Love is .. God’s Word (3/5)

Love Is – God’s Word

In continue of our discussion about ‘love’, mainly the use of the Greek word “agapa” …

Agape is ‘an intelligent, purposeful attitude of esteem and devotion’ – ‘a selfless, purposeful, outgoing attitude that desires to do good to the one loved.’ 

Jesus said at:  Matthew 22:37–40  –  37 – And he said to him, “You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind. 38 This is the great and first commandment. 39 And a second is like it: You shall love your neighbor as yourself. 40 On these two commandments depend all the Law and the Prophets.”

Quoting  Deuteronomy 6:5 – You shall love the LORD your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your might.

The Ten Commandments, the summation of the Law, are divided into two sections.  The first five commandments describe how to love God and the last five describe how to love people.

1.     I am the Lord thy God.

2.     Thou shalt have no other gods before me.

3.     Thou shalt not take the name of the Lord thy God in vain.

4.     Remember the Sabbath Day to keep it holy.

5.     Honor thy Father and Mother.

6.     Thou shalt not murder.

7.     Thou shalt not commit adultery.

8.     Thou shalt not steal.

9.     Thou shalt not bear false witness against thy neighbor.

10.Thou shalt not covet.

Here is the Bible reference to the list:

Deuteronomy 5:6–21 (ESV)

6 “ ‘I am the LORD your God, who brought you out of the land of Egypt, out of the house of slavery.

7 “ ‘You shall have no other gods before me.

8 “ ‘You shall not make for yourself a carved image, or any likeness of anything that is in heaven above, or that is on the earth beneath, or that is in the water under the earth. 9 You shall not bow down to them or serve them; for I the LORD your God am a jealous God, visiting the iniquity of the fathers on the children to the third and fourth generation of those who hate me, 10 but showing steadfast love to thousands of those who love me and keep my commandments.

11 “ ‘You shall not take the name of the LORD your God in vain, for the LORD will not hold him guiltless who takes his name in vain.

12 “ ‘Observe the Sabbath day, to keep it holy, as the LORD your God commanded you. 13 Six days you shall labor and do all your work, 14 but the seventh day is a Sabbath to the LORD your God. On it you shall not do any work, you or your son or your daughter or your male servant or your female servant, or your ox or your donkey or any of your livestock, or the sojourner who is within your gates, that your male servant and your female servant may rest as well as you. 15 You shall remember that you were a slave in the land of Egypt, and the LORD your God brought you out from there with a mighty hand and an outstretched arm. Therefore the LORD your God commanded you to keep the Sabbath day.

16 “ ‘Honor your father and your mother, as the LORD your God commanded you, that your days may be long, and that it may go well with you in the land that the LORD your God is giving you.

17 “ ‘You shall not murder.

18 “ ‘And you shall not commit adultery.

19 “ ‘And you shall not steal.

20 “ ‘And you shall not bear false witness against your neighbor.

21 “ ‘And you shall not covet your neighbor’s wife. And you shall not desire your neighbor’s house, his field, or his male servant, or his female servant, his ox, or his donkey, or anything that is your neighbor’s.’

Reviewing the list helps to understand that “love” is to be an action.  In all of the Ten Commandments there is an feat that is to occur.  In order to please God we must be doing in accordance with His Word.

It would make sense that Jesus would say in Matthew 22:37-40 that we are to love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind…  AND    We are to love our neighbor as our self.  Jesus concludes by stating that these two commandments make up the law of the prophets. 

Application:  It would make sense that we show love to our spouse by how we behave toward her.  How we treat her.  How we consider her in our plans.  How we value her and treat her accordingly. 

With that in mind it makes we can understand Paul as he wrote  in 1 Corinthians describing love with action words.  Love is…

1 Corinthians 13:4–13

4 Love is patient and kind; love does not envy or boast; it is not arrogant 5 or rude. It does not insist on its own way; it is not irritable or resentful; 6 it does not rejoice at wrongdoing, but rejoices with the truth. 7 Love bears all things, believes all things, hopes all things, endures all things.

8 Love never ends. As for prophecies, they will pass away; as for tongues, they will cease; as for knowledge, it will pass away. 9 For we know in part and we prophesy in part, 10 but when the perfect comes, the partial will pass away. 11 When I was a child, I spoke like a child, I thought like a child, I reasoned like a child. When I became a man, I gave up childish ways. 12 For now we see in a mirror dimly, but then face to face. Now I know in part; then I shall know fully, even as I have been fully known.

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

Looking at 2 John 6 – ⁶ And this is love, that we walk according to his commandments; this is the commandment, just as you have heard from the beginning, so that you should walk in it.

