...agape love...

Historically Christians have differentiated between two kinds of love, total self-sacrificing or self-giving love (agape), and and the love of self-concern (eros).  Human history has often been viewed as the struggle between these two kinds of love, between agape and eros.   When we look within ourselves we can see, if we are honest, that same struggle in our lives.  Jesus clearly modeled for us all — and He calls us all to live — agape love.

But our sinful and fallen natures attract us to live selfishly (eros).   Clearly we need Jesus Christ and the grace of God to move from a life of selfish egos to a life of generous givers.   To love others and to love God go hand-in-hand.  We cannot lone others without loving God, nor can we love God without loving others.  We have to see within us all a responsibility to love others, and to be active and deliberate in demonstrating such love to others.  In every sense such love for others must be obvious or evident without having to announce our love for others.  Such love must emanate from our decisions and choices every single day.   And the classic understanding of true love of God was penned by John in his first letter: “In this is love, not that we loved God but that He loved us and sent His Son to be the atoning sacrifice for our sins” 1 John 4:10.   We can only truly love God because of the fact that He has first loved us.  It is God, it is His Holy Spirit, it is the grace of our Lord, Jesus Christ, who alone enables us to love God.  Such love pulls us away from selfish self-centered eros love.  Indeed, too live our lives in the manner — or according to the plan of God — necessitate that we love God who first loves us.

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

From the Bible:

“But God shows his love for us in that while we were still sinners, Christ died for us” Romans 5:8.

"So we have come to know and to believe the love that God has for us. God is love, and whoever abides in love abides in God, and God abides in him” 1 John 4:16.  (Remember that to abide in literally means in Hebrew “to pitch your tent in.”)

“I have loved you with an everlasting love; therefore I have continued my faithfulness to you” Jeremiah 31:3.

“The Lord your God is in your midst, a mighty one who will save; he will rejoice over you with gladness; he will quiet you by his love; he will exult over you with loud singing” Zephaniah 3:17.

“He heals the brokenhearted and binds up their wounds” Psalm 147:3.

“I have been crucified with Christ. It is no longer I who live, but Christ who lives in me. And the life I now live in the flesh I live by faith in the Son of God, who loved me and gave himself for me” Galatians 2:20.

“If God is for us, who can be against us” Romans 8:31?