"It is my prayer that your love may abound more and more - Philippians 1: 9, RSV
This is agape-love. Now I know that is the Greek word for love; but I say it that way because this is not mere human affection, it is not sentimental love, it is certainly not erotic or a sensual love, in the sinister or the more legitimate meaning of sensual love.
This is the love that , as someone has said, supplies its own motives. You see, it begins with God: God did not love us because we deserved it; we deserved hell. But He loved us because of the grace that was within His heart; that is, He loved us as an expression, not of our deserving, but of His compassion. And in that love and as a demonstration of that love, He gave us His well-beloved Son, Jesus Christ.
Now this love is reciprocal: that is, when we receive it, when we really gaze upon Calvary, and the Holy Spirit enables us to realise that, by a love we did not deserve, through a holiness of which we can never be anything but unworthy, we have been redeemed. We have been transformed. We have been fashioned anew, and are being conformed to the image of His Son. It is reciprocal love. Then we begin to know the meaning of the simple lines.....-
My Jesus I love Thee, I know Thou art mine.
For Thee all the pleasures of sin I resign
My gracious Redeemer my Saviour art Thou,
If ever I loved Thee, my Jesus , tis' now.
This is agape-love. Now I know that is the Greek word for love; but I say it that way because this is not mere human affection, it is not sentimental love, it is certainly not erotic or a sensual love, in the sinister or the more legitimate meaning of sensual love.
This is the love that , as someone has said, supplies its own motives. You see, it begins with God: God did not love us because we deserved it; we deserved hell. But He loved us because of the grace that was within His heart; that is, He loved us as an expression, not of our deserving, but of His compassion. And in that love and as a demonstration of that love, He gave us His well-beloved Son, Jesus Christ.
Now this love is reciprocal: that is, when we receive it, when we really gaze upon Calvary, and the Holy Spirit enables us to realise that, by a love we did not deserve, through a holiness of which we can never be anything but unworthy, we have been redeemed. We have been transformed. We have been fashioned anew, and are being conformed to the image of His Son. It is reciprocal love. Then we begin to know the meaning of the simple lines.....-
My Jesus I love Thee, I know Thou art mine.
For Thee all the pleasures of sin I resign
My gracious Redeemer my Saviour art Thou,
If ever I loved Thee, my Jesus , tis' now.
