True Love

 Hebrews 11:6 says without faith it’s impossible to please (gratify-to be a source of or give pleasure or satisfaction to) God

Galatians 5:6 says faith works by love (literally, the system of religious truth itself- faith- is energized -worketh- by agape)

1 Corinthians 13:13 boils our relationship with Jesus down to 3 firm things that we must have: faith, hope, and love. Yet, it says both that we must have faith, hope, and agape AND that agape is the greatest of these 3 things that remain!

This chapter describes both what agape is and is not- starting with what it is not. 

1. Speaking in tongues is not love. 
2. The gift of prophecy is not love
3. Gaining scriptural understanding is not love
4. Having faith to believe that all our obstacles that block or interfere with our path will be removed is not love.
5. Being able to give away all I own to help people in need is not love
6. Being able to suffer and die in agony is not love!

All of these things are awesome and awe inspiring things to do!

All of these could (and possibly should) be a part of our walk with God. 

All of these things should flow through us from God almighty into this world. 

But if Love towards God and others is not our true motivation, if all of these things flow through us but we glory and say “look at me! Look what great works I can do”, then other people will be blessed by the doing, but us doing these great acts has no eternal value FOR us at all! 

That’s why it says if we do these great acts without agape, we ARE nothing! 

That’s why when on judgement day, many will say “Lord I’ve done all these wonderful works in your name” he calls them “works of iniquity” and sends them to hell because “he never knew them.” 

The fallen faithful on judgement days true motivations are revealed in their attempted defense: “I’ve done….”

They took Gods work through them and kept the credit for them. 

They gloried in his works rather than giving him all the glory!

This is a love problem that we must allow God to purge out of us!

So what are the symptoms of true agape’?

1. Love suffers long!  

           Makrothumeo- means to be long spirited, forbearing, patient. 

 

1. Love is kind! Shows oneself useful-to act benevolently 
2. Love doesn’t envy! In other words, true love is thankful and content in whatever state it’s in. 
3. Love doesn’t lift itself up!
4. Love isn’t puffed up (pride)
5. Love doesn’t behave unseemly (not according to established standards of good taste)- it always takes the biblical high road 
6. Love Doesn’t seek for itself! What it wants and desires! 
7. Love Isn’t easily angered or exasperated!
8. Love doesn’t think evil (depraved-marked by corruption or evil, having or showing an evil or immoral character: injurious-inflicting or intending to inflict injury,detrimental. Abusive, defamatory)
9. Love Doesn’t celebrate iniquity, but celebrates truth. 
10. Love Bears (endures patiently) all things
11. Love Believes all things. 
12. Love Hopes (expects) all things
13. Love Endures (stays under) all things. 
14. Love never fails (to drop away, to drive out of one’s course, to lose and become inefficient)
15. Love will outlast prophecy, tongues, and knowledge. 

Why? How is all of this possible? How are we supposed to walk , think, and act like this? The bar is set impossibly high!

Answer: 

1 John 4:16

“And we have known and believed the love that God hath to us. God is love; and he that dwelleth in love dwelleth in God, and God in him.”

‭‭1 John‬ ‭4‬:‭16‬ ‭KJV‬‬

https://bible.com/bible/1/1jn.4.16.KJV

First we must know and believe that God unconditionally loves us. 

He’s not waiting on us to fail so he can smash us in anger. That’s not his nature. He does punish. He does correct. He does hate evil. 

But he knows we’re going to fail! Yet, as a real loving father picks up his fallen child and medicates the wound that the child’s wrong actions caused, he stands with his hand reached out still- waiting for us to reach to take hold of it and allow him to fix us. 

But that’s not where we stop. 

The answer is the rest of the verse. When we let him pull us up, we must stay (dwell) in God and let God (dwell) in us. 

That was the whole goal of his incarnation. The whole goal of Calvary. The whole goal of his resurrection. The whole goal of Pentecost. And it’s his whole goal in whatever he does or allows in our lives. 

The grand design is for us to live in him and allow him to live in and through us. 

For if we walk IN the spirit we will not fulfill the lust of the flesh. 

Why? 

Because our whole focus will not be on what’s desired by us. Our focus will be on what’s desired by God and what he wants to do through us to bless others and help draw them to him. 

Thats the only way to fulfill 1 Corinthians 13. 

The old song is true. 

It’s all in him.