“walk according” – an action…. A doing… activity …

Quotation from Life Application Commentary:

WALKING IN THE TRUTH

What does John mean when he speaks of believers “walking in the truth”? It means

•      living in unparalleled freedom (John 8:32–34)

•      living in close proximity to Jesus, who is himself “the truth” (John 14:6)

•      living under the control and guidance of the Holy Spirit, “the Spirit of truth” (John 14:17; 15:26; 16:13; 1 John 5:6)

•      living according to the principles and precepts of Scripture (John 17:17)

•      rejecting a sinful lifestyle (1 John 1:6)

Measure your own life by these criteria. Are you a living advertisement for what it means to “walk in the truth”?

We practice “Love” to our fellow believers:

John 13:34 (ESV)

34 A new commandment I give to you, that you love one another: just as I have loved you, you also are to love one another.

God show us “LOVE” in the He demonstrates it to us.

1 John 4:7-21 – God Is Love

⁷ Beloved, let us love one another, for love is from God, and whoever loves has been born of God and knows God. ⁸ Anyone who does not love does not know God, because God is love. ⁹ In this the love of God was made manifest among us, that God sent his only Son into the world, so that we might live through him. ¹⁰ In this is love, not that we have loved God but that he loved us and sent his Son to be the propitiation for our sins. ¹¹ Beloved, if God so loved us, we also ought to love one another.

God’s love for us was demonstrated by Him sending His son that we might be saved.   If love was ‘passive’ or only a ‘feeling’ without action where would we be?   It was required a sacrifice be offered an action that would redeem us from the bondage of sin.

¹² No one has ever seen God; if we love one another, God abides in us and his love is perfected in us.¹³ By this we know that we abide in him and he in us, because he has given us of his Spirit. ¹⁴ And we have seen and testify that the Father has sent his Son to be the Savior of the world. ¹⁵ Whoever confesses that Jesus is the Son of God, God abides in him, and he in God. ¹⁶ So we have come to know and to believe the love that God has for us. God is love, and whoever abides in love abides in God, and God abides in him. ¹⁷ By this is love perfected with us, so that we may have confidence for the day of judgment, because as he is so also are we in this world.

At verse 18-21 shows how our action reveals if we truly love God by if we love our bother. 

 ¹⁸ There is no fear in love, but perfect love casts out fear. For fear has to do with punishment, and whoever fears has not been perfected in love. ¹⁹ We love because he first loved us. ²⁰ If anyone says, “I love God,” and hates his brother, he is a liar; for he who does not love his brother whom he has seen cannot love God whom he has not seen. ²¹ And this commandment we have from him: whoever loves God must also love his brother.

Verse 19 states that we “love because he first loved us”.  Our capacity for “love” is only possible because God gives us His sprit to act in accordance with His Word.  God wants us to be active in showing out love of Him. 

Conclusion: 

Love for God is a requirement.  Love for God is that we walk (action) with Him.  Love for God is that we love out brother (action).  Love for God is that we abide in Him.  Love for God is that we believe (action) in Him. 

Application:

How would ‘love’ in marriage be anything but a word meaning to show love via one’s action.  Therefore, ‘love’ is not an emotion (feeling)?  Can we see that viewing love as God tells us to view it would fit the verses on love and marriage?

Ephesians 5:22-33

²²Wives, submit to your own husbands, as to the Lord. ²³ For the husband is head of the wife, as also Christ is head of the church; and He is the Savior of the body. ²⁴ Therefore, just as the church is subject to Christ, so let the wives be to their own husbands in everything.

²⁵Husbands, love your wives, just as Christ also loved the church and gave Himself for her, ²⁶ that He might sanctify and cleanse her with the washing of water by the word, ²⁷ that He might present her to Himself a glorious church, not having spot or wrinkle or any such thing, but that she should be holy and without blemish. ²⁸ So husbands ought to love their own wives as their own bodies; he who loves his wife loves himself. ²⁹ For no one ever hated his own flesh, but nourishes and cherishes it, just as the Lord does the church. ³⁰ For we are members of His body, of His flesh and of His bones. ³¹ “For this reason a man shall leave his father and mother and be joined to his wife, and the two shall become one flesh.” ³² This is a great mystery, but I speak concerning Christ and the church. ³³ Nevertheless let each one of you in particular so love his own wife as himself, and let the wife see that she respects her husband.

The highlighted verse 25 again demonstrates that “love” is a doing toward a person.   The metaphor that we ‘love our wives as our body’ illustrates that love is an action.  This action is that of taking care of ourselves.   We wouldn’t punch our body to get bruises or stick it with pins (most men rebel from ‘shots’). Instead we act to protect it and the its parts.

In reality, since love is a decision and action to support it it might make sense that each morning one makes a conscious decision to ‘love one’s wife’.  Doing this is an acknowledgement to self that you will do things that show you love her.  The outcome will be a ‘relationship’ and from that great springs of enjoyment will occur.