Christians are challenged, or should I say commanded, to live life in a way that reveals an image of God to whoever we encounter. This is traditionally taught as an essential part of one’s witness and testimony of who they are now as a child of God through Christ. And yet they are often not seen as an offspring of God, but as a religious individual who stands in preference of scriptures that speak of Christ and Him crucified. I see this as a rejection of the truth that is expressed in one’s witness of who He is and what He has done. It goes without saying that there are far more who have rejected Christ than those who have received Him as Lord.
In today’s average believer’s life, there is no intimacy in Christ to the degree it is seen as a spiritual posture of love. How can I make such a statement? If you look into your salvation through Jesus Christ, you will see you have confessed your sins, repented of them, and received Him as Lord, and by such actions have entered an intimate relationship with not just Him, but God Almighty and the Holy Spirit.
This position of salvation is expressed through an intimate bond with three distinct personalities, though they are singular in their foundation of Agape love. And no matter which person of the Godhead is affecting your senses spiritually, it is done in a manner of love that is common in nature to all of them, and you. However, it is difficult to distinguish between this manner of love and one’s affectionate passions that arise from the sensual activity of the flesh when no truth concerning both is presented.
The latter should be accountable to the former in that nothing should be done outside of any truths regarding who one is, as an individual offspring of God. It is this priority of contentment in living as an offspring of the highest that is still eluding most believers. As a result, many are way too attached to the things of this world and have easily garnered an intimate knowledge of it in relation to their lives and loving Christ. This, in a way, is the same as a rejection of Christ by those to whom we have testified.
Love expressed through believers today reveals that they are more comfortable with knowledge of worldly things than with knowledge of the one who, by Agape love, came to deliver them from it, keeping them apart rather than bringing them together. And yet, the truth is that each of us has the ability for agape to be revealed in our living witness, but because we are ignorant of it, we tend to see each other as incomplete because of mistakes. In more direct terms, we see others not as siblings through agape, which shows we lack the intimacy of love that scripture says we are to have for one another in Christ and for the world.
Most believers have at some point in their life in Christ been ministered to concerning an Agape love that God is as revealed from scripture, and that this love is not the same as the sensual type loves of flesh, which is Eros, or sensuality of soul, which is Phileo. But many are not taught that it is a love meant to arouse the spirit’s senses; this is Agape. 1 Cor 13:4-13 (MSG) Love never gives up. Love cares more for others than for self. Love doesn’t want what it doesn’t have. Love doesn’t strut, Doesn’t have a swelled head, 5 Doesn’t force itself on others, Isn’t always “me first,” Doesn’t fly off the handle, Doesn’t keep score of the sins of others, 6 Doesn’t revel when others grovel, Takes pleasure in the flowering of truth, How many of these preceding aspects of Agape love are working in your life?
Now, do not get excited, this is not about what you are or are not doing or any failure to do all that is revealed in Agape, but it is about you knowing what manner of love this truly is. 7 Puts up with anything, Trusts God always, Always looks for the best, Never looks back, But keeps going to the end. It is easy to see how God can love us despite our faults, as He is not looking at our present sins or even caring about our past ones. He is focused on what we will become by faith in Christ. It is this ability to see by faith what each of us is to become as siblings of the family of God that makes all the difference in our intimacy with Him.
No other form of love exists in the world that can ever compare to the one love that is from above. 8 Love never dies. Inspired speech will be over some day; praying in tongues will end; understanding will reach its limit. 9 We know only a portion of the truth, and what we say about God is always incomplete. We are not perfect yet, but we are becoming what God said we will be if we, by faith, receive the truth as revealed by the Spirit. 10 But when the Complete arrives, our incompletes will be canceled. 11 When I was an infant at my mother’s breast, I gurgled and cooed like any infant. When I grew up, I left those infant ways for good. 12 We don’t yet see things clearly. We’re squinting in a fog, peering through a mist. But it won’t be long before the weather clears and the sun shines bright! We’ll see it all then, see it all as clearly as God sees us, knowing him directly just as he knows us!
This Agape love that is to exist between believers and God is not forged by the laws of Moses or by any laws of righteousness; it is God. Know this and all other things will come to light as they are supposed to when we do as commanded by Christ in loving God as His offspring with all our heart, mind, and soul. 13 But for right now, until that completeness, we have three things to do to lead us toward that consummation: Trust steadily in God, hope unswervingly, love extravagantly. And the best of the three is love. The thing about Agape is that it exists in all who believe in Christ, so that it brings a sense of contentment into one’s life to the degree they no longer see the chaos and anxiety of it.
True intimacy of Agape in a relationship with Christ is content in who one is as His sibling among those who are of the same love by faith. This must occur so that the Spirit of God flows effortlessly in and through all God’s offspring for Agape to fulfill God’s will.
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