Category Archives: Agape

Agape, divine protection, length depth and height, Love of God

Grounded and Tethered [part II]

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 that Christ may dwell in your hearts through faith; that you, being rooted and grounded in love, 18 may be able to comprehend with all the saints what is the width and length and depth and height 19 to know the love of Christ which passes knowledge; that you may be filled with all the fullness of God.

Ephesian 3:17-19







I took my youngest kite flying and tremendously enjoyed the sun, the breeze and blue sky. I remembered something heard long ago. A kite could go anywhere in the world under the power of the wind. It would survive turbulence, rain and heat as long as there is wind to suspend it. The unfortunate thing about a kite is that it cannot survive without being tethered to the ground. Some wise source of grounding must be there to keep it firmly held in place against the wind.
 
We are considerably similar. We have the option of soaring and floating anywhere we want and being suspended almost to cloud level but, it we are not anchored and grounded, we will find ourselves flopping and floundering, dipping and waving as we have seen kites that were disconnected or torn by the wind. As we have seen happen to the unsaved, those who have no hope.  

grace & peace to you!!
 
Seven years later we are STILL tethered by His love!

It really seems that everything is changing as March used to be the time for kites but, in 2020 we are experiencing severe wind in April and May.  The sequester has made it feasible to fly kites as a solo activity.   We could be floating all over the world but, His love is keeping us tethered – even now!!

Agape, Foreigner, phileo

I Wanna Know What Love Is [Part II]

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I wanna know what love is
I want you to show me
And I wanna feel, I want to feel what love is
And I know, I know you can show me
excerpted lyrics: Mick Jones, Foreigner 1984
 
 It has been that kind of week with madmen shooting people for NO reason and other madmen insinuating that more weapons is one solution.  A celebrated playwright declares that “love is love is love is love is love”  and a Facebook friend of mine declares that there cannot be a God or else we would not have had this tragedy.  
 
All of these seemingly non-related details seem related because we’ve all been made with a yearning for real love, the kind no man or woman is able to give.  We are much like another popular song ‘Looking For Love in All the Wrong Places’.  We however get confused and accept erotic love as love.  Sometimes we give all we have and that phileo* love looks like love. It’s selfless but frequently, there is a string attached –  a condition.  I’m giving and at least you can acknowledge that I am giving to you.  
But there is one love, that treats enemies to an everlasting inheritance. The cost was astoundingly high and its acceptance requires devotion but it is described like this “You see, at just the right time, when we were still powerless, Christ died for the ungodly.  Very rarely will anyone die for a righteous person, though for a good person someone might possibly dare to die. 8 But God demonstrates his own love for us in this: While we were still sinners, Christ died for us.”  [Romans 5:6,7 NIV]
 
Who would you die for?  We say we would die for our loved ones, our children, our spouses.  Would you die for your enemy?  For someone who mocked you, ignored you, spited you, betrayed you?  Killed you?  For someone who really didn’t know love, who violently abused others without remorse?   
 
It happened.   And this love is love.

Some say there is no God because of all the evil in the world.  Some say however, that there must be a God in order for there to be love, the most irrational of constructs.  No, I do not intend a straight forward ontological argument for this entry.  My point is that we desperately seek love, the entire world longs for it, but we are so tarnished by the world that we don’t recognize it.  

 
 
 
But it is the Agape love, that is UNCONDITIONAL.  PERIOD.   
 

phileo is the root from which was derived the city name Philadelphia.  “Brotherly love” used here to denote brotherly philanthropic donation for other among other definitions. 

Agape, length depth and height, vulnerability

I Want To Know What Love Is – Part 1

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And I ask him that with both feet planted firmly on love, you will be able to take in with all followers of Jesus, the extravagant dimensions of Christ’s love.  Reach out and experience the breadth!  Test its length! Plumb the depths!  Rise to the heights!  Live full lives, full in the fullness of God!
[Ephesians 3:17-19 MSG]


I am a student of the Agape love i.e. the love of God.  I have been learning how to share Agape with others for years.  I will continue on this learning curve for many more years (God willing!)  A core part of my purpose, our purpose, is to learn to share the love of God within the body of Christ and to demonstrate the love of God to the world.  In order to share this type of love with others one must:

1] be vulnerable – willing to be hurt knowing that we will be disappointed by believers and non-believers and knowing that God will heal us of all pain

2] be fearless, [because it is our fear that holds us distant from others]

3] consider how Jesus loved;  secure to love others without intimidation for he knew how the Father loved him.  He made us and he knows how fragile we are

4] be humble, knowing that we humans are odd creatures and we have received more pain from others than love and our natural reaction to real love mixes attraction with trepidation.  We want the real and safe affection offered, but we are skeptical that there might be something negative coming out of the relationship.