My momma gave me syphillis. Nothin' beats good christian lovin.

Reflecting His Image: Learning to Love God

What is your purpose as a Christian?

For some time now we have been exploring this very topic and have come
to the conclusion that our purpose is to "reflect Christ"

in all we do. We
talked extensively about the continual war that goes on within each of us
between our "self life" pulling us one way and "God's Life" pulling us
another. We found that the solution is to make "faith choices" to give
ourselves over to God no matter how we feel, what we think or what our
circumstances are. God, then, can work out our situation according to His
will. Totally giving ourselves over to the Lord in this manner is really what it
means to love God.

The Bible tells us that we are to "love God with all our heart, mind and
soul." This sounds so easy and so simple and most of us would probably
say, "Hey, I already love Him! What's to learn?" Well, loving God the
way Scripture tells us is not easy, nor is it simple and most of us are not
doing it!

The Greek word for "love," used in both of the great commandments, is
the verb agapao. (Matthew 22:37-39) Agapao means "to totally give
ourselves over to something," to be totally consumed with it or to be totally
committed to it. In other words, what we agapao is what we willingly
submit our wills and our lives to. It's what we put first in our lives. All our
intentions and abilities are focused and consumed with this one thing.

Loving God means "taking every thought captive," making faith choices to
follow Him no matter how we feel or what we think and letting His Spirit
not only cleanse us, but also renew our minds.

You might think you are already loving Him, but if I asked you, "Are you
are doing the above things," how would you truthfully answer?

Learning to love God the way He desires is not an emotional type of love,
but a total commitment type of love.

To Love God Means to Lose Self

Because of our ignorance of the different types of natural, human love, we
often get our feeling and emotional love (storge) confused and mixed up
with this commitment love (agapao). And, because most of us have great
emotional love for God, we think we are loving Him as He desires when,
in fact, we are not even close.

Ever since I was a little girl, I have loved God. But my love for Him always
seemed to fluctuate depending upon how I felt, how the other person was
reacting and what my circumstances were. I see now that my early love for
God was really an emotional love (storge) and not a commitment love
(agapao) at all. And, the more I grow in learning to love God His way, the
more I understand that human, affection love comes and goes, depending
upon how we feel, what we think, and what our circumstances are. In
other words, one day we're "up" and feeling close to God; the next day,
we feel far from Him because our circumstances are terrible, others are
treating us poorly and our emotions are out of control.

To love God the way He desires, means to surrender, relinquish and set
aside our self-life so that His Life in our hearts can come forth.

A Scripture that sums up what loving God really means is Matthew 16:24.
"If any man will come after Me, let him deny himself, and take up his
cross, and follow Me."

Here's an incredible example:

An Example: Unconditional Love

Steve was a young man with a nine-year-old daughter, Heather, whom he
loved more than life itself. Steve had, however, a very difficult marriage,
but he wouldn't consider leaving his wife because he adored Heather.
Finally, his wife ended up filing for divorce and a bitter custody battle
ensued. In order to manipulate her daughter's affections and possibly the
court, Steve's ex-wife lied to Heather and told her horrible, mean and
untrue things about her dad.

Shortly after that, Steve received the most hurtful, hateful and bitter letter
from Heather that he could ever imagine. It absolutely devastated him
because she accused him of all the lies her mom had told her, none of
which were true. Steve crashed and burned for several days trying to
decide how to defend himself and answer her accusatory letter.

He envisioned writing a sharp letter back to Heather, taking each point and
blasting his ex-wife "out of the water" with the truth. He had the letter all
written in his head which would have finally put his "ex" in her place. He
certainly would have been justified by the world's standards to do so.

But, since Steve loved the Lord more than anything else in the world, his
conscience wouldn't let him write a letter like that. In fact, after several
days the Holy Spirit convinced Steve to write a godly letter to Heather
telling her that if she wanted to, she could say mean things about him and
even call him names if she liked, but that he would always unconditionally
love her. Rather than pointing fingers at his wife, he asked Heather for her
forgiveness for all the pain the situation had caused her.

After a few days, he received another letter from Heather. Only this time
she said, "Daddy, I do forgive you and I do love you more than anything."
At the custody hearing, Heather sat next to her dad and they talked
together the whole time. The judge was so impressed with the love the two
obviously shared, that he ruled in favor of Steve.

