by Niki Turner
This week we've tasted some of the different expressions, or forms, of love. If you're like me, you've enjoyed these varied flavors of love, and each taste has left you wanting to reproduce such goodness and sweetness in your own life. But filling up on brotherly love, parental love, or sexual love – as delicious as they are – cannot satisfy the whole spirit, soul, and body.Imagine a box of chocolates. Maybe it's heart-shaped, covered in smooth red satin with a plush ribbon bow. Your mouth begins to water just thinking about the assortment of rich, dark chocolate within, wrapped around sweet cream fillings and gooey soft caramels.
You lift the lid, only to discover this box has a fatal flaw...
The chocolate is gone!
(Insert horrified scream.)
Each fluted paper cup nestled within holds the fillings, without the chocolate. A glob of strawberry cream (or is that used bubble gum?) resides next to some nondescript tan nougat. At least you think it's nougat. The caramels, exposed to air, are hard enough to crack your molars. One cup holds a couple naked peanuts.
What chocolate is to a box of assorted creams and caramels, agape (ah-gah-pay) is to phileo (brotherly love), eros (physical or sexual love), and storge (parental love). Agape is the love that gives life to all the other flavors, that keeps each one within its proper range of expression, that brings satisfaction from the inside out.
Agape is selfless love. The God-kind of love.
Vine's Expository Dictionary puts it this way: "Love can be known only from the actions it prompts. God's love is seen in the gift of His Son, 1 John 4:9,10. But obviously this is not the love of complacency, or affection, that is, it was not drawn out by any excellency in its objects, Rom 5:8. It was an exercise of the divine will in deliberate choice, made without assignable cause...”
"Christian love, whether exercised toward the brethren, or toward men generally, is not an impulse from the feelings, it does not always run with the natural inclinations, nor does it spend itself only upon those for whom some affinity is discovered."
(from Vine's Expository Dictionary of Biblical Words, Copyright (c)1985, Thomas Nelson Publishers)
Agape is love without reason, love that is unearned and undeserved. It's love by choice, love as an act of the will instead of an emotional reaction or mental response. It's love that sets aside its own will for the good of another, without consideration of reciprocity. In other words, agape loves no matter what. As Paul writes in 1 Corinthians 13, it's the “love that never ceases being.”
Think about it. The gift of chocolate by itself is satisfactory. But receiving a box of assorted fillings, sans chocolate, is just not quite right.
When Romans 5:5 says God shed His love abroad in our hearts, it's talking about agape. God gave you His love, wrap it around all your other expressions of love, and you'll find them deeper, more meaningful, and more satisfying than ever before.
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20 comments:
It sort of amazes me when I watch television and see people who are completely self-serving, even in their love.
I'm sure none of us get agape love 100% correct, but I would sure hate to try to go through life without it.
Nice metaphor. Kind of reminds me of the time I bit into a peanut M&M and found nothing inside the hard candy shell. Completely empty. That's elfishness masked as love. It looked like a peanut M&M, but it held absolutely nothing, none of the promise of chocolate and peanut, just air. It was sweet for a moment, then vanished as though it never was.
Y'all are doing a good job this week.
Agape is hard. We are by nature so caught up in our selves. Sometimes it doesn't feel worth it. But you're right Niki when you've received it you can 'taste' the difference and you know that love without it is counterfeit.
Niki, I love how you wrote:
Agape is love without reason, love that is unearned and undeserved. It's love by choice, love as an act of the will instead of an emotional reaction or mental response.
I've been trying to teach my kids that they need to choose to love one another even though (especially when) they don't feel like it. How shallow is our love when we can decide we don't love anymore because we don't "feel something"?
I have a story involving an actual "box of chocolates". I was born and raised in a small Southern railroad town where almost everything is within a reasonable walking distance. My first "real job" was as a teller at one of our local banks. My mother and I had always lived with her parents, and I was raised with old-fashioned values and manners. I have always had a fondness and respect for elderly people, and I soon had a loyal following of senior customers at the bank. One older gentleman, who seldom spoke, always brought little bags of mixed coins which I had to separate and count. I then exchanged his coins for paper money. This was a frequent occurrence, and sometimes he never said a word. When he did speak, he was difficult to understand. I would chat with him, keeping in mind what my grandparents had taught me about respect and courtesy. The day that I told him I was leaving the bank, he looked stunned. He didn't say anything before he walked out. A few minutes later, he came back with a Whitman's Sampler Box, one of my favorite chocolates. He handed me the box with a smile, and held my hand for a moment. Everyone at the bank was amazed! They had brushed him aside all those years and tried to avoid waiting on him with his little bags of coins. I hope that they learned to treat him better after I left. That was many, many years ago, but I still have that empty Whitman's Sampler Box : )
gcwhiskas at aol dot com
Virginia, beautiful story. You showed that gentleman agape by being willing to serve him even though it was inconvenient! Sometimes we never know how much our efforts are appreciated, but we can believe that they are.
