The Way to Maturity terminates in abiding in Christ; abiding in the love of God. Greek has five words all translated “love” in English. AGAPE means unconditional and/or altruistic love and is always used to express the love of God.  

AGAPE is not something we possess on our own, but we receive this love poured into our hearts by the Holy Spirit whom God gave us (Rom 5:5). 

2 Corinthians 13:1-13 – If I speak in the tongues of men and of angels, but have not AGAPE, I am a noisy gong or a clanging cymbal. 2 And if I have prophetic powers, and understand all mysteries and all knowledge, and if I have all faith, so as to remove mountains, but have not AGAPE, I am nothing. 3 If I give away all I have, and if I deliver up my body to be burned, but have not AGAPE, I gain nothing. 4 AGAPE is patient and kind; love does not envy or boast; it is not arrogant 5 or rude. It does not insist on its own way; it is not irritable or resentful; 6 it does not rejoice at wrongdoing, but rejoices with the truth. 7 AGAPE bears all things, believes all things, hopes all things, endures all things. 8 AGAPE never ends. As for prophecies, they will pass away; as for tongues, they will cease; as for knowledge, it will pass away. 9 For we know in part and we prophesy in part, 10 but when the perfect comes, the partial will pass away. 11 When I was a child, I spoke like a child, I thought like a child, I reasoned like a child. When I became a man, I gave up childish ways. 12 For now we see in a mirror dimly, but then face to face. Now I know in part; then I shall know fully, even as I have been fully known. 13 So now faith, hope, and AGAPE abide, these three; but the greatest of these is AGAPE.

Maranatha, DrZ

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