Yesterday, I went to a really good Bible Study at Grace Baptist, with my friend Lois. The subject was love, and I just have to jot down some of the thoughts that are running around in my head after the study. The study discussed a few different kinds of Love. Here are my notes…….
Love and Prayer-
The more you pray, the more your relationship with God grows. So, pray, pray, pray!!!!
Love in Marriage-
Love is unselfish. I recently had the misfortune of reading one the stupidest, most pointless books ever written. It was the choice for a book club I am in. The book was supposed to be about this "epic love story". Only problem is that as I read it I just kept thinking the guy in this book is so SELFISH! Everything in the relationship, from day one was about him, and how she could accommodate him and make him happy. I just kept thinking, that's not love! Love is unselfish! He should think about how he can protect her, take care of her, make her happy, not how she can make him happy. And she should be thinking about how she could protect him, take care of him, make him happy, that's what love is about, and how marriage works. Each partner needs to give 100% of themselves. Not 50-50, not 60-40, you need to give 100% to your spouse because you love them. (I am so annoyed that I even read that book and finished it! I only did because I got started late, and it was a challenge to see if I could finish the book before the club meeting. Only problem was, I am like 99.98% sure that I killed about 100 brain cells by allowing it's stupid pointlessness to enter my mind at all!! I am never going to get those brain cells back! I want my brain cells back! I probably needed them, and at the very least I am sure they would have come in handy at some point in my life.) Love cares for the other person's needs not their own. Jesus is a perfect example, He came to earth to die and take the punishment for sins that he had never committed. All just to make a Way for us to have relationship with God. That is the ultimate of unselfish love! If there is selfishness in a marriage, then there will be problems in a marriage.
Love in Friendship-
Love in friendship, brotherly love, is tenderhearted, compassionate, forgiving. (Ephesians 4:32 "And be ye kind one to another, tenderheared, forgiving one another; even as God for Christ's sake hath forgiven you.") Friendship should be compassionate, thinking about how you would feel in their situation. Caring for their trials and rejoicing in their happiness's. Forgiveness is important in friendship as well, God expects us to forgive the way He forgives, completely. The Bible says that he forgets our sins "as far as the East is from the West". A few of the ladies said that we should love like we love a "blood relation"; I thought that was a pretty cool way to put it.
Agape Love- Loving like God Loves
The last love we talked about was Agape love. This is the love that God has for us. This is the coolest! And the hardest! First of all, you can only have agape love if you relent to the Holy Spirit. You have to just give in, repent for the life of sin that we all live, and give it all to God. To have agape love you can have NO pride in your heart. Pride destroys and kills love! I just can't help but think of it like a little tiny disease, this little spark of pride that starts in your heart, that grows and grows like a cancer, until it has completely taken over all your love, forgiveness, happiness, tenderheartedness, compassion, unselfishness, everything. You are left with nothing but pride. Pride is never good; Proverbs 16:5 "Everyone proud in heart is an abomination to the Lord." I Corinthians 13:3 "And though I bestow all my goods to feed the poor, and though I give my body to be burned, but have not love, it profits me nothing." This makes me think that without love we are nothing, and since pride kills love, then pride makes us nothing.
We can have this perfect love, when we submit to the Lord. I am excited to know that we can trust in the Lord's love forever, especially in these hard times, because He will never fail us.
"It always protects, always trusts, always hopes, and always perseveres. Love never fails." I Corinthians 13:7-8
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