AGAPE

AGAPE

I read in a book by Harville Hendix that...
A very long time ago the Greek leaders wanted to find an end to wars.
They were tired of fighting (they were killing off each others kingdoms)
and they wanted to forge a permanent peace.
What they came up with gave birth to something called AGAPE.
They found that in order for people to be able to slaughter others
they had to visualize them as non-humans.
Negativity, stereotyping...it seems that when we group others
together as a race, a nation, a religion...using a derogatory term.
When we dehumanize others it is easier to hurt (kill) them.

The Greeks decided to change their way of thinking.
Instead of killing those who entered their land they decided
to befriend them.
AGAPE meant - when you are in my territory (on my land)
I will make you safe.
AGAPE was a transformational love that made an enemy an ally (friend).

Sounds familiar doesn't it...
Paul choose to teach the Corinthians about such love in his writings.
LOVE, charity, agape...is a God idea.
........................................IS GOD..........
May, we, the Church receive deeper experiential understanding on this love.
Our Father is Love and because we are His children we can have the same love.

"let us love one another, for love comes from God. Everyone who loves has been born of God and knows God. 8Whoever does not love does not know God, because God is love. 9This is how God showed his love among us: He sent his one and only Son into the world that we might live through him. 10This is love: not that we loved God, but that he loved us and sent his Son as an atoning sacrifice for our sins.
11Dear friends, since God so loved us, we also ought to love one another. 12No one has ever seen God; but if we love one another, God lives in us and his love is made complete in us" 1 John 4

~selah

living on many planes

did you ever wonder why people are sometimes confused
with the things that you say
or is it only me....

I have recently come to understand
how complex/mosaic our thoughts may seem to others
when we dwell on many levels at once...

as we stand on the abyss of tomorrow today
looking out to the reality of a physical world
yet looking up in our periphery to the spirit world above

we stand in a place of understanding the big picture
between heaven and earth we stand
knowing there is a hell below...
waiting for those who have rejected truth

living in the now/not yet of time
suspended between time and space
knowing all of this may soon be over in the twinkling of an eye...
we respond to the urgency of His Spirit and beckon them to "come"

such an assignment
to hear the mind of God
and translate His heart
...to those who are His
...those that He loves
...those that He gave His Son to redeem...

sometimes it feels like too much to bear
the misundertsandings, the rejection, the slander
and then He causes me to remember...

for God so loved the world
our Father so loved the world
and so must we...selah