The Agape Love

​I Corinthians 13:1-7
Luke 18:10-14
Matthew 5:39
 
Let’s look at this word agape – actually, the word agape is not in the bible. Agape is a Greek word that was used by the early Christians. It means God’s love or the love of God.  So even though the word agape is not in the bible, it is an important word to know as we seek to know more about God.

In this passage the word charity is another word for love. Paul tells me that I can have all these elegant words but if I don’t have love it’s just like tinkling cymbals or sounding brass - I’m just keeping up noise. He goes on to say “…..though I have the gift of prophecy” and to mention other gifts. In other words I can do all these things: I can have faith, I can feed the poor, I can do a lot of things, but it profits me nothing  if I don’t have LOVE. I can give out all that I have but if I don’t give it from the heart it means nothing.  If I don’t give it with love, I’m just putting on a show.

There are a lot of people who do things for a show. Even in our churches and other organizations people sometimes do things just for a show. They will do things so that the spotlight shines on them. Without love, it means nothing. God is not concerned with what we do out of just doing it. It matters why we do it.
I have seen people do things just to be put under the spotlight, wanting people to look upon them. Like this man that’s in the scripture that stood before the altar and he smote his breast and said Lord forgive me I’m a sinner. The other man stood with his chest stuck out saying I tithe, and I fast all week long, but he was only focused on himself. We need to stop looking at ourselves and look at the needs of others.
As you go back and you read this remember the word charity is another word for love.

As we look at these other characteristics of love we see that love “suffers long ,is kind, vaunteth not itself, is not puffed up…”.

Whatever we are going to do God wants us to do it out of love. He wants us to do it from the heart.

The Bible says God is love and God so loved the world. This is a symbol/description of God’s love, His agape love. God is kind, and God is longsuffering.  God is not easy to provoke. We need to keep in mind that when we talk about His agape love we’re talking about the characteristics of God’s love.

This chapter talks about love - this agape love -the love that God has for each one of us.  We look at all of these different characteristics of love. If you really have the true love of God you are not easily provoked.

Now I’m going to tell you something, I’m a man of God but people can do things that will get on anybody’s nerve.  So we should have enough God in us that we can control that. Instead of jumping off the handle and using those words and cussing and want to fight we should be able to look at that thing and say Sure, I could get mad or I could get upset. But before I let myself get all upset and use things I don’t want to use or act any kind of way that is ungodly, I’m going to walk away from this situation. I’m going to get myself out of this environment. I don’t care who he is a man of God can get angry. Even Jesus got angry with those people that sold in the temple and ran them out.

I’m not going to ever say that I’ve gotten to the point where I’m not going to get upset or that I can’t get upset.  I know the scripture says if somebody slaps you on one side to turn the other cheek but we’re human.  So we have to learn to demonstrate that agape love, we have to learn how to love like God.

We can do all these other things but if we don’t have love it profits us nothing. We’re just keeping up noise-  just rattling like a can with a bunch of rocks in it. It profits us nothing if we’re not doing it out of sincerity, if we don’t imitate God’s Agape Love.

​So let’s practice love – let’s imitate our heavenly Father. Let’s be loving, patient, slow to get angry. This is the one way we can seek to be like God.