"Take Off" chapter three

CHAPTER THREE: LOVE
II have been involved in ministry in various forms for probably at least ten years (though in those teenage years it was very little). Something that I was faced with within serving was the reason as to why I did it. This is still something I have to battle with all the time—why do I really “serve”? Do I do it for what people think? Do I do it to make my parents proud? Do I do it because it gives me purpose and it's what I know? Do I do it for the perks of ministry? Do I do it because I simply love God? I hope that in time that I may consistently resound with the last answer.
What is love? The 1990's song, with a skit created around the song, is very comical and yet the question, aside from all the humor, remains. What is it? How do you describe it? What is the at the core of this word? “Love.” I want to go to a few passages and help you get this concept in your head: the love of God is unlike any kind of love that humans could ever come up with on their own. Why? Because our love is contaminated by sin. Our concept of what love is far less of what God's concept of love is. We must know the difference to know how to employ the difference.
The first thing to know is that not everyone has the ability to love with “God-love.” The Greek word for the greatest form of love is “agape.” John says in 1 John 4:7-9, “Beloved, let us love one another, for love is from God, and whoever loves has been born of God and knows God. Anyone who does not love does not know God, because God is love. In this the love of God was manifest among us, that God sent his only Son into the world, so that we might live through Him.” In all of its usages in 1 John 4 (look at it, there are many more), love is used with the word agape. This kind of love is a selfless, unconditional love that comes from God and can only be channeled, not created. “We love because he first loved us.” (1 John 4:19) “Anyone who does not love does not know God, because God is love.”(1 John 4:8) We may often forget, but unbelievers cannot love like this because they do not know the One from whom such love comes.
Love is the motivating factor for why a Christian should truly serve God. Love is the reason why we will live outside of our own interests and promote the interests of others. Love is that which will show the world what God is about and what God enables His people to do.
Imagine helping your parents not because of a sense of duty when they nag at you, but as a sense of communicating “God loves you” by quickly acting upon their best interests. Imagine working a job, doing your best with a great attitude not for “Employee of the Month” or a pay raise or people's opinion of you. Just imagine doing that to show those people that God loves them and doing it regardless of what they will say or think or do to you. If we really loved people without expecting return, imagine how you might actually witness regularly or help others regularly or be selfless as a matter of character. Imagine that your life was not about the advancement of you but the advancement of God through the great avenue of a deep and true love for others. Many people, including believers, are foreign to this way of thinking.
It is especially impossible when we regard sin in our hearts to deliver such show such a kind of love. We usually defer to the lesser kind of loves, primarily as phileo love which esteems others in a friendship kind of love. This kind of love may be revoked and it generally has strings attached. We will love others with this kind of love as a matter of convenience or what best suits our interests. This kind of love cares about others so long as there is a sense of gratitude on their parts for our love. If we were to give out this kind of love and to get nothing in return or perhaps even evil in return, we would very likely stop showing this kind of love. In the absence of this love, there is really nothing of merit to take its place. It is so imperative that this is not the kind of love that defines us.
I think agape love is the kind of love that we've heard of where someone says, “I don't like such and such, but I do love them.” In our humanity, we hear that statement and it really doesn't make sense. How could you not like someone and yet love them? Maybe it is clear to you, but to me, I just don't get it—at least along the lines of phileo love. But in the realm of agape love, I totally understand what this means. People may not be likeable; they may truly be a thorn in our side. This does not negate the ability on our parts to show them that God loves them by putting even our enemies above us in what ways we can. It is hard to do this because of our sin nature, but when we get our pride out of our system we are freed up to love them without conditions or personal gain from our efforts.
The love of God is also a fear-neutralizing agent. 1 John 4:18, “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.” Did you hear that? Fear has to do with repercussion, or punishment in light of our actions. Imagine thinking only of the interests of others and not regarding how your actions affected yourself. There would be no fear in doing the hard things, like witnessing, confronting sin, saying the truth, correcting wrongs. People may totally misread your intentions in what you do, but if you really love them you will find yourself doing things that normal people are simply too afraid to do. The love of God is quite capable of enabling the most fearful men into becoming spiritual Spartans, facing this world with boldness because they care about the future of others and, more importantly, the glory of God.
To look at life with the love that comes from God, all I have to say is, “Wow.” You could do incredible things in mundane circumstances. You literally could wake up every day to the best day of your life, dependent upon the outflow of God's love that you would give. John writes in 1 John 5:2-4:
“By this we know that we love the children of God, when we love God and obey His commandments. For this is the love of God, that we keep His commandments. And His commandments are not burdensome. For everyone who has been born of God overcomes the world. And this is the victory that has overcome the world—our faith.”

What people need and what our own souls need so greatly is to be filled with love and in turn to have this love poured out on others. The world would be so different a place, let alone the United States, if every true believer in Jesus Christ were to live with love as their motive for all that they do. People would not be able to deny what God has done; they could reject truth but they would not be able to deny its power.
So, why do you do what you do? Is your life all that it could be? I will suggest to you and to everyone out there that if love is not what flows through your heart, not phileo love but agape love, your life will never be what it could have been as a believer. What do you make of your plans for the future? Do they revolve around getting the most out of life for yourself or for the sake of God and other people? Take to heart the words of Jesus in Matthew 16:24-26:
24 Then Jesus told his disciples, "If anyone would come after me, let him deny himself and take up his cross and follow me. 25 For whoever would save his life will lose it, but whoever loses his life for my sake will find it. 26 For what will it profit a man if he gains the whole world and forfeits his soul? Or what shall a man give in return for his soul?

Whoever would seek to hold on tightly to his desires and ambitions and selfishness will lose his life to vanity and waste. Whoever will give his life away to God, entrusting everything he's got to God, will find the life that we're all seeking. It is in the losing of ourselves that we find the lives that our hearts so long for; it is in losing ourselves that we become the great people that we would never be otherwise. The world judges a man's greatness by making him something of a spectacle to behold—but the world is lost in sin and is limited in its ability to transcend above marred human reason because of the Fall. What we do with our lives in career and geographical location and the importance of our place has no bearing on real fulfillment. There is an emptiness that no amount of money, no amount of friends, no amount of freedoms, no amount of success (and the list goes on) could ever fill. The love of God and the unconditional giving and selflessness that comes with it, while an enigma to many, is the very thing that our souls crave more than anything. As believers, our souls crave to have it, crave to give it, and crave to understand it.
I close with probably the most quoted verse I can think of: John 3:16. Take your understanding of “God-love” into the word “love” as used in this verse (which is how it is used here).
“For God so loved the world that He gave His only begotten Son, that whoever believes on Him shall not perish, but have everlasting life.” God loved the world in an unconditional, selfless way—which is why He sent His Son to come and to die on the cross for their sins. If there were conditions to His love, I seriously question whether He would have sent Jesus knowing what the world would do to Him. I also seriously question that Jesus would have come to the world to offer eternal life had God not loved the world in such a way. We are not exceptions to the unconditional love of God; we are just as undeserving and then to think that if God loved us as we love others, ugh...I'd be afraid to trust in a God whose love was like my love. My love must be reflective of His love. My love must be poured out on others for the sake of them. And don't forget why we are to love others—it's so they will see God's love, be directed to His Son, and find Christ as their own personal Savior. If they're saved, then they'll be pressed on towards being stronger believers who know that God loves them just as much in the present as He did when they first believed. Pray for God to help you see how you can show love to others—and then do it. Love takes action. God sent His son into the world.