...agape love...

“Jesus said: “I give you a new commandment, that you love one another.   Just as I have loved you, you also should love one another.   By this everyone will know that you are my disciples, if you have love for one another” John 13: 34-35.

On the night before Jesus died Jesus gave us a new Love Commandment.  He taught throughout His life the Golden Rule: Do unto others as they do unto you.   But on this night He told us: Love others as I love you.   Quite a change!   No longer are we to love others as they love us, but we are to love others as God loves us.   That change is HUGE!   We are now to be willing to die for others, to love others with total, self-sacrificing love.

In Greek there are four (4) concepts of love: Storge Love, or familial love, the love a parent has for their children; Philios Love, or the love between friends; Eros Love, or emotional love, being in love with someone or loving someone; and Agape Love, or total, unselfish love, the strongest of all loves and a Christian virtue.

This Agape Love is the love Jesus talked about the most.  It is the New Love He commands on this night.  It is the love in John 3:16, that “God so loved the world that he gave his only begotten Son, so that everyone who believes in Him, even thought you died, will live forever.”

Consider that this was most on Jesus’ mind on the night before He died.

Lord Jesus Christ, Son of the Living God, have mercy on me a sinner.

Oh Lord, I pray that I can love You and love others with Agape love — Your Love — and that Your grace will fall on me with this kind of love.    Oh how I thank you for Your total, self-sacrificing love for us all.   Above all, may I love You and love others.   Through Christ, our Lord, Amen.