To your faith, do your best to add goodness,
and to that goodness, increase your knowledge.
Then what you know can help to guide your actions.
And, with this self-control, persist in showing
devoted service to God, especially by being
kind to every brother and sister in Christ.
To all of this add agape – not just brotherly
love or passion – but benevolent, sacrificial,
godly love.
2 Peter 1:5-7 prayer-a-phrased by Mary Sayler, ©2017, using scriptures from many of the translations found on Bible Gateway
…
Showing posts with label agape love. Show all posts
Showing posts with label agape love. Show all posts
Tuesday, March 14, 2017
Tuesday, October 25, 2016
Watch out for love!
Joshua 23:11: “Be very watchful of yourselves to love the LORD your God.”
Prayer:
Parents often tell their children
to be watchful of potential dangers:
fast-moving traffic,
enticing strangers,
weird weather, or whatever
seems worrisome,
and You, Heavenly Father,
remind us of this too.
But, I do not remember
ever telling my children
to watch out for love:
Yes!
Let us be watchful of kind acts
and learn from them with thanksgiving.
Let us be on the lookout for caring faces
of people who love to help, and let us
listen carefully to tones of voice
accompanying tender words
and honest prayer.
Oh, Lord, my God,
help me to notice You.
Help me to be aware
of Your ongoing goodness
and amazing creativity.
Let me not be distracted
by moods, emotions, desires,
or anything that takes my attention
from You.
Help me to praise You, notice the love
around me,
and give You the love You deserve.
Thoughts: Busyness and skewed priorities often take our focus from God and onto people, problems, or pride. If someone were watching, would that person see an obvious love for God? What evidence do I see of my faith in God and the love I have for others?
Mary Sayler, ©2016
….
Prayer:
Parents often tell their children
to be watchful of potential dangers:
fast-moving traffic,
enticing strangers,
weird weather, or whatever
seems worrisome,
and You, Heavenly Father,
remind us of this too.
But, I do not remember
ever telling my children
to watch out for love:
Yes!
Let us be watchful of kind acts
and learn from them with thanksgiving.
Let us be on the lookout for caring faces
of people who love to help, and let us
listen carefully to tones of voice
accompanying tender words
and honest prayer.
Oh, Lord, my God,
help me to notice You.
Help me to be aware
of Your ongoing goodness
and amazing creativity.
Let me not be distracted
by moods, emotions, desires,
or anything that takes my attention
from You.
Help me to praise You, notice the love
around me,
and give You the love You deserve.
Thoughts: Busyness and skewed priorities often take our focus from God and onto people, problems, or pride. If someone were watching, would that person see an obvious love for God? What evidence do I see of my faith in God and the love I have for others?
Mary Sayler, ©2016
….
Saturday, January 28, 2012
Offering ourselves to Love
Searching for “Love” in all the right places ideally starts with a Bible concordance or a word search on such websites as BibleGateway.com. With numerous English translations of the Bible from which to choose, searchers for “Love” find matches with the click of a finger. For instance, a “love” search shows that:
Love begins with Genesis.
The Bible contains hundreds of references to love.
Translations in current lingo often contain 700 or more references to love, ranging from feelings of emotion to close encounters of a sexual kind.
Most of the literal translations, such as the King James Version and Douay-Rheims, separate varying aspects of love into various words such as charity and yet still translate over 400 Bible verses as the highest form of love – that godly love that comes from choices and actions based on the closest but purest relationships.
New Testament readers often hear of this purest form of parental love by its original Greek name, Agape (pronounced ah-GAH-pay.) In the First Testament or Hebrew Bible, however, the word for love is ahava, which springs from its root-word hav – to give.
We may fall into love, but we cannot fall into give. We have to get there on purpose.
Giving our love sometimes means giving up what we want for a very good, very loving reason. So it’s not surprising that, during an era when ungodly gods demanded child sacrifices, the first Bible reference to godly parental love occurs in Genesis 22:1-3, where God tests Abraham by asking him to sacrifice his only son Isaac as a burnt offering.
Maybe that’s what Abraham expected and, therefore, heard. Or maybe God wanted Abraham to understand from the start of the Hebrew nation that the Almighty LORD loves His children far more than the very best parent possibly could, and, therefore, would never ever require child sacrifices like the unloving, ungodly gods demanded.
