Love Is From God

1 John 4:7-12

            When it comes to talking about love, the Greek language is far superior to English.  We have only one word for “love,” and we use it to indicate love for a spouse, for parents and siblings, for children and for friends—even for foods, cars, and other objects.  We have to figure out from the context just what kind of love someone means.

            The Greeks have three words for love.  Each word allows the reader/listener to know what kind of love the writer/speaker is referring to.

Eros is romantic love, the kind of love we share with very few people during our lives.  No matter how many times we fall in love, these affairs still only involve a handful of people. 

Filios is love for family members and very close friends—friends who are like members of the family.  While I have no blood brothers or sisters, there are a select few people who I consider family.  For them I feel filial love even though we are not directly related.  

Agape is the kind of self-giving love that Jesus modeled when he was here on earth. When John talks about love in his letters he uses the word agape.  When he says, “Dear friends, let us love one another,” he certainly doesn’t mean eros.  We couldn’t possibly share romantic love with everyone.  It would be very time-consuming and get us into a lot of trouble.  Neither does he mean filios.  We are not expected to love everyone we meet as if they were our parents or brothers and sisters.  No one has a family that large.

 We are expected to love as Jesus did—loving everyone we have anything to do with, and loving them with a love that involves giving of ourselves even to the point of self-sacrifice.

We know how difficult this can be.  Some of us even say (of someone we don’t like very much) “I’ll try to love him for Jesus’ sake.”  Can we imagine Jesus saying that?  Jesus loved everyone, even the scribes and Pharisees with whom he disagreed—even those who no one else loved.

We know we can never love like that on our own.    Eros is often fairly easy, especially if we love someone who loves us back.  Filios is a little harder.  We know how difficult it can be to get along with family members—until someone threatens them from outside the family. 

Agape is the most difficult love of all.  It involves loving everyone, not just those close to us, or those who we can relate to easily.  It means loving the person who cuts us off in traffic.  It means loving the salesperson or waiter who is rude to us.  It means loving the next door neighbor who never has a kind word to say about anyone.  It means, above all, loving the unlovable.  Luke tells us that Jesus even commands us to love our enemies.

 This is the kind of love we see demonstrated by people like Mother Teresa.  This is the kind of love shown by missionaries who give up all the comforts of home and family to go to complete strangers and show them Christ.

We need God’s help to even attempt agape.  We must ask God for more and more love to share with more and more people

How do we love this way?  First, we must realize how much God loves us.  How could anyone love us enough to die for us—not just for us, but for the whole world?  How could anyone love us enough to bless us with so many good things—family, friends, and material goods enough to meet our needs?

When we accept how much God loves us we can begin to practice agape—and practice is the correct word.  As behavioral scientists tell us, it is easier to act ourselves into a new way of thinking than to think our way into a new way of acting.

Start small.  Smile at that sour salesclerk and say, “Thank you.”  Greet that negative neighbor with a cheery, “Hello!”  Do him a favor—commit a random act of kindness. 

Don’t be surprised if, over time, it becomes easier to live an agape life.  It can be habit-forming.