What is agape love? Pursuing love outside of your personal desires.
I’m a newly engaged young woman, and my fiancé and I often discuss the concept of love. It’s very easy to feel butterflies of excitement in anticipation of being near him or feeling warm and fuzzy during the time we spend together! Certainly, the flutters of emotional love sparked our relationship and gave us the desire to spend more time together and grow that love into something beyond superficial emotions. It’s easy for us to assume that we can easily love each other within our own capacities, because of what we feel for someone! I’ve fallen in love with this man, and so my feelings will make it easy to love him well! But does the emotional love that I feel enable me to love this man effectively? Does it teach me to love him the way Jesus loves him?
I recently memorized 1 Corinthians 13 for a class at Ethnos360 Bible Institute, and often it comes to mind when I’m convicted of acting in a way that is not kind or loving. My fiancé and I were on a road trip with a few of our close friends over Thanksgiving break, and my fiancé was excited to sit in the front of the car and spend some much-needed time with his close friend. I, however, had other ideas in mind. For me, there was nothing better than being able to sit with my fiancé, and so that was my demand when it was time to take our seats in the car. After I sat down, pleased with my circumstances, I was immediately hit with a wave of guilt when I realized that my fiancé was now suffering the loss of time with a close friend, and I realized I had insisted on my own way.
It was a clear reminder of 1 Corinthians 13.4-6, which says “Love is patient and kind; love does not envy or boast; it is not arrogant or rude. It does not insist on its own way; it is not irritable or resentful; it does not rejoice at wrongdoing, but rejoices with the truth.”
This was a perfect picture of my own attempt of love. In my own desire to spend time with the person I loved, I put the way I felt loved first and insisted on my own way. This was not agape love. But the Bible reminds me that I’m not as loving as I think I am, and I am pursuing love incorrectly. What is agape love? Agape love is putting others first. Agape love means that instead of insisting on my own way, or making myself feel good, I should instead put my fiancé’s desires before my own.
What is agape love? God’s perfect sacrificial and unconditional love.
The Greek root of love, ἀγάπη (agape) is simply defined as the highest form of love, a selfless love that is not based on emotion. It is a type of love the sacrificially seeks the good of others and is rooted in something much deeper than ourselves. 1 John 4.7-12 explains love beautifully, showing us that the root of agape love is God.
7 Beloved, let us love one another, for love is from God, and whoever loves has been born of God and knows God. 8 Anyone who does not love does not know God, because God is love. 9 In this the love of God was made manifest among us, that God sent his only Son into the world, so that we might live through him. 10 In this is love, not that we have loved God but that he loved us and sent his Son to be the propitiation for our sins. 11 Beloved, if God so loved us, we also ought to love one another. 12 No one has ever seen God; if we love one another, God abides in us and his love is perfected in us.
The deepest root of love is God. Love exists because God exists. Love comes only from God, and when we love in response to His love, God is abiding within us! We can’t love from our own strength, feelings or emotions. Nowhere in this passage does it say, “Love is based upon our personal interests to care about others.” We cannot love on our own! As fallible human beings, we will fail to love others well when we depend on ourselves to love unconditionally and sacrificially. We cannot rely on our emotions or personal desire to love- we will fail. But God’s love cannot fail. God’s love is perfect and has made His love tangible to us by sending His Son, Jesus, to live among the world and show His love to us by suffering the ultimate punishment by dying on the cross as a sacrifice for all the terrible sins we’ve committed. That is the perfect example of what agape love is. In John 15:13, Jesus tells us “Greater love has no one than this, that someone lay down his life for his friends”. Jesus did exactly that. Jesus laid down His life for us! He loved us so deeply and perfectly that He willingly carried all our sinful thoughts, actions and words to the cross and suffered the punishment we deserve! Agape love is exactly what Jesus demonstrates. Agape love is sacrificial, unconditional and seeks the good of others, and doesn’t come from personal interest or emotional desire. This love only comes from God, and we are enabled to love when God is abiding within us. Because of Jesus’s sacrifice for us, His love for us, we should be motivated and encouraged to love as a result!
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