The greatest characteristic we can have is love.   The Bible says that God is love (1 John 4:8).  Love is the essence of God’s being; thus, to have the proper kind of love is to be like God.  

Not all love is proper.  Paul once said, “ And it is my prayer that your love may abound more and more, with knowledge and all discernment” (Philippians 1:9).  The indication from Paul is that we can have a love that is lacking because we either love the wrong way (without knowledge), or we love the wrong things (without discernment).

Since love is so important to our Christianity, I thought thinking about it from a scriptural standpoint would be a good way to wind down this week.  Let’s begin by making sure we understand what love is.

There are different kinds of love for different situations.  Someone says, “who should I love more, my wife or my mother”?  The truth is, we love them both, but we love them differently, that is, with different kinds of love.  The love between a husband and wife is of the romantic sort (érōs), while the love between parents and children is family love (storgé).

Érōs and storgé are not found in the Bible (storgé only appears in the New Testament from a negative standpoint [astorgos], referring to those without natural affection; however, there are two important words translated love of which we should be aware.

The first is philadelphia.  This love is of the brotherly sort, used in the New Testament to denote the love that Christians share (Romans 12:10; 1 Thessalonians 4:9; Hebrews 31:1; 1 Peter 1:22; 2 Peter 1:7).    In the Hebrews 13:1 passage,  we are commanded to continue in brotherly love.  This love is critical to the overall well-being of the local church.

The second word, and the most significant of the group, is agapē.  This is the kind of love that we will be addressing, at least primarily, this week.

This is the highest type of love.  Agapē does not depend on feelings or affection—it depends on reason.  It is a reasoned choice.  It does not expect anything in return, nor does it demand any kind of reciprocity.  It seeks not its own, but rather it seeks the welfare and the betterment of others, regardless of how we feel.  Nothing makes this truth clearer than the fact that we can love our enemies.

Matthew 5:44 (ESV)
⁴⁴  But I say to you, Love your enemies and pray for those who persecute you,

If our enemies are hungry, we must feed them, and if they thirst, we must give them drink (Romans 12:20-21).  Why?  Because this love is a reasoned choice, and that is the way it acts.

The best definition of this love that I have ever heard is that “it always acts in the best interest of whatever it is that is loved.”  This is why Jesus tells us to pray for those who persecute us. It is in their best interest that we do so, and that is the way love behaves.  
I look forward to examining this love with you this week.  The goal is to help us love better in the future than we have in the past.  

As you wind down for the night, think about these things.