Charity – love, Agape love, is shown by its actions (God’s love is shown by His sending Jesus); it is a deliberate act/choice. Christian love towards others who profess Christianity or just mankind in general should not be from impulse derived from feelings but spontaneous and coming from the heart, a heart yielded totally to Christ. Real love seeks no self-gain, seeks to meet the needs of others and seeks nothing bad to come for others. This true love comes only from our Father above, flowing down from Him, filling us and overflowing onto others. Like a waterfall, if it is not fed from above, it will dry up and be useless. In and of ourselves, we cannot have Agape love. It must flow from The Source above - God. Agape love is an unselfish love, ready to give, never expecting to receive back.

Philo love is an affectionate love seeking to be kind, gentle and tender to others, reaching out to all mankind with a gesture of good intent. It can be achieved but unlike Agape love, it sometimes may cease if affection is not returned.

Love is a deep devotion to one’s child or parent. God loved us so much that, when mankind separated themselves from God in disobedience and sin, He sent His Only Son to bridge the gap of separation. Just as God, the Father, loves us so much, we, as children, ought to love our Father, seeking His affection and His love.

Love is a great interest or fondness, as in learning about the one that has gained our attention. If we truly love God, we will be eager to learn more about Him, to seek to do what pleases Him. Our own selfish desires will change and the desires of our heart will be to please Him.

Love is taking pleasure in and for someone. To truly love God means to seek to please Him, to find pleasure in His presence at all times and a feeling of emptiness and loss when you are not.

If we seek out on our own to demonstrate love and do it only for show, it will produce only noise and accomplish nothing long-lasting. It will satisfy the flesh but our spirit will be hungry and thirsty.

Loving someone means being willing to wait Forever for that love to return. Our Father waits patiently for us to love Him, to want to be with Him, to surrender to Him. Like David, some of us mess up Big Time and yet His hand of mercy reaches down and waits for us to run back with tears of repentance. He picks us up, cleanses us from filth that we have allowed once again in our lives. He encourages us to continue on in Him.

We need to set our focus on Jesus, fall “head over heels” in love with and keep that love alive, burning hot within our hearts. We need to let nothing or no one lead us astray and separate us from our First Love. We need to include Jesus in every area of our lives, taking Him wherever we go and “showing Him off” to everyone we see.

Love causes us to seek Truth, to hear it, receive it and allow it to change us. To know real love is to want to change, to be what is meant to be. It believes in good, hopes for better and endures to the end. Real love never fails.

As our love for God grows, our understanding will grow, we will see and hear more clearly the things God has for us. Our faith in Him, our hope of an eternal future with Him will be more secure. His love will begin to flow more freely in and through us like Rivers of Living Water. The unlovable will become lovable and our hearts will reach out with hope, The Hope Of Jesus for the hopeless.

written by LindyM, May 2001

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