Happy Valentine's Day

So how's your love life? I once learned from one of the greatest teachers I have ever had that love comes in three forms. Eros, Phileo and Agape love are all forms of love used in the Bible. The one Jesus holds us accountable to is the Agape love, but the interesting thing about this love is it can circumfrentiate the other two. What I mean is if you love your wife like Jesus loved the churched you are upholding His commandment but hopefully you also have some Eros love in there too as that's the affectionate love between you. But naturally if you have some eros, you seemingly automatically have some agape as well. As described in the New Dictionary of Biblical Theology, the agape love is not an emotion but ones' will for the best for someone else. In other words you always hold the one you agape love best interest's at heart. You genuinely care for them and with that it is unconditional being you expect nothing in return. But besides all of that let's get back to how is your love life? See despite all the definitions we can find, there is one common root of love and is made ultra clear in 1 John 4:8. It simply states that if you don't have the right love you must not know God because God is love. Paul provides us a great checklist for the qualities of love in 1 Corinthians 13:4-8, but the reality of it is if we fall short in any of these qualities, we need to look at our relationship with God first. Like most relationships the more time we spend with Him, the closer we get to Him and thusly His Spirit spills out in love to all those we come in contact with.

So if your checklist has shortfalls take a look at the one question of questions. How is your love for God these days? How is that relationship? After all anything less would be.................uncivilized.................wouldn't it?

Happy Valentine's Day and say I love you to someone.

Pastor Wayne