher, the girl on the bus, the guy in the band.
We use that word to describe everything from preferences to passions, connections to circumstances.
But "agape" is an entirely different experience. The word is said to date from the early 17th century: from the Greek: agapē is defined as 'selfless love'. It is often used in communities of faith to describe God's live for us.
What does God's love for us look like? "Selfless or unselfish love" are a start. But here is my view:
God's love demands nothing from us, though God invites us to love God, woos us persistently throughout our lives, stands at all times ready to help us love God. God loves us always the same, never more and never less, because God loves us each and all utterly. God is love; it is what God does.
There is nothing that I can do to enhance God. There is nothing I can do to improve God's lot or make God happier. There just isn't anything I have that God needs or wants....except to be willing to have a relationship with God. God saves; God instructs; God guides, informs, teaches, empowers, revamps, rebuilds, renews, restores, redeems, rehabilitates all because God loves us and longs for us to open our hearts to all that God would pour out on us. God persistently advocates for us to find our way back to God, improve our understanding (which will always be limited because it is just crazy to believe we can fully understand all that God is or does or has planned for us), to love God more fully as God reveals to us ways to participate in God's love for God's children.
So what can we call our love for God since love for God is also not like puppies or family or high school crushes? It seems odd to folks who get told they need to love God so they can escape Hell. But I believe that our love for God grows to be more selfless as we mature in faith. I don't love God because I'm scared or want to be "blessed" by material stuff. I love God because God loves me and I find that so compelling that it does not matter if I found out tomorrow that there isn't really any heaven...the fact that I am loved and valued by God, even for the nanosecond that my life is in the history of this world, is enough.
Now, I want to be clear, I expect to see you all in heaven, even though I have not the smallest idea of what it will be like or how I will respond to being there. But it is just not the essential thing, although I'm pretty excited about understanding more and learning to love God more deeply there. The essential thing is this: I love God as bestest I can today, and I pray, a little better, a bit more deeply, a smidgen more like God wants me to love God than I do today.
I guess that fits the 17th century definition too.
We use that word to describe everything from preferences to passions, connections to circumstances.
But "agape" is an entirely different experience. The word is said to date from the early 17th century: from the Greek: agapē is defined as 'selfless love'. It is often used in communities of faith to describe God's live for us.
What does God's love for us look like? "Selfless or unselfish love" are a start. But here is my view:
God's love demands nothing from us, though God invites us to love God, woos us persistently throughout our lives, stands at all times ready to help us love God. God loves us always the same, never more and never less, because God loves us each and all utterly. God is love; it is what God does.
There is nothing that I can do to enhance God. There is nothing I can do to improve God's lot or make God happier. There just isn't anything I have that God needs or wants....except to be willing to have a relationship with God. God saves; God instructs; God guides, informs, teaches, empowers, revamps, rebuilds, renews, restores, redeems, rehabilitates all because God loves us and longs for us to open our hearts to all that God would pour out on us. God persistently advocates for us to find our way back to God, improve our understanding (which will always be limited because it is just crazy to believe we can fully understand all that God is or does or has planned for us), to love God more fully as God reveals to us ways to participate in God's love for God's children.
So what can we call our love for God since love for God is also not like puppies or family or high school crushes? It seems odd to folks who get told they need to love God so they can escape Hell. But I believe that our love for God grows to be more selfless as we mature in faith. I don't love God because I'm scared or want to be "blessed" by material stuff. I love God because God loves me and I find that so compelling that it does not matter if I found out tomorrow that there isn't really any heaven...the fact that I am loved and valued by God, even for the nanosecond that my life is in the history of this world, is enough.
Now, I want to be clear, I expect to see you all in heaven, even though I have not the smallest idea of what it will be like or how I will respond to being there. But it is just not the essential thing, although I'm pretty excited about understanding more and learning to love God more deeply there. The essential thing is this: I love God as bestest I can today, and I pray, a little better, a bit more deeply, a smidgen more like God wants me to love God than I do today.
I guess that fits the 17th century definition too.
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