Love is defined in the Oxford dictionary as "1. An intense feeling of deep affection. 2. A great interest and pleasure in something." It is a word I use often. I love my family and friends. I love chocolate, I love to have crafting time and I love the beach. But what I want to look at, is the Biblical meaning of love.
There are 4 types of love in the Bible:
Storge - Empathy Bond
Philios - Friend Bond
Eros - Romantic Love
Agape - Unconditional "God" love
My challenge to you and myself this Valentine's Day is to love everyone with Agape love, as God loves us.
The Bible actually calls for us to love others, like God loves us. Mmm...that can be more than a little difficult, am I right? Am I supposed to love a co-worker who tried to sabotage my career, or a rude cashier, or a driver that made a not-so-nice hand gesture to me because I was turning in the parking lot too slowly for their liking? YES!!! Because that's how God loves us.
8 But God demonstrates his own love for us in this: While we were still sinners, Christ died for us.
Romans 5:8 NIV
7 Dear friends, let us love one another, for love comes from God. Everyone who loves has been born of God and knows God. 8 Whoever does not love does not know God, because God is love. 9 This is how God showed his love among us: He sent his one and only Son into the world that we might live through him. 10 This is love: not that we loved God, but that he loved us and sent his Son as an atoning sacrifice for our sins. 11 Dear friends, since God so loved us, we also ought to love one another.
1 John 4:7-11 NIV
1 See what great love the Father has lavished on us, that we should be called children of God! And that is what we are! The reason the world does not know us is that it did not know him.
1 John 3:1 NIV
16 And so we know and rely on the love God has for us. God is love. Whoever lives in love lives in God, and God in them.
1 John 4:16 NIV
10 Though the mountains be shaken and the hills be removed, yet my unfailing love for you will not be shaken nor my covenant of peace be removed," says the Lord, who has compassion on you.
Isaiah 54:10 NIV
4 But because of his great love for us, God, who is rich in mercy, 5 made us alive with Christ even when we were dead in transgressions-it is by grace you have been saved.
Ephesians 2:4-5 NIV
26 Give thanks to the God of heaven. His love endures forever.
Psalm 136:26 NIV
16 For God so loved the world that he gave his one and only Son, that whoever believes in him shall not perish but have eternal life.
John 3:16 NIV
The love we have been shown through the sacrifice of Jesus is a love like no other! So this Valentine's Day and everyday, let us not only love those we find easy to love....let us love EVERYONE, so that we can glorify God!
Page Details:
I created this page by stamping out several people, with the Brotherly Love & Girl Power stamp sets. I had fun making each one unique, just as God made us. I colored them in with watercolors and cut them out with my Brother Scan & Cut (my Christmas present from my hubby). I used the people to create at tip-in at the bottom of the page, so I could still read the scripture underneath. I traced and colored a large heart in the center, to represent God's love for us. I used the hearts from the Women of Praise set to create a background. My title is a combination of the new Loop da Loop Alpha and Bitty Mini Alpha.
These are the sets I used to create my page:
Jill Norris
No comments:
Post a Comment