A Japanese magazine has a picture of a butterfly on one of its pages. Its color is a dull gray until warmed by one’s hand. The touch of a hand causes the special inks in the printing to react, and the dull gray is transformed into a flashing kaleidoscope of color.
The world around us is hurting, and it’s hungry for the touch of someone who cares—who really cares! Through God’s agape kind of love, you can be that someone. What things can be thus changed by the warmth of your interest and agape love? Your family? Your church? Your city?
Agape is God’s supernatural, unconditional love for you revealed supremely through our Lord’s death on the cross for our sins. It is the supernatural love He wants to produce in you and through you to others, by His Holy Spirit.
The apostle Paul, inspired by the Holy Spirit, wrote:
Let love be your greatest aim. (1 Corinthians 14:1, TLB)
Let me share some vital truths about love that will help you understand the basis for loving by faith.
God Loves You Unconditionally
It’s impossible to love by faith if you do not believe that God loves you with agape love. God’s love for you is unconditional and undeserved. He loves you in spite of your disobedience, your weakness, your sin, and your selfishness. He loves you enough to provide a way to abundant, eternal life. From the cross Christ cried out, “Father, forgive them, for they do not know what they are doing” (Luke 23:34). If God loved those who are sinners that much, can you imagine how much He loves you—His child through faith in Christ and who seeks to please Him?
The love that God has for you is far beyond our human comprehension. Jesus prayed, “My prayer for all of them [the disciples and all future believers] is that they will be of one heart and mind, just as you and I are, Father…I in them and you in me, all being perfected into one—so that the world will know you sent me and will understand that you love them as much as you love me” (John 17:21,23, TLB).
You Are Commanded to Love
Jesus said, “’Love the Lord your God with all your heart, soul, and mind.’ This is the first and greatest commandment. The second most important is similar: ‘Love your neighbor as much as you love yourself.’ All other commandments and all the demands of the prophets stem from these two laws and are fulfilled if you obey them. Keep only these and you will find that you are obeying all the others” (Matthew 22:36-40, TLB).
At one time in my Christian life, I was troubled over the command to love God so completely. How could I ever measure up to such a high standard? Two very important considerations helped me to desire to love and please Him completely.
First, the Holy Spirit has filled my heart with God’s love, as promised in Romans:
We know how dearly God loves us, and we feel this warm love everywhere within us because God has given us the Holy Spirit to fill our hearts with His love (Romans 5:5).
Second, by meditating on the attributes of God and the wonderful things He has done and is doing for me, I find my love for Him growing. I love Him because He first loved me (1 John 4:19).
Focus on loving God and as your love for Him grows, so will your love for others.
When Christians begin to act like Christians and love God, their neighbors, their enemies, and especially their Christian brothers and sisters—regardless of color, race, or class—we will see in our time as in the first century, a great transformation in the whole of society. People will marvel when they observe our love in the same way people marveled when they observed those first-century believers saying, “How they love one another.”
You Cannot Love in Your Own Strength
Just as surely as “those who are in the flesh [the worldly, carnal person] cannot please God,” so in your own strength you cannot love as you should.
You cannot demonstrate agape love, God’s unconditional love for others, through your own efforts. If you have tried, you have surely failed. If you are trying, you are surely failing. There is only one way to love with agape love.
You Can Love With God’s Love… by Faith
When Christ comes into your life and you become a Christian, God gives you the resources to be a different kind of person. With the motivation, He also gives you the ability. He provides you with a new kind of love.
But how do you make love a practical reality in your life? How do you love? By resolutions? By self-impose discipline? No. The only way to love is by faith.
Everything about the Christian life is based on faith. You love by faith just as you received Christ by faith, just as you are filled with the Holy Spirit by faith, and just as you walk by faith.
If you have difficulty in loving others, remember that Jesus commanded, “Love each other just as much as I love you” (John 13:34, TLB). It is God’s will for you to love. He would not command you to do something that He will not enable you to do. (1 John 5:14,15)
God has an unending supply of His divine, supernatural agape love for you. It is for you to claim, to grow on, to spread to others, and thus to reach hundreds and thousands with the love that counts, the love that will bring the, to Jesus Christ.
In order to experience and share this love, you must claim it by faith; that is, trust His promise that He will give you all that you need to do His will on the basis of His command and promise.
One example from my life occurred when I was having a problem loving a fellow staff member. It troubled me. I wanted to love him. I knew that I was commanded to love him; yet, because of certain areas of inconsistency and personality differences, it was difficult for me to love him. But the Lord reminded me of 1 Peter 5:7, “Let Him have all your worries and cares, for He is always thinking about you and watching everything that concerns you.” I decided to give this problem to Him and to love this man by faith. When I claimed God’s love for the man by faith, my concern lifted. I knew the matter was in God’s hands.
An hour later, I found under my door a letter from that very man, who had no possible way of knowing what I had just experienced. In fact, his letter had been written he day before. The Lord had foreseen the change in me. This friend and I met together that afternoon and had the most wonderful time of prayer and fellowship we had ever experienced together. Loving with God’s love by faith has changed our relationship.
Love by faith every one of your “enemies”—everyone who angers you, ignores you, bores you, or frustrates you. People are waiting to be loved with God’s love.
Remember, the agape kind of love is an act of the will, not just an emotion. You love by faith. By faith, you can claim God’s love step by step, person by person.
“May the Lord make your love to grow and overflow to each other and to everyone else…” (1 Thessalonians 3:12).
By Bill Bright
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