Agape Love
The Biblical definition of “agape” love is: to seek another individual’s highest good. To seek what’s best for them. Regardless of whether they deserve it, or even want it.
Romans 8:28 (KJV) And we know that all things work together for good to them that love God, to them who are the called according to [his] purpose.
Another way of saying it is: Everything that happens, to those that love God, happens because He loves, agape’s, them. That means whether: blessings, He seeks their highest good, or discipline, He seeks their highest good, or persecution, He seeks their highest good, or trials, He seeks their highest good.
God is sovereign, which means He is in charge; omnipotent, which means He is in control; and thus is at work daily in the lives of those who love Him (that is, they seek HIS highest good, HIS glory) to accomplish that which He set out to do. To conform us to the image of His Son.
Philippians 1:6 (KJV) Being confident of this very thing, that he which hath begun a good work in you will perform [it] until the day of Jesus Christ:
He WILL perform it… He is absolutely committed to using ALL THINGS together for the accomplishing of that which He has set out to do in the lives of those whom He has called, who seek His highest good, His glory.
If we have ever loved (agape) God, we will always love (agape) God. But if we do not love (agape) God, it’s because we never loved (agape) Him.
1 John 2:19 (KJV) They went out from us, but they were not of us; for if they had been of us, they would [no doubt] have continued with us: but [they went out], that they might be made manifest that they were not all of us.
Notice the words ‘that they might be made manifest’. It means ‘that they might be revealed’. This speaks to God’s sovereignty and omnipotence. He allows them to fall away (not seeking His highest good, His glory), so that it might be revealed that they never truly sought His highest good, His glory. They sought the fruits of God without the root.
This is why: 1 Corinthians 1:18 (ESV) For the word of the cross is folly to those who are perishing, but to us who are being saved it is the power of God.
The fact that God would use my pain, my difficulty, my suffering to draw me nearer to Him is foolish and offensive to those whose motive was never to be nearer to Him. To those who never sought HIS highest good, HIS glory. To those who are perishing, who do not love God.
But the fact that God is wholly committed to completing the work He started in me, and will use all means (blessings and suffering) to go about accomplishing this, is peace, joy, love (agape), to those who are being saved.
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