Agapé

1 Corinthians 13:4-8; 13 - “Love is patient, love is kind. It does not envy, it does not boast, it is not proud. It does not dishonor others, it is not self-seeking, it is not easily angered, it keeps no record of wrongs. Love does not delight in evil but rejoices with the truth. It always protects, always trusts, always hopes, always perseveres. Love never fails. And now these three remain; faith, hope and love. But the greatest of these is love.”

So, I can only imagine you probably already know what I’m going to post on. These verses are probably some of the most famous verses in the Bible, which almost anyone can recite at least the first few “characteristics” as it describes what love is.

As you may have caught on (as I have written previously), God has recently been teaching me about love. This past summer, as I was healing from a broken heart, I created a daily devotion for when I was away at camp. I broke the verses down into 12 characteristics, one for each week I was away from the reality of the real world, where I had time to focus on me and God and our relationship. It was just something simple and something to reflect on either at the beginning or end of my day (it varied by week, but usually it happened at night). It was based on the verses posted above, and I learned a lot from it, and as I was reading other literature (also on the topic of love) everything began to fall into place as I continued to read and learn some more.

This past weekend I was in two distinct places that have discussed love as the main theme/topic. The first was my friends wedding on Saturday. It was beautiful, and she was beautiful. The priest (as it was a Catholic wedding) discussed the difference in approaches to marriage. Some people approach it in a contract-like way, and others in a covenant way…I will not try to explain it to you as I won’t do it justice, but needless to say, He was trying to say the covenant way was the lasting way, as it’s not a contract with an ending, it is something that is for the rest of your human life, and it’s between you, your husband, and God…therefore “supposedly” unbreakable. That’s when I started thinking about my parents divorce (hence the quotations around supposedly), and how people don’t (normally) enter into a marriage thinking of it as a contract. My parents have faith in their life…the depth of that faith I cannot really tell. However, I do believe that they joined in marriage intending it to be a covenant, but 18 years later (I think) decided to turn it into a contract because of circumstances and feelings between both of them, and thinking about the family as a whole too (whatever all that means). As I have been learning about love, I have come to realize that love is a choice. You choose to fall in love with someone, and you can choose to fall out of love as well (or force yourself if they have decided that they don't love you anymore). I got a little upset over my thoughts of my parents, but decided that it wasn’t my place to judge my parents decision, because in the long run, I do believe it is better now (and if you know me well, you know I hate the “what if” game where we think about how it could’ve turned out if one thing was changed). It also makes me think about how people actually enter into marriage today, because many people say they have faith and God in their lives, but is He actually in the center of everything they do, the decisions they are making, and in particular, the marriage they are entering into? Who knows…but I guess that’s not for me to come to terms with, that’s for God to know. I will just have to make sure He is in the center of my marriage, (whenever that may be!).

Needless to say, the wedding was wonderful! My friends all had bets on the fact that I would cry, but I only had tears well up in my eyes, nothing streamed down my cheeks, those stayed dry! Haha. They were actually impressed! It was fun to see my friends again, and to celebrate together the coming together of our friend and her husband (who makes her incredibly happy!)

After all that…the second place I heard about love was in church this morning. Being the 4^th week of advent, the topic of this morning’s sermon was love. The pastor focused in on another famous verse of the bible…

John 3:16 – “For God so loved the world, that he gave his one and only Son, that whoever believes in him shall not perish but have eternal life."

...probably one of the other most famous verses in the Bible. I really enjoyed the way the pastor broke down the message. He took each sectio nof the verse and talked about it. As I discuss what I got out of the message, I will bold the section I am discussing, and then continue on from there :)
For God so loved the world... - he emphasized the word "so", which apparently is called and adverb (I learn something new every day!). Adverbs are designed to intensify the feeling being described in the sentence. Therefore, making it, "For God so loved the world". He focused on how love is an amazing thing, but that God so loved the world was to take that love to another level... That he gave... God didn't have to do anything. God made the world, he created everything, but he loved to world that he gave... his ONE and ONLY Son... There was no one else, and is no one else to come to save us from our sins (as technically, Jesus already did die for us and save us - so we're not discussing the 2nd coming in this portion). He so love the world, that he gave his son to save us from mankind's sin and imperfect world... That whoever believes in him... the "whoever"s are us. "Whoever" pertains to people, and we are all people, therefore whoever is us... Shall not perish... this means we continue to go on, we continue to live and have life in this world, and it only gets better... BUT have eternal life... Our life doesn't end here. We aren't just on this rollercoaster for the ride for it to end, we are on it so that He can take us to live with him when we are done on this early world.
The pastor also made this great disctinctiong: God's love is sufficient for ALL, but effective, ONLY for those who believe. These words are powerful words to say but also very truthful indeed. I very much enjoyed continuing to learn about this topic, as I don't think the learning will ever end, as there is always something new to learn, even if it's a verse you happen to hear over and over again.

On a side note: it's cute when little kids don't know about reality quite yet. I was babysitting my friend's kids on Friday night, and they were heading to a wedding as well on Saturday...so wedding talk was popular. They are determined to be my flower girls (even though they are 8 and 10, and by the time I'm married it might be too late - even the age of 10 is cutting it close for flower girl age). Anyways, I told them I needed to find a boyfriend first, before I consider getting married...and this is what they told me: "all you gotta do is kiss a boy, and then marry him." Oh, if only it was that easy girls (and unfortunately, the other thought going through my head was, if that was the case, I'd be married quite a few times by now...oh boy...)