John 15:9-13 (NIV)
9 “As the Father has loved me, so have I loved you. Now remain in my love. 10 If you keep my commands, you will remain in my love, just as I have kept my Father’s commands and remain in his love. 11 I have told you this so that my joy may be in you and that your joy may be complete. 12 My command is this: Love each other as I have loved you. 13 Greater love has no one than this: to lay down one’s life for one’s friends.
There are four levels of expressions of Love; Agape, Philia, Storge, and Eros. The Agape, is the highest form of love, the love of God for man and the love of man back to God. Philia is the brotherly love, while Storge is for parent's love to their children and vice versa, (and also covers love for your country). Eros is an intimate love and affection of one’s beauty (both physical and internal) for your spouse.
We can say that everyone especially the adults have covered Philia, Storge, and Eros in their lives, in their hearts at the same time. These ordinary kinds of Love are dwelling in us if not every time, most of the time. But the question is, when is the Agape, the “True Everlasting Love” develops in our hearts?
When you love someone, because you are aware of the love of God for you, and that you want to love Him back through loving His creations that you can see, and you are doing it as an expression of your love for GOD that you cannot see, then that is when this Philia or Storge scaled up to Agape. 1 John 4:20-21 Those who say, “I love God,” and hate their brothers or sisters, are liars; for those who do not love a brother or sister whom they have seen, cannot love God whom they have not seen. The commandment we have from him is this: those who love God must love their brothers and sisters also.” Jesus added in Matthew 25:40 which says, “Truly I tell you, just as you did it to one of the least of these who are members of my family, you did it to me.”
Eros, on the other hand, can be transformed to Agape, when the intimate love of husband and wife will be subjected to His law of Love covering the matrimony which requires submission and faithfulness. It requires submission of body and spirit and fidelity to your spouse. Ephesians 5:21-25 states; Be subject to one another out of reverence for Christ. Wives, be subject to your husbands as you are to the Lord. For the husband is the head of the wife just as Christ is the head of the church, the body of which he is the Savior. Just as the church is subject to Christ, so also wives ought to be, in everything, to their husbands. Husbands, love your wives, just as Christ loved the church and gave himself up for her...”
But whether it is Philia, Storge or even Eros, which means charity and care are done but for the love of our own selves, then Agape disappears in our hearts. For Agape is a selfless love. It is to love others even others will not love us back. Luke 6:32-34 speaks well of this; “If you love those who love you, what credit is that to you? For even sinners love those who love them. If you do good to those who do good to you, what credit is that to you? For even sinners do the same. If you lend to those from whom you hope to receive, what credit is that to you? Even sinners lend to sinners, to receive as much again.” It is a good and desirable and not wrong to let others love us back. What is wrong is; our loving is for our own selves and not for GOD’s creations. GOD is not in us if we do not know and practice the ‘Selfless Love’, thus no one will be a partaker of His promise if our purpose on loving is for our own selves, however our reward will be great, and we will be children of the Most High if we love everyone even our enemies to express our love to GOD. (Luke 6:35).
This is what is written according to the Holy Scripture about the Selfless Love that is true and everlasting:
1 Corinthians 13:1-13
"1 If I speak in the tongues of men or of angels, but do not have love, I am only a resounding gong or a clanging cymbal. 2 If I have the gift of prophecy and can fathom all mysteries and all knowledge, and if I have a faith that can move mountains, but do not have love, I am nothing. 3 If I give all I possess to the poor and give over my body to hardship that I may boast, but do not have love, I gain nothing. 4 Love is patient, love is kind. It does not envy, it does not boast, it is not proud. 5 It does not dishonor others, it is not self-seeking, it is not easily angered, it keeps no record of wrongs. 6 Love does not delight in evil but rejoices with the truth. 7 It always protects, always trusts, always hopes, always perseveres. 8 Love never fails. But where there are prophecies, they will cease; where there are tongues, they will be stilled; where there is knowledge, it will pass away. 9 For we know in part and we prophesy in part, 10 but when completeness comes, what is in part disappears. 11 When I was a child, I talked like a child, I thought like a child, I reasoned like a child. When I became a man, I put the ways of childhood behind me. 12 For now we see only a reflection as in a mirror; then we shall see face to face. Now I know in part; then I shall know fully, even as I am fully known.13 And now these three remain: faith, hope and love. But the greatest of these is love."
The greatest kind of love can only be develop with the help of the Holy Spirit. For Agape Love is the fruit of the Holy Spirit in us. The three kinds is under the law of this world. But Selfless love has no law above it, for itself is the Law. Galatians 5:22-23 says, "22 But the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, forbearance, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, 23 gentleness and self-control. Against such things there is no law."
We are now in the New Covenant; “Love one another just as I have loved you” (John 13:34). Let us experience His greatest love in our hearts. Whatever kind of love we have, let's aspire and allow the love that we have, develop into Jesus' kind of love, the selfless kind, the true love that would set us free from slavery of this world. AMEN
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