Truly, obeying and loving the Lord always pays off in the end! We do reap
what we sow, either for good or for evil.

Loving God means totally giving ourselves over to the Lord and submitting
our wills and our lives to Him in everything.

Agapao vs. Agape

In studying the Greek verb agapao, it's important that we don't get it
mixed up with the noun Agape, because they mean two totally different
things.

The noun Agape means God's pure unconditional Love and it's always
used as such in the Bible. The definition of Agape is found in 1 Corinthians
13:4-8. Throughout Scripture, there is never a negative usage of the noun
Agape. In fact, the word Agape was actually coined uniquely for its usage
in Scripture, whereas the verb agapao means whatever we totally give
ourselves over to.

But, as you will see in the following passages, it's also possible to totally
give ourselves over to things that are worthless, like money, materialism,
pleasure, etc.

Look at the following Scriptures and see some of the carnal things that
people in the Bible "gave themselves over to":

. John 3:19: "men loved [agapao] darkness rather than light, because their
deeds were evil."

. John 12:43: "For they loved [agapao] the praise of men more than the
praise of God."

. Luke 11:43. "Woe unto you, Pharisees! for ye love [agapao] the
uppermost seats in the synagogues."

. 2 Timothy 4:10: "For Demas hath forsaken me, having loved [agapao]
this present world."

. 1 John 2:15: "Love [agapao] not the world, neither the things that are in
the world." And lastly,

. Luke 6:32: "for sinners also love [agapao] those that love them."

Some current examples of things we agapao are careers, houses, money,
pleasure and self.

This perhaps explains why so many Christian marriages are not functioning
as God desires. Jesus tells us that the husband must love (agapao) his wife
as himself and the wife is to revere her husband. Well, if the man is not
truly loving God (submitting his will and his life to Him) as he should, then
there's no way he can love his wife as himself. Nor will she be able to
respond in reverence as God desires. When the chain of command is not
working properly, then the whole process falls apart! (Note: This does not
mean that the innocent party is off the hook. God says we are even to
love-agapao-our enemies.) To love each other as God desires means to
lose ourselves (set ourselves aside), so that we can put the other's needs
before our own. How many marriages are really working like this?

Do You Love God?

If I asked you, "Do you love God?" most of you would automati­cally say,
"Yes, of course I do!" But, if you are really honest with yourself, how
often do you seek to put His will and His desires above your own? How
often are you consumed with what He desires for your life and not what
you want out of life?

Can you honestly say that you desire God's will above your own
happi­ness?

This question puts it right into perspective, doesn't it? People everywhere
are seeking happiness and contentment as their ultimate goal. Is this your
goal? Or is it to set yourself aside and please God? There was a woman in
one of my classes who really took offense at my statement that we should
desire God's will above our own happiness. She came to me afterwards
and said, "Nancy, surely you mean our perception of happiness?"

I said, No, I really believe there are many times when we must choose to
do God's will over what we know will bring us happiness." There have
been many times in my own life where I've had to make choices I knew
would not bring me momentary happiness. And yet, I knew that in the long
run nothing would compare with the joy I would experience as a result of
choosing God's way over my own.

It's as if God is testing us. When difficult situations arise and the other
person involved is obviously sinning, God is not only interested in their
actions, He is also watching our reactions. Humanly, we want to retaliate
and get back at them. And, even though we might be totally justified by the
world's standards to do so, God's watching to see what we'll do. Will we
react immediately out of the flesh and end up spiraling downward into the
pit, or will we, like Steve above, catch ourselves and choose by faith (even
though we don't feel like it) to surrender our flesh and continue to walk by
the Spirit? The wonderful part of this last scenario is that after we have
dealt with our own fleshly emotions, the Lord will align our emotions with
our faith choices and the result will be miraculous.

Remember what happened with Steve. The judge and the court ruled in his
favor! In our case, more than anything else, we want the Judge and the
Court of Heaven to rule in our favor. And, that only occurs when we deny
ourselves, pick up our cross and follow Him.

* * *
by Nancy Missler

To be continued next month, "A Visual Picture of the Problem." This
article has been excerpted in part from Nan's new book, Reflections of
His Image: God's Purpose for Your Life. See page 37 for details on this
and other King's High Way products.