New Perspective

Since the church Tim works at doesn't have Wednesday night services, we go to Anchorage church of Christ, and the class we're attending this quarter is on the teachings of Jesus. Last night was about love. Of course we talked about agape and phileo love and the difference between the two. Agape is the godly, self-sacrificing, servant love that isn't an emotional feeling, but a choice to act in the best interest of the person. Phileo is the emotional, brotherly, friendly love someone feels when they are emotionally connected to someone; it's not self-sacrificing and based more on feeling than a choice. This was not new information, but we started looking at different verses and at which word was used, and one verse that uses agape is John 3:16 when it says that God loved the world that He gave His son. So, God agapes the world. Then we looked at John 16:27 which is Jesus speaking to his disciples and he says, "No, the Father himself loves you because you have loved me and have believed that I came from God," and I thought, "Whoa, so this says if we don't love God, He doesn't love us, but we just read that God loves the whole world and of course God loves everyone no matter what, so what can this mean?" And then the teacher said the word used in this verse is phileo, the emotional bond love.  So then it all made sense in a way I never thought about it before.  God agapes everyone.  He has sacrificed for everyone, and loves us in the way that He wants the best for us.  However, he only has the emotional, phileo love, the bond where he loves us like a brother or best friend if we love him like that.  If we want God to love us like a close brother, we have to love Him like that.  We can't just say that we believe in God and He's great and I love Him because He loved me.  We actually have to believe that and have a relationship with Him.  We also are called to agape God.  How can we be sacrificing to God?  Doesn't he have everything? Jesus tells us that we show our love for God by obeying His commands (John 14:15). And we are to offer our bodies as living sacrifices, Romans 12:1.  We need to feel connected to God in an emotional way, but we also need to be willing to obey His commands and sacrifice what we want for what God wants of us.

This is pretty basic stuff that Christians know, and I knew it, but like many things, I realized that many times I get stuck in being more worried about doing the right thing and being the "good person" that I forget to nurture the emotional bond I should have with God.  For our home Bible study, we are reading a book called, "The Prodigal God" about the parable of the prodigal son, and it has given me a new perspective on that parable.  I don't have time to write about that now, but I will in the near future.

Right now I have to continue getting ready for work!  Happy Friday!!!!