God’s Agape Love
There are many attributes when it comes to God, but the one attribute that has always stood out to me is loving. God’s love can be seen throughout the entire Bible, but is amplified by His sacrifice in the New Testament. John 3:16 shows the depth of God’s love, “For God so loved the world that he gave his one and only Son, that whoever believes in him shall not perish but have eternal life” (NIV). It is hard to understand the extent of God’s love, especially if you had an insecure or anxious attachment growing up with your caregivers. God loves us so much He sent His son to earth, knowing how it would end, and knowing that he would hang on a cross and die for us so we could live in eternity with Him. God is a relational
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This type of love is the love that God has for His own children. This type of love is what was displayed on the cross by Jesus Christ” (Crier, 2015). The New Testament says multiple times that God is agape love, showing that God is the ultimate, most self-sacrificing love. Throughout the Bible God provides for His children out of love and even punishes them out of His love for His children. “Much is made of God's wrath and punishment in the Old Testament, but when God punishes, it is with reluctance… In fact, God often pleads with the Israelites to stop doing wrong and repent so that he may bless them” (God’s love, n.d.). Love is discussed hundreds of times in the Bible, both showing God’s love and in command to love others as God has loved …show more content…
He loves us enough to create us, provide for us, discipline us, and send His Son to earth to die so we can be saved. God loved us enough to create us and earth for us, to provide for us throughout history, punishing us when we step out of line and showering us with continual blessings. God’s Love is self-sacrificing, not self-serving, unconditional, and eternal so agape love is a hard concept to understand. To sacrifice His Son for the opportunity for us to have eternal life with Him is the ultimate example of His love for us. He knew we would disappoint Him and let Him down, but He loved us enough to send Jesus to die for our sins despite our
Thus, while man shows his human nature, desiring and coveting physical riches and treasures, God demonstrates his truly divine nature as he possesses true spiritual riches, in the form of love, mercy, and forgiveness.
God is sinless, loving, forgiving and full of wisdom. God’s love is shown throughout the Old and New Testaments. Many times throughout the Old
... is that he comes to each and every person in need. When we start sinking in the storms of life, we need to cry out to the Lord and he will reach out and will bring you out of the water that has begun to drown you.
Agape is the highest of the four types of love in the Bible. This term defines God’s immeasurable, incomparable love for humankind. It is the divine love that comes from God. Jesus Christ demonstrated this kind of love in its highest form (Zavada 2017). Many people may feel they show true Agape, but when it becomes terrifying they will stay away from this kind of love; however, it may come from meeting a stranger for the first time. Unfortunately, you don’t count your true friends until you find those who will show you Agape as it is believed Christ showed to his Father in Heaven. The true love between friends and family members usually ends at the level of Philia or Storge and only few will generate into Agape. For one to proclaim Agape without being misinterpreted, one needs to first show another love called Philautia, a Greek word for Self-love. Absolutely, you cannot share what you do not have. If you do not love yourself, you cannot love anyone else either. The only way to be content is to find that unconditional love within you. Only once you learn to love and understand yourself, will you be ready to search for the spiritual freedom of the Self (Sol
God is like a father and we, humanity are his children. He teaches us, prepares us, disciplines us, and punishes us for not obeying and following His commands. The attributes of God that belong distinctly to him are that
In Christianity, the emphasis is placed on love of God rather than on obeying his will. People must believe that God is merciful and loves them as well. As a reflection of God’s love, people must also love other people (and the whole humanity in general) and forgive their enemies. In the Sermon on the Mount, Jesus endorses agape, or selfless love (in contrast to eros, or possessive love), which consists of dedication to another person’s good, even at the expense of our own good and happiness. People should practice peace and nonviolence, return good for evil and love for suffering (“turn the other cheek”).
