Reply To: Soteriology (Laity) Discussion Board 1

[prettyruth]

God’s love is a supernatural love; one’s mind cannot fathom it. This love is not selfish, is not looking for what he will get, he gives. This love is called Agape in Greek meaning God’s kind of love, divine love, this love is perfect, is sacrificial (1John 4:8) While friendship love is a platonic love. It’s typically a love that means you have a strong bond with someone, they are important to you and you are emotionally connected to them, but you usually do not have romantic feeling for them. I can say a biblical example of friendship love is Jesus and Apostle Peter – Following his resurrection, Jesus asked the apostle Peter if he loved him (agape). Peter replied three times that he did, but the word he used was phileo or brotherly love (John 21:15–19). Peter had not yet received the Holy Spirit at Pentecost; he was incapable of agape love.

A true understanding of God’s love will totally cause my eyes to see through His love eyes and cause my heart to embrace and reach out to others and myself. “others” here will definitely include God, who ultimately and continuously should be first in my list.

A true understanding of God’s love will cause my heart to insatiably think about the Lord, what he has accomplished for me and his feelings. I will be concerned about how he feels about things and will want to honor that (Mark 12:30).

Secondly, God’s love will cause me to think of myself – to see my worth and value, and stirs me into becoming fuller who God wants me to be as a person, to become better and better (Proverbs 4:18, Mark 12:31). Then, this will effortlessly and naturally flow to others as one fixes his or her eyes on the Lord to see what He is doing (John 5:19, Hebrews 12:2, Psalms 105:4). The objective is to care for the other with the God-kind of love. But there is a step further: understanding God’s love in a true sense will cause me to think of others more than myself (John 13:34, Romans12:10, Philippians 2:3). The eagerness of going out to proclaim the good news will be overwhelming because God’s Love is action (John 3:16).

1, First Corinthians 13:5AMP – God’s Love takes no account of evil done to it – pays no attention of suffered wrong; God’s nature is love so all he knows to do is to love and to protect. A typical example for me here is King David and Saul in the book of 1Samuel “with all the non-hidden attempts from Saul to kill David, David still walked in love towards Saul even when David had the opportunity to speak against him and to kill him David refused instead he honored God by protecting Saul, this is an expression of God’s love”. Friendship love cannot endure this long, friendship love will want to fight back at some point.

2, First Corinthians 13:7&8AMP – God’s love is ever ready to believe the best of every person, its hopes are fadeless under all circumstances and it endures everything without weakening. God’s Love bears up under anything and everything that comes (John 13: 34-35, 1John 3:14-15).This love is always positive minded and focuses on the promises of God upon ones life and always sees the God nature in you which is good.

3, God’s love is a Peace maker (1Peter4:8) – The Love of God Constraineth us (2Cor 5:14) we have no will of our own but to choose to walk in love like our heavenly Father no matter what may come our way, we communicate with a loving attitude. Every step out of love is a step into sin (Matthew 5:45). Love is the fruit of the spirit (Galatians 5:22-23).

4, God’s Love is unconditional, is perfect, is sacrificial and pure (John 3:16). Friendship love is not perfect is not sacrificial. God’s Love puts others first and is interested in what he can give and not what he can get.

In conclusion; Love is the action that motivates faith, Love gives faith power and Love is the tuests test of genuine faith.