A word worth knowing
People say "God is love" so often that the phrase can go flat. Most of us hear it and picture a warm feeling, a kind of divine niceness.
The Bible means something heavier and better than that.
The New Testament was written in Greek, and Greek has more than one word for love. One describes the bond between friends. Another describes affection in a family. The word the New Testament reaches for when it talks about God's love is agape.
Agape is love that acts. It does not depend on how lovable the person is. It does not wait to be earned. It moves toward someone first, and it pays what it costs.
1. Agape begins with God, not with us
Most people assume the relationship works like this: we get ourselves together, we reach for God, and He responds if we have done well enough.
Scripture says the order is reversed.
"In this is love, not that we loved God, but that He loved us and sent His Son to be the propitiation for our sins."1 John 4:10 · NKJV
"Propitiation" is an old word, so here is what it means. Our sin is real, and it deserves a real answer. Propitiation means that Jesus stood in our place and took that answer on Himself, so that the penalty is paid and the way back to God is open.
Look at who moved first. Not us. God loved, and then God sent His Son.
2. Agape loves people as they are, and that is the hard part
Here is where we have to be plain, because softening it would take the meaning out of it.
The Bible says every person is separated from God by their own sin. That is not an insult. It is the diagnosis, and it is why love had to be costly. If we were fine, there would be nothing to rescue us from.
"But God demonstrates His own love toward us, in that while we were still sinners, Christ died for us."Romans 5:8 · NKJV
Read the phrase "while we were still sinners." Not after we repented well. Not after we proved ourselves. While we were still in the very condition that separated us from Him, Christ died for us.
That is agape. It does not pretend the problem is small. It looks at the full weight of sin and pays for it.
3. The proof is not a feeling, it is a Person
When someone says "God loves you," a fair question is: how would I know?
The Bible does not ask you to take that as a mood. It points to something that happened.
"For God so loved the world that He gave His only begotten Son, that whoever believes in Him should not perish but have everlasting life."John 3:16 · NKJV
God gave His Son. Jesus lived the life we could not live, died the death our sin had earned, and was buried. On the third day He rose bodily. The apostle Paul lays this out as the center of the Gospel in 1 Corinthians 15:3-4. This happened in history, whether or not anyone feels it on a given morning.
The invitation is also plain. Romans 10:9 says that confession and belief are how a person receives what Christ has done. Not a program. Not a probation period. A person, and your yes.
4. What agape does not promise
God's love is not a guarantee that life will be easy, and the Bible never says it is.
Paul asks a hard question and lists hard things:
"Who shall separate us from the love of Christ? Shall tribulation, or distress, or persecution, or famine, or nakedness, or peril, or sword?"Romans 8:35 · NKJV
He lists trouble because he expects trouble. Then he gives his answer:
"For I am persuaded that neither death nor life, nor angels nor principalities nor powers, nor things present nor things to come, nor height nor depth, nor any other created thing, shall be able to separate us from the love of God which is in Christ Jesus our Lord."Romans 8:38-39 · NKJV
Notice what is promised and what is not. No promise that the hard things will not come. No promise about how or when they will end. The promise is that nothing can cut a person off from God's love in Christ Jesus. That last phrase matters. This is the security of someone who has taken hold of Jesus, not a general reassurance for everyone regardless.
5. A description of God, not a test for you
One more verse, because it is often misused.
"He who does not love does not know God, for God is love."1 John 4:8 · NKJV
Read it as John meant it: a statement about who God is. Love is not one of His moods or one of His tools. It is His character. It is not a score you must hit to stay in good standing with Him. The love you are asked to show others grows out of the love already shown to you. It does not come first.
Where to go from here
If you have been waiting to feel clean enough, ready enough, or good enough before you come to God, agape says the waiting is not required. The cost has been paid, and the invitation stands.
If you already walk with Christ, let this land again: His love for you did not start when you got better, and it does not end when you stumble.
Start your journey with Christ today. Visit SoldierOfChrist.life to continue the journey. The poetry devotional Where God's Love Found Me - Agape-7 carries this same theme through the year.
Scripture taken from the New King James Version®. Copyright © 1982 by Thomas Nelson. Used by permission. All rights reserved.
