Would you agree, love is such a complicated thing, so misunderstood. But it’s the very essence of life, a fruitful life. To make things worse, or to possibly clarify, there are four types of love in the Greek language.
Eros – Erotic, emotional, sexual
Storgeo – Family
Fileo – Friendship
Agape – Unconditional, God’s love
Did that help or add confusion? When Jesus encountered Peter on the beach after the resurrection, he asked Peter three times…”do you love me?” I’m sure you remember that Peter denied him three times at the mock trial, just as Jesus had told him would happen. It’s interesting that Jesus asked him three times as he had denied him three times. Jesus was trying to clean the slate in Peter’s heart. The first word Jesus used for love was agape. The next two were fileo. Jesus knew that he could not unconditionally love him, so to speak, so he lowered the bar to friendship. Jesus had called his disciples, and you and me who are in Christ, his friends.
With every positive answer that Peter gave, Jesus commanded him to do something. I think it was to prove his love through obedience. Okay, Peter, “feed my lambs”…“tend my sheep”…“feed my sheep”. See John 21.15-17. Scripture is very definitive on what love is. “As the Father has loved me, so have I loved you. Abide in my love. If you keep my commandments, you will abide in my love, just as I have kept my Father’s commandments and abide in his love” (Jn. 15.9,10). Obedience = love, and love = obedience. Do you see it? One demonstrates the other.
Where else have we seen this type of definitive proof of something in our life? Let’s go to James and discuss faith and works. ‘What good is it, my brothers, if someone says he has faith, but does not have works? Can that faith save him?… So also faith by itself, if it does not have works, is dead… but someone will say, “You have faith and I have works. Show me your faith apart from your works and I will show you my faith by my works”…Do you want to be shown, you foolish person, that faith apart from works is useless?”’ (James 2.14-20). James goes on to use Abraham being willing to sacrifice his son and Rahab, by receiving the messengers and sending them the other way to protect them, as examples of faith demonstrated by their works.
So it is with love and obedience. There is no greater example of unconditional, agape, love than Christ’s willingness to obey his Father and give his life for us. Jesus said, “Greater love has no one than this, that someone lay down his life for his friends” (Jn. 15.13). God did not require that we love him first. HE demonstrated it so we would know how to love. He modeled it. Here it is in living color!! “But God shows his love for us in that while we were still sinners, Christ died for us” (Rom. 5.8).
No greater truth than John 3.16. “For God so loved the world, that he gave his only Son, that whoever believes in him should not perish but have eternal life”. The operative word showing God’s agape love is “gave”. No better way to demonstrate your love to God than by giving yourself away to others.