The Truth about Love

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​There are three common types of love. Each one is distinctly different, but we can feel all of them at one time - for one person or many people. EROS is passionate physical love. It includes sensual desires and longing.

Relationships built only on Eros usually end when sexual passion wanes. That is why people have affairs or casual physical relationships. Therefore, marriage needs more than Eros to survive.

PHILIA means friendship and connotes affectionate love between friends and family. It displays dispassionate camaraderie. Philia includes loyalty to friends, family and community. It exhibits Godly virtue, impartiality and delight.

Philia denotes a friendly type of affection between family and friends. It is a desire for companionship and enjoying activities with each other. Having a friendship with the people in your life and enjoying time to play, pray and share in common pursuits is vital in any relationship.

AGAPE means unconditional love. It refers to a deep sense of God's pure, holy love. Instead of the sexual attraction of Eros or the deep affection of Philia, Agape is sacrificial.

Agape provides us with the feeling of contentment and satisfaction as we put each other first and highly esteem one another as better than our self (Philippians 2:3-4). True love takes effort and is not dependent on the other person.

Christ lives in us and is love personified. Regardless of how someone treats us, we love them with God's love within us. It is not how we feel, but what we do to express God's love to one another.

This does not mean that we do not honestly communicate to others how their behavior makes us feel; but we never give up on the relationship. We may have to establish boundaries, but we keep the relationship active.

Love is not what we expect from others, but what we provide for those in our life whom we care about. We are called to love one another, just as Christ loves us. Sometimes, that is a tall order to fill.

Prayer:

Father God, help us to display love to our parents, spouse, children, church family and even strangers regardless of how they treat us. This is only possible as we submit to Your will for our life and allow Your Spirit to reprogram our thinking to have the mind of Christ. Remind us that once we have this spiritual love, then the physical and the emotional feelings will follow after it.

Cause us to submit our self to You and to resist the devil. Then he must flee from us (James 4:7). His destructive suggestions that putting our self first, estrangement and divorce are not wrong, and that You want us to be happy, will vanish with his departure. Remind us that You want us to be holy. Help us to develop Agape love for others as we focus on submitting our self to You. 

Thought for the Day:

Most people realize that we are far from loving one another with true self-sacrificing, lasting and sincere love; Eros and Philia come and go throughout the years, and they are never intense for long periods of time, but Agape lasts forever.

My Hidiing Place

I have a secret hiding place. It is my safe house, my shelter and fortress, my place of rest and rejoicing. Whenever my soul is afraid, I run into it and find safety, balance and serenity.

My secret hiding place is called the spirit of man (1 Corinthians 2:11). Prior to our coming to Christ, this safe place is all boarded up and inaccessible. Sin destroyed it and it is uninhabitable.

Yet, when we surrender our life wholly to God, our spirit is born again. We meet God there. From the moment of our salvation, He dwells with us in our spirit by His Holy Spirit and He never leaves (Romans 8:9, 16; Hebrews 13:5).

As we mature in our walk with God, we no longer live through our body or soul - our mind, choices and emotions. We do not depend on our human skills, talents or capabilities, but we give God full reign in our life.

We walk this earth in our body in union with God's Spirit who abides within us; but we function in life through our spirit rather than our body and soul (1 Corinthians 3:16).

God still uses our body and soul for His purposes in the earth. He transforms our personality and capabilities and makes us a new creation (2 Corinthians 5:17).

We are no longer tied to the earthly realm, influenced by sin and hindered by human insufficiency. Our external world my fall down around our ears, or people and experiences may attack our thoughts or emotions; but like Paul, we rejoice in the tribulation.

We experience life from our safe place: our spirit within us (Galatians 5:25). Our carnality is dead and it is no longer us, but Christ who lives in and through us (Colossians 3:3).

We are controlled, guided and filled through our entire being with all of the fullness of God (Ephesians 3:16-19). We experience eternal life as a reality even now, by intimately knowing the only true God and His Son, Jesus Christ, whom He sent (John 17:3).

Prayer:

Father God, due to Christ's sacrifice on Calvary's cross, we can leave behind the cares of this temporal world and touch the glories of Heaven. Our spirit is filled with Your Spirit and we feel safe and right at home there (Revelation 3:20). We live in step with Your Spirit from within our spirit, separated from our body and soul and viewing them as from a distance.

Regardless of what the world, the devil or our flesh attempt to entice us to participate in, or the amount of pain and grief they try to distract us with, they have no effect on us or lure for us, because we live in our spirit by Your Spirit and no longer through our flesh.

Thought for the Day:

Christ is our whole life and we live by His faith; He gave Himself for us, because He loves us completely and unconditionally. - Galatians 2:20; Colossians 3:4

More Intimacy with God

As human beings we long for deep connections and we attempt to discover this link with other human beings, a career, a pet or a cause. We can try for a lifetime and find fulfillment in many ways, but we are still left unsatisfied and wanting more.

As a single person, our life is not deprived; and as a married person, our life is not automatically fulfilled. Our social, occupational, financial and marital status, nor the number of children or grandchildren in our life, cannot bring us true and abundant fulfillment.

Our greatest human need is to intimately connect to the family of God, because we are all one Body of Christ with each of us linked in as an integral part of the Body. When one member is not there, the whole Body suffers.

We start by forming a love bond with God, our Father, through the sacrifice of Jesus, our Brother, by the connection to them afforded to us by God's Holy Spirit through salvation (Matthew 22:37-40).

Following our own or Satan's plan for our life will leave us lifeless and depleted; but walking in the Spirit brings fullness of joy (John 10:10). Only God can grant us the premier and most fulfilling rewards in this life and the next.

God does not require that we make our self holy before experiencing this intimacy, which He makes available to us. However, we do grieve and quench His Spirit through disobedience to His Word (Ephesians 4:30-31; 1 Thessalonians 5:19).

The greatest gift of all is Christ in us in whom we find abundant life in spirit, soul and body. He wants no competition for our affections and is jealous of our time spent away from Him pursuing things of this world (Exodus 34:14).

God is always there within us (Hebrews 13:5), comforting us in our tears, nurturing us in our fears and insecurities, turning us from sin, loving us unconditionally and guiding us by His Spirit.

Prayer:

Father God, You speak to us in our soul when we read and meditate on Your Word; through Your Spirit in our spirit during prayer; and in our body, soul and spirit through the circumstances of our life (John 10:27-29; 1 Peter 5:6-8). Teach us to pay attention and to obey Your every prompting; so that we do not reap the destruction of disobedience (Romans 12:2).

Thank You for Your mercy and grace, which cover a multitude of our sins (1 Peter 4:8); and for not making us reap everything which we sow in disobedience. Only You can save and perfect us (Matthew 27:1-66; 1 Corinthians 5:21; Galatians 3:1-3). We desire intimacy with You more than anything else this world has to offer; because only through Your presence in us do we find a truly fulfilling life.

Thought for the Day:

Being in intimate fellowship with other Believers helps us to develop more intimacy with our Father and His Son by His Spirit.