God’s love is known as “agape” love.
“Agape” love is the highest form of love. It’s selfless, steadfast, unchanging, and unconditional. Love is the condition in which the happiness of another person is essential to your own. Romans 5:8.
Everything God does for us, even if we don’t understand what He’s doing, He’s doing it out of love. So, let me ask you, what does love look like? How would you describe love?
It has the hands to help others. It has the feet to run to the poor and needy. It has the eyes to see misery and wants to make a difference. It has the ears to hear the sorrow of man and longs to reach into the world to help. This is what love looks like.
In the New Testament, love is more of a verb than it is a noun. It has more to do with acting than with feeling. There’s a quote from someone that says, “You can give without loving, but you can never love without giving.”
1 Corinthians 16:14. 1 Corinthians 13:3-8.
Love should never flow up.
It should flow down. A one year convert in the church should never love more than a 30 year veteran for the Lord. A child is not supposed to love the parent more than the parent loves the child.
When God created Adam, He breathed the breath of life into him. Adam was His son and different from the rest of creation. satan came and knew he couldn’t destroy God so he went after what God loved. God hates sin. satan might have had the thought, “If I can put what God hates inside of what God loves, I’ll have God in a conflict with Himself. Because if what God hates (sin) is inside of what God loves (Adam) then to destroy what God hates, He will have to destroy what He loves. If He saves what he loves, He will have to save what He hates.”
The Judge of creation said Adam needed to die the day Adam disobeyed and ate of the forbidden tree. But maybe on the way to that courtroom, He passed by some lambs and God used them as a sign for another sacrifice that would happen a few thousand years down the road. The Father stood up as the Judge sat down and love began to flow. God took that sheep skin and used it to cover Adam, letting the blood of the sheep be shed rather than Adam’s blood.
1John 4:8. Psalms 86:5,15. Ephesians 2:4. Love is at it’s greatest when it’s given to the one who deserves it least. You will never love anyone more than when you love someone who doesn’t deserve it. Don’t let your troubles and your hurts stop up the flow of love from your life. Don’t ever let love stop flowing from you!
David and Absalom
Absalom tried to take his father’s kingdom. He tried to have his father killed. He chased his father away, embarrassed him, and tried every way he could to destroy his father. Everything was against David. When his men started talking about killing Absalom, all of a sudden David could hear Absalom saying, “Dad” for the first time when he was a baby. He remembered Absalom as a little boy saying, “I want to be just like you one day, Daddy.”
At that moment, David didn’t care about running from his kingdom in the middle of the night in his bed clothes and barefooted. He wasn’t thinking about losing his throne, but he was thinking of Absalom, his son. Love began to flow. 2 Samuel 18:5.
The Prodigal Son
This young man was going to get his inheritance around age 30 or when his father died, according to Jewish law. For a son to be in his mid-twenties, step up to his father and say, “I want my inheritance now,” he was telling him he respected his father no longer and his father was as dead to him. He was telling his father that he would rather have things than have his father. The son went to a far country because he never wanted to see his father again. How much lower can a parent be treated?
So, the son went out and wasted his substance on riotous living. While he was out there, I don’t think his mother took his clothes out of the closet. I don’t think she took his favorite dessert off the menu. The son’s parents both believed that one day their boy was coming home. Years go by and his father’s outside working, always looking way down the road to see if he can see his son.
One day the father sees someone who walked like only his son walked. The Adam part in this father was saying, “There’s that sorry boy that tore your heart out.” But this father quenched every voice coming to his mind. Love began to flow and he ran to his son.
Does your love flow?
As a sinner, you came to the altar broken, hurting, hopeless. In a moment of time, this invisible God’s love began to flow into you and change your life. What happened to that love?
This love didn’t change Judas.
But it changed 11 other disciples and millions since Jesus walked the Earth. Some people may lock up their love because someone they tried to reach became their “Judas.” These people trust no one now.
Martin Luther King Jr. — “The saddest thing about betrayal, is it never comes from your enemy, it comes from friends.”
Some people think about their “Judas” (someone they tried to reach but that someone abandoned the faith) and worry about where they could have gone wrong. They wonder what more they could have done and where they failed in their teaching and example.
With Judas’ eyes, he saw the clearest evidence. With his ears, he heard the finest teaching. With his feet he followed the greatest example. Yet, this man betrayed Jesus.
Judas teaches us that even the best examples, the most compelling evidence, the finest teachings, and the ultimate environment for incubating faith can not, by itself, change a human heart. This human heart has to be willing to change.
Don’t condemn yourself over your “Judas.” Don’t give up on prayer. Go to the Lord and say, “I did my best, Lord. Now, it’s your turn to deal with them.” What this person does is not your choice, it’s theirs. Don’t beat yourself up when you can be worshipping and growing closer to God. You weren’t Jesus when you were born and you won’t be Jesus when you die, but Jesus knows how to fix things so take your burdens to Him.
Someone is lost out there and God is looking for an intercessor for them. The devil is trying to get us mad at them so love won’t flow. When love flows and we pray for others, it will hold back judgment! Jesus lives in you and His love lives in you! Let the love of God run out of you!
Love is a healer. It will raise up a standard. Love will stop a battle. It will break pressure. Love will mend broken hearts.
Let love flow! Let your love touch hearts and change lives!
— Pastor Anthony Wynn