He made and loveth all…” and that is that one should love and respect God and all things
It is rather difficult to speak of love in an original sense today. If someone were to ask an individual to define love, a common response would be, “love cannot be explained, it cannot be defined”. This answer would be acceptable if love was equally felt for and between all people. But anyone would have to agree to the fact that there are different degrees and levels of love. Someone would not love his or her family members the same way they would his or her spouse. Love varies between different levels of action and feeling, and a definition of each level must be discovered in order to understand its varying power. Martin Luther King Jr. felt the need to address this particular issue when discussing the principles behind the non-violent student movement for civil rights. King felt that a working idea of love was the keystone to the philosophy of a non-violent protest. Turning to the Greek language and idea of love, King was able to define three particular levels, eros, philia, and agape. His goal was to take one of these three levels and use it as the definitive quality of the non-violent movement.
The apostle John declared: “God is love.” In the Koine Greek, Agape love is that not only that love is from God, but that it is of God. God Himself loves. Love is one of the moral attributes of God Agape love is self-sacrificing. The LORD Almighty loved the world so much that He sent His only son, to death; death on a cross. .
Loving is the first characteristic trait that Jehovah possesses The first book of Moses indicates, for he made man in his own image and gave him dominion over all the land and animals (Bib.Gen.); therefore, this was the first act of love; furthermore, he so loved the world that he sent his only begotten son to save it (Jn.3: 16). Jehovah’s love surpasses any kind of love that may be found upon the face of the earth because his love is unconditional. He is a merciful God. All sins may be washed away if you are sincere when you call upon him. His door is always open. He has no set hours of the day or night when you can call upon him. There are millions of people around the world that worship Jehovah, for these reasons, and more.
Jesus Christ lived a sinless life even up to his death by crucifixion. Far from being a way of appeasing a wrathful God for the sins of Mankind the Crucifixion is really an example of God's love toward us. Consider Romans 5:8 "But God commendeth his love toward us, in that, while we were yet sinners, Christ died for us.". At first this seems slightly strange: how was God's love manifested towards us through the Crucifixion?
The word love is mentioned in the Bible an average of 437 times, depending on the translation, so love is important to the basis of Christianity. One of the most profound pieces of Scripture discussing love is the overused John 3:16, which reads: “For God so loved the world that he gave his only Son, so that everyone who believes in him may not perish but may have eternal life” (The New Oxford Annotated Bible). This verse brings up the subject of sacrifice, reminding the audience that they have been saved through someone’s death and resurrection. Jesus was crucified so people he had never met would have eternal life in Him; He loved humanity so much that He was willing to die for us to save us. Since Jesus is wholly man and wholly God, we are also able to say that God loved humanity so much that He was willing to die for us to save us. Furthermore, God did not love just a few people, but rather, the entire world. Christ died for everyone, no matter each individual situation. He died for the believers and the non-believers. He died for the sinners and the saints. He died to save everyone for all
Towns, Elmer L. "The Attributes of God." Concise Bible Doctrines. Chattanooga, TN: AMG, 2006. 68-69. Print.
God is love. Whoever lives in love lives in God, and God in them.” These scriptures clearly point out God’s love. In George W. Peters book A Biblical Theology of Missions says this about God’s love, “Divine love is that impelling and dynamic quality in which God moves out of Himself and in which He relates Himself in all His beneficence and sufficiency to His creation. His love motivates Him eternally to communicate and to impart Himself to the object of His relationship” (59 & 60). Peters notes, love is: outgoing dynamic relationship (Romans 5:8), sacrificial active relationship (John 3:16), comprehensive relationship (John 3:17), and finally love is manifold relationship; which he says manifolds according to the character, conditions and needs of its object” (60). God is love. Also God is relational; Peter says on page 57, “God is a God of relationships”; the book of Ezekiel 37:27 says, “My dwelling place will be with them; I will be their God, and they will be my people” and Jeremiah 32:38 says, “ They will be my people, and I will be their God.” From these scriptures it is clearly known that God the Father desires intimate relationship with His people. The