Everybody has made an attempt to explain love. The most common are from the Greek: eros, philio and agape. With the exception of eros (sexual), people are to love one another with philio and agape-type love! Philio is brotherly love and agape is as the love only God can have, but we can have that type of love! If we love one another with mere brotherly love, we shortchange our brother! Our responsibility as Christians is to:
Mark 12:30 "And thou shalt love the Lord thy God with all thy heart, and with all thy soul, and with all thy mind, and with all thy strength: this is the first commandment. 31 And the second is like, namely this, Thou shalt love thy neighbour as thyself. There is none other commandment greater than these."Agape and philio love are complementary. Jesus, in one breath, gave people the "Greatest Commandment" and "The One Like unto It"! Jesus was asked what the greatest commandment was and he answered with two commandments! Therefore, they are inseparable and loving one another has some connection to loving others. That connection is explained by:
1 John 5:1"Whosoever believeth that Jesus is the Christ is born of God: and every one that loveth him that begat loveth him also that is begotten of him. 2 By this we know that we love the children of God, when we love God, and keep his commandments."I don't know if these are complementary or supplementary, but it's obvious that to love God we must love others and to love others fully we must love God. The combination of these two is how we should love others. It's more than loving the personhood of the other, but loving the very soul of that person! With that, it's imperative that we love to the extent that Christians have an unquenchable desire that the soul of the person who is loved is never damned to eternal hell, just as Christians themselves long to have their own souls saved from eternal destruction! There is an example of this type of love:
1 Samuel 18: 1 "And it came to pass, when he had made an end of speaking unto Saul, that the soul of Jonathan was knit with the soul of David, and Jonathan loved him as his own soul. 2 And Saul took him that day, and would let him go no more home to his father's house. 3 Then Jonathan and David made a covenant, because he loved him as his own soul. "This is more than friendship although Jonathan and David were friends. This is philio and agape love. It's how we're to love everybody! Let me coin a new phrase for this type of love; one that combines the two: "Godly Love". It's what God intended, to love others as God loves us.
God knows that mankind is ignorant. We need a standard of measuring everything! The standard is comparison to ourselves. How much do we love our own self? I love "me" to the extent that I don't want my soul to burn in hell! That's how much we are to love others! Does that sound familiar? It should: "Thou shalt love thy neighbour as thyself. " which IS the "Second of the Greatest Commandments".
You might say, that some people have low esteem for themselves. Don't be fooled!
Ephesians 5:29 "For no man ever yet hated his own flesh; but nourisheth and cherisheth it..."God blows lack off self-esteem sky high! Even the suicidal, in agreement with psychology, is attempting to get attention, love or sympathy. The focus on suicide is to remove pain from the psyche of the person! Suicide is the way depressed people nourish and cherish their own flesh. Removing pain from the self is a wrong-mode attempt to save oneself from agony.
That might sound non-empathetic, but if we look at the flip-side, salvation is a Christian's attempt to save themselves from the pain of a second death. In effect the Christian seeks relief from their own agony, not because of Christ's agony! It's the forgiveness one gets and the obedience to love that demonstrates love and appreciation for the one who saves!
To demonstrate that concept, let's examine a real life situation: You are in a car wreck and it's in flames. The car doors are jammed shut and you're doomed for sure. Then a fireman comes along with the jaws of life. Just before the car goes up in an explosion, the door is opened and the fireman grabs your hand and tugs you with might. You are freed from death and a fiery outcome. You are saved from an agonizing death!"
Being born again is much the same! Jesus is the fireman. You understand who he is and what he can do, but he's a stranger. His role is to care for you, but yet, there is no strong attachment on your part. However, at some point you realize that your trapped. Your destiny is to burn unless someone comes to save. All you have to do is to reach out and touch the hand of Jesus and he pulls you free from sure death! You never loved the fireman when he came, but you loved him because he saved you. Likewise, you never loved Jesus before, but because you're saved your response is to love him! Why? He saved you!
Love is a cause and effect relationship. With no cause, little love for God is there, but with salvation there is a cause. Love is a reaction to mercy. If the person saved from the fire, has no feeling for the fireman, then his heart is hard. The saved person is obligated to love that fireman and if he doesn't, he better work on his empathy! That's the same with Christians. If we don't love God for saving us, we better work on it! That's a command.
How are we to love God? Our "work" is loving others. We're commanded to do that! Emotional love is a response to our senses. "Godly love" is an obligation and is a response to our gratitude! Grateful people love. We love enough that we obey God's commands. That's our thank you note! That "thank you" is the only way we have to show God that we mean business with our love.
Just as we love ourselves enough to protect our own souls from eternal death, that's how we're to love others! We want their souls saved from hell just as ours are! The "Great Commission" in effect is for us to tell others about Jesus to save their souls! An atheist once said (paraphrased) "If Christians were as sincere as they say they are, they wouldn't be able to sleep because others are not saved from hell!"
That's how much we are to love! That's "Godly love". It's a love of the person and the love of the soul of another. It's a profound love. It's the love between Jonathan and David!
What's the Old Testament have to do with Jesus? In this case, it's a lesson on how Jesus expects us to "love one another". It's loving the soul of everybody and showing our love to Jesus by doing that!
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