Love is the trickiest thing for people, especially for the younger, to understand, but when understood, if possible, it is a revelation filled with wonder and awe. So, I, Lia, have figured out Love for the most part. I should say, sadly, that I only have a small understanding of Love.
Before I begin I will give you the terms I will be using a lot:
Eros Love, Agape Love, and Phileo Love.
We're a Love obsessed world. There is no denying the fact that we all long, crave and want Love and there is a reason why.
1 Corinthians 13 says:
1 If I speak in the tongues[a] of men or of angels, but do not have love, I am only a resounding gong or a clanging cymbal. 2 If I have the gift of prophecy and can fathom all mysteries and all knowledge, and if I have a faith that can move mountains, but do not have love, I am nothing. 3 If I give all I possess to the poor and give over my body to hardship that I may boast,[b] but do not have love, I gain nothing.
4 Love is patient, love is kind. It does not envy, it does not boast, it is not proud. 5 It does not dishonor others, it is not self-seeking, it is not easily angered, it keeps no record of wrongs. 6 Love does not delight in evil but rejoices with the truth. 7 It always protects, always trusts, always hopes, always perseveres.
8 Love never fails. But where there are prophecies, they will cease; where there are tongues, they will be stilled; where there is knowledge, it will pass away. 9 For we know in part and we prophesy in part, 10 but when completeness comes, what is in part disappears. 11 When I was a child, I talked like a child, I thought like a child, I reasoned like a child. When I became a man, I put the ways of childhood behind me. 12 For now we see only a reflection as in a mirror; then we shall see face to face. Now I know in part; then I shall know fully, even as I am fully known.
13 And now these three remain: faith, hope and love. But the greatest of these is love.
Love is everything. That established and understood let's move on to the one person who has all the Love we need; Christ. Christ holds what we all crave for in his hands and he offers it to every single one of us. We see it and understand it through the Bible when Jesus preforms miracles and God sends his one and only son to become our sin.
But do we take it? No. We, as I have said before, never even notice true Agape Love, which can only come from the King; God. Agape Love is never ending love, only received from our God. We all want Agape Love. If you haven't noticed the media and modern-day world is in a constant search for it...when it's right in front of their eyes. God is Agape Love, the one love we all want.
So, what happens when we can't seem to locate Agape Love? We settle for Eros-like Love. Eros Love is a romantic love, which, if you're currently in love with someone, you feel. With Agape Love out of sight we began to make our own Agape Love, hungry for that never failing love, and ready for it too. Agape love becomes distorted. We begin to believe that Eros love is Agape Love because we can experience Eros love with all our senses. If we love someone with Eros Love we can most likely hear them, see them, and touch them. The only way to get Agape Love is through Christ but, sadly, we can't see Christ or touch him, but we can hear him at times, then again, rarely anyone notices when Christ is talking to us. [We like to ignore God, don't we? Haha!]
Eros Love has become our fake Agape Love, but it's not fulfilling our needs, which is upsetting. We then proclaim, "There's no such thing as love!". We might yell this from the mountains but deep down we all still believe in Love because, well, there is Love on this planet. As was said in 1 Cor. 13, if we don't have Love then we are nothing. Love is in everyday life.
Love is in me when I dance because I love dance. Love is in a father when he spends time with his child because he loves his child. Love is in a person when they feed their pet in the morning because they love their pet.
Now, that might seem like stretching it but, if you get what I'm saying, you see that Love is 'the very fiber of the earth'. [Excuse the cliche...]Even if it's not a strong, Christ-like Love, it's a type of Love that we use in everyday life. Love is everything and God is Love. God is a God of Love!
But we don't see that. Even us Christians forget that God is Love therefore we seek Love in many different places. From Eros-type Love to the love of money. If you think about it Love is our greatest gift but also our greatest down fall. The Love of sin is what tears us apart but the Love of God is what brings us to salvation.
And it's the want of Love that leads us to search for it, which, if we find the correct Love, can be life changing. Finding the correct Love is finding Christ. But imagine this; someone offers you everything, everything, but you reject it for something tiny, minuscule--like a gum wrapper.
Pretty sad that we turn our back on our Creator for something so tasteless in the long run, right? I think that makes us pretty pathetic but God, now God, he seems to understand and still loves us anyway. It makes me feel terrible to know that but happy at the same time.
And, do you want to know how discovering Agape Love can make Eros Love better? It's easy. If we focus our sights on God, who is Agape Love, then we can channel the Love we get from God into our Eros Love. Like in marriage! A Marriage is suppose to be focused on God, right? There is a obvious reason for this! If a married couple is focused on the Love of God then they'll have perfect examples of how to Love each other. As 1 Corinthians said, ' Love is patient, Love is kind, ect...' So we have instructions on what Love is and we have God's Love, therefore Loving others should be easier than it is, but, of course, as humans, we end up making it harder than need be.
Ultimately everything is made up of Love and God is Love, therefore, logically, God is everything. If we were in a Southern Baptist Church right now I'd raise my hand and say, "Can I get an amen?"
:]
I believe that's all I had at the moment about Love. I mean, there's SO much more but right now that's all I got. So, enjoy, my friends! And I hope it makes sense and you like it. If you wish to share you're thoughts about it feel free to do so! I want your feedback! And if you wish to share with anyone feel free to do that also. Just make sure, this sounds so self-centered, that it was Lia who wrote it. Haha!
With much Phileo Love,
Lia!
Amen! A very thoughtful well-written post about love.
ReplyDeleteThank you. :]
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