Regardless, God put Abraham’s faith to the test. Then Abraham put Isaac’s faith to the test! As Young’s Literal Translation says, God told Abraham, “Take, I pray thee, thy son, thine only one, whom thou hast loved, even Isaac, and go for thyself unto the land of Moriah, and cause him to ascend there for a burnt-offering on one of the mountains of which I speak unto thee.”
Besides noticing the very first use of the ahava word “love” in the Bible, notice how this literal translation of the verse “causes” Isaac to ascend or climb the mountain, which implies that the boy showed his love by giving his father and his Heavenly Father the benefit of the doubt in an undoubtedly scary situation. In addition, verse 6 tells us, Abraham carried the knife and the torch, but Isaac carried the wood while the two of them walked up the mountain together.
Again and again, this verse comes up in Bible studies and theological debates for many reasons, but here the point is that the first reference to love in the Bible is a sacrificial love – a love that gives, a love that asks us to offer up ourselves and all we hold dear out of our love for God and our faith in His goodness.
This sacrificial love of Abraham and Isaac finds its ultimate fulfillment in the Gospels where God sacrifices His only begotten son Jesus, who also carried the wood of the Cross.
That One-and-Only Child sacrifice has been fully paid by God the Father and God the Son for the very specific purpose of giving an eternally ongoing relationship with God to anyone and everyone who so chooses.
Such a sacrifice is not required by human beings, nor can our love begin to compare. Throughout the Bible, however, God urges us to give of ourselves – to offer up ourselves to the gift of love that lives, on and on, in and around us.
~~
©2012, Mary Harwell Sayler
~~
Love begins with Genesis.
The Bible contains hundreds of references to love.
Translations in current lingo often contain 700 or more references to love, ranging from feelings of emotion to close encounters of a sexual kind.
Most of the literal translations, such as the King James Version and Douay-Rheims, separate varying aspects of love into various words such as charity and yet still translate over 400 Bible verses as the highest form of love – that godly love that comes from choices and actions based on the closest but purest relationships.
New Testament readers often hear of this purest form of parental love by its original Greek name, Agape (pronounced ah-GAH-pay.) In the First Testament or Hebrew Bible, however, the word for love is ahava, which springs from its root-word hav – to give.
We may fall into love, but we cannot fall into give. We have to get there on purpose.
Giving our love sometimes means giving up what we want for a very good, very loving reason. So it’s not surprising that, during an era when ungodly gods demanded child sacrifices, the first Bible reference to godly parental love occurs in Genesis 22:1-3, where God tests Abraham by asking him to sacrifice his only son Isaac as a burnt offering.
Maybe that’s what Abraham expected and, therefore, heard. Or maybe God wanted Abraham to understand from the start of the Hebrew nation that the Almighty LORD loves His children far more than the very best parent possibly could, and, therefore, would never ever require child sacrifices like the unloving, ungodly gods demanded.
Regardless, God put Abraham’s faith to the test. Then Abraham put Isaac’s faith to the test! As Young’s Literal Translation says, God told Abraham, “Take, I pray thee, thy son, thine only one, whom thou hast loved, even Isaac, and go for thyself unto the land of Moriah, and cause him to ascend there for a burnt-offering on one of the mountains of which I speak unto thee.”
Besides noticing the very first use of the ahava word “love” in the Bible, notice how this literal translation of the verse “causes” Isaac to ascend or climb the mountain, which implies that the boy showed his love by giving his father and his Heavenly Father the benefit of the doubt in an undoubtedly scary situation. In addition, verse 6 tells us, Abraham carried the knife and the torch, but Isaac carried the wood while the two of them walked up the mountain together.
Again and again, this verse comes up in Bible studies and theological debates for many reasons, but here the point is that the first reference to love in the Bible is a sacrificial love – a love that gives, a love that asks us to offer up ourselves and all we hold dear out of our love for God and our faith in His goodness.
This sacrificial love of Abraham and Isaac finds its ultimate fulfillment in the Gospels where God sacrifices His only begotten son Jesus, who also carried the wood of the Cross.
That One-and-Only Child sacrifice has been fully paid by God the Father and God the Son for the very specific purpose of giving an eternally ongoing relationship with God to anyone and everyone who so chooses.
Such a sacrifice is not required by human beings, nor can our love begin to compare. Throughout the Bible, however, God urges us to give of ourselves – to offer up ourselves to the gift of love that lives, on and on, in and around us.
~~
©2012, Mary Harwell Sayler
~~
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