Amen to that, Gina. If we can teach our kids to walk in love when they don't "feel" it, how much stronger will their relationships be as adults? It's crucial for the next generation.
Lisa, selfishness leaves a bad taste in your mouth, but true love makes you crave more!
Laurie, my husband picked up a carton of butter pecan ice cream recently. Only there weren't any pecans. It was just vanilla. He STILL mentions it every time he gets out the ice cream. I wonder how many of the people who gripe about the church or about Christians do so because they've had one of those empty peanut M&Ms or pecan-less butter pecan church experiences?
Dina, when the Bible says that "love will grow cold" in the last days, I think it's talking about the loss of agape.
It makes me wonder, Are my insides hard and nutty, smooth and sugary, or empty and needing to be filled with pure sweet goodness?
I love this group. Love my Inky sisters and our friends. Virginia, what a story!
Laurie Alice. It was me. I stole the peanut out of that M&M!
Mary -my insides are definitely all of the above but the good thing is they can get renewed daily!
For me, agape is the 'what's left over' love to all the others. When those people have disappointed us and/or all the shine is gone off them, it's the agape nature of love that we've learned from the triune God that keeps us all together. The deeper love that is just so unlike our selfish natures to give, so it has to be from God.
If you'd like I will all start singing "Love will keep us together" with Capt. and Tennile KAraoke...
What a great analogy!
I have a "box of chocolate" confession. In my first year of university my roommate and I both received heart-shaped boxes of chocolates from our respective beaus. One afternoon we were bored so we grabbed our chocolates and sat on her bed to sample a few. I bit into a strawberry nougat and spit it out (can't eat anything with red colouring in it) and then she bit into a marishino cherry and spit it out (didn't like cherries). So we searched our boxes and neither came with a legend.
I poked the next chocolate before I'd bite into it, and then she did the same. We giggled and worked our way through our respective chocolates, gleefully stabbing each to check it's insides before consuming. Needless to say we never told the boyfriends what had happened to their chocolates.
I guess that could lead to another lesson from Niki's anaology. With agape love you always know what you are getting. But with other forms of love, sometimes they aren't quite what you expect.
Now I have a picture to imagine how all kinds of love can be coated in agape love.
And I'll be thinking about chocolate all day.
Virginia, you brought tears to my eyes. Not an easy feat.
Deb, I'm singing with ya. In fact, I'm convince karoke is the next new thing in church worship. Why let a select few chose what to sing. I say, let's let the Holy Spirit direct us. Only limitation we put is what songs are in the machine. Even then we could sing accapella.
Wenda - great truth - with Agape you know what you're getting.
Niki,
Great post. I especially loved: The chocolate is gone!
(Insert horrified scream.) LOL!
Virgina,
You're story reminded me of a very selfless man where I went to college. He was the groundskeeper. He always dressed very simply and really almost poorly. The students loved talking to him and he was always kind. I don't think anyone was prepared for the shocker when he died. He left the college one million dollars! What a wonderful show of agape love to the college.
You truly can't judge a book by it's cover, an M&M by it's outside appearance or a human's heart by the way he or she looks on the outside.
I'm thinking we should all be a little "fruity" on the inside, as in Galatians 5 fruity. : )
You all pushed me over the edge and in search of chocolate today. Yum.
Niki, you had me at the word chocolate, LOL. What a beautiful post and great analogy. I've also been blessed by everyone's stories today. Wow! I'll think of Virginia every time I see a Whitman's sampler now.
My prayer is to be the purest of agape chocolate: high grade cocoa, no cheap fillers, no missing peanuts. To allow the Lord to melt me and be His hands and feet and heart today.
This post was amazing! Very well written and I enjoyed it. And as I was scrolling through I noticed Virginia C's comment and I think that is great too!
Fruity? Was there ever any question?
Oh...THAT kind of fruit.
Well, here I am trying to lose weight, wondering whether I have the heart to tell my hubby and kids not to give me chocolate for Valentine's Day when it gives them such pleasure to see me eat it - no kidding! And I'm just glad I waited this long to read today's post.
I first heard of Agape love in youth group when the leader was trying to explain God's love. It's about the only word that fills me with peace just hearing or reading it.
I love the expression from the Forrest Gump movie, 'Love is like a box of chocolates, you never know what you'll get...' I'm so dense it took several run throughs before I understood what it meant. LOL. If only I'd read this first.
Excellent post, Niki.
Thank you all for your excellent comments today!
Susanne, I LOVE your "chocolate prayer." It makes me think of all those specialty chocolates from around the world with their different flavors and textures, but the same basic ingredients, just like us as believers!
Yeah, I'm in the mood for chocolate now too!
I served fresh out of the oven double chocolate brownies for dessert, still warm, with ice cream. Y'all got to me. My kids say thanks! (I'll be at the Y tomorrow.)
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