Agape Love - Devotional

GracetoYou.org ^ | 1997 | John MacArthur, Grace Community Church

[metmom]

“. . . And in your brotherly kindness, Christian love” (2 Peter 1:7).

Sacrificial love proves genuine faith.

Classical Greek had three common terms for love. As we saw yesterday, phileo (philadelphia) is the love of give and take, best expressed in friendship. Eros is the love that takes—one loves another strictly for what he or she can get out of that person. It is typical of the world’s sexual and lustful desires, which are always bent toward self-gratification. Agape is the love that gives. It is completely unselfish, with no taking involved. This is the highest form of love, which all the other virtues in 2 Peter 1 ultimately lead to. It seeks another’s supreme good, no matter what the cost. Agape was exemplified perfectly by Jesus’ sacrifice on our behalf.

But what does this highest type of love look like? A brief survey of the one anothers in the New Testament gives an excellent picture. We are commanded to:

Edify one another (Rom. 14:19). “Serve one another” (Gal. 5:13). “Bear one another’s burdens” (Gal. 6:2). Submit to one another (Eph. 5:21). Forgive one another (Col. 3:13). Instruct one another (Col. 3:16). “Comfort one another” (1 Thess. 4:18). Rebuke one another (Titus 1:13). Encourage one another to do good (Heb. 10:24-25). Confess our sins to one another (James 5:16). “Pray for one another” (James 5:16). “Be hospitable to one another” (1 Peter 4:9-10).

The Lord Jesus Christ was involved with individuals. He was a true friend who caringly, lovingly, and sensitively interacted with feeble, needy, and unimportant people and made them eternally important.

Nevertheless we still find people spiritualizing love into a meaningless term. “I love so-and-so in the Lord” really means, “He irks me, but I guess I have to love him if he’s a believer.” Don’t let yourself say that. Instead, display genuine love.

Suggestions for Prayer

Thank God that Christ showed agape love toward you on the cross.

For Further Study

Memorize one of the verses in the list of one anothers, and apply it at every appropriate opportunity.

[metmom]

Studying God’s Word ping

[MurphsLaw]

Pinged.

"13 And now faith, hope, and love abide, these three; and the greatest of these is love."

[higgmeister]

Only a few years after The Summer of Love, "Agapē" was the name of the cool coffee house that was in rooms of our city school board buildings when I was in high school.   Black painted walls with black lights and fluorescent posters everywhere.  With lots of donated sofas and coffee tables, it was a laid back groove, man.