The Real Face of Love

 

by Barbara Latta 

The Bible was written in Hebrew and Greek, languages more precise than the English most of us are familiar with. Scripture uses a variety of words to indicate different relationships, whereas we throw around several uses of love, sometimes flippantly, and the word loses the impact we intend.

We love chocolate.

We love our spouse.

We love our dog.

We love our car.

We love a certain book or movie.

We love God.

We use this same word to indicate a variety of emotions and attachments. We don’t (or shouldn’t!) love chocolate with the same feelings we have for our spouse.

What is the real face of love?

There are other words in the Bible that were translated in English as love, but these two are the ones we are most familiar with.

Philadelphia – brotherly love. [1] Be kindly affectionate to one another with brotherly love (philadelphia), in honor giving preference to one another (Romans 12:10 NKJV)

Agapao – to take pleasure in the thing, prize it above other things, be unwilling to abandon it or do without. [2] In this is (agapao) love, not that we loved God, but that He (agapao) loved us and sent His Son to be the propitiation for our sins. (1 John 4:10)

We can feel brotherly (philadelphia) love toward our family members and friends. But we can still fail when situations arise that are not pleasant. We may lose our temper, grow impatient, and express emotions that are not favorable.

But God doesn’t deal with us the way we deal with each other.  He doesn’t just display love, He is (agapao) love. Love is His very being. He created the world because of love. He desired to share Himself with others made in His image.

God’s agapao never fails. We explode in fits of anger but He remains calm. We fail in our faith but His arms are strong. Our patience grows thin but the Lord never wavers.

The only way we can express agapao toward anyone is to be filled with the Holy Spirit and under His control. Because without Him our flesh takes over.

Receiving from the Lord is not supposed to be hard, but our minds get in the way. Every time we mess up we think we need to run from God until we clean ourselves up and become worthy to approach His throne again. But if we could clean ourselves up, we wouldn’t need a Savior. The best place to be after throwing a flesh fit is in the arms of the Father.

But where sin abounded, grace abounded much more (Romans 5:20b).

As far as the east is from the west, so far has He removed our transgressions from us (Psalm 103:12).

God’s unconditional love was shown to us while we were fallen (Romans 5:8). He showed the one and only kind of true love when He gave Jesus to us as a gift wrapped in a little baby’s body to grow into the Man who would have all the foul sin of the world placed upon him.

God’s promises don’t change and our feelings don’t change Him. God doesn’t lie and when He says He loves us, He means He loves us. His love is not dependent upon our works, but upon His character. This is important to remember when emotions say otherwise.

Because He loved us, we can love Him. And because He loved us, we can love others. Not with a feeling, but with an expression of Him, a becoming of who He made us to be.

This Scripture sums up the gospel message.

For I am persuaded that neither death, nor life, nor angels, nor principalities, nor powers, nor things present, nor things to come. Nor height, not depth, nor any other creature shall be able to separate us from the love of God which is in Christ Jesus our Lord (Romans 8:39).

God recorded His love letter to us with blood-stained ink. From Genesis to the gospels He looked forward in time. From Acts to Revelation, He reminded us of all that His Son did when His blood ran down a wooden cross and soaked into the cursed earth. One drop would have been enough, but He used it all to show us He goes over and beyond and does much more than we need.  He paid the highest cost to give us the gift of agapao.

In our world, love may have many faces. But in God’s domain there is only one real face of love—the face of His Son.

If you have never reached out to receive love like no one else can give you, the “Knowing God” tab on this site will show you how.

Happy Valentine’s Day from the One who loves you most!

Join the conversation and share your thoughts.

We throw around several uses of love, sometimes flippantly, and the word loses the impact we intend. What is the real face of love? (click to tweet) 

 

1] G5360 - philadelphia - Strong's Greek Lexicon (kjv). Retrieved from https://www.blueletterbible.org/lexicon/g5360/kjv/tr/0-1/

[2] G25 - agapaō - Strong's Greek Lexicon (kjv). Retrieved from https://www.blueletterbible.org/lexicon/g25/kjv/tr/0-1/