Love

 Greetings to you all in the name of the Lord Jesus Christ,

     John 3:16 says, “For God so loved the world, that he gave his only begotten Son, that whosoever believeth in him should not perish, but have everlasting life.”

     I have had several cats, one at a time, but over the last 30 years, we have had at least one cat in our home.  The first was “Trooper.”  He was a tuxedo cat much like Sylvester, had long hair but only around ten pounds.  Then came Sasha, then Zena and finally, Tina Louise.  In all cases, I loved the cat.  Tina and Sasha were very loving cats and would sit on my lap while I rubbed under their chins.  I took care of the cat and observed the cat and sometimes went to the vet with the cat.  I was a dog person before, but now, I love my cat which is now in a very nice home in a different city, but I miss the cat that I loved so much.  Now, what  kind of love did I have for my cat?  If the cat became sick, I knew it.  One morning after a night of worrying about Sasha, I woke up to find her dead on the living room floor.  I wept uncontrollably over the loss of Sasha and I mourned for her, but she was gone.

     Basically, I had “agape” love for my cat.  I would endeavor to do righteous deeds to meet the needs of my cat, much the same way as I do with people.  You see, I also love people, but it is not the same type of love that I have for my wife of 62 years.  That is agape also, but also along  with the physical love that  we have for each other .  We know what each other is thinking.  There are only two types of love mentioned in the Bible, agape and phileo.  Eros is not mentioned in the Scripture and is probably the most popular in the world as it is the erotic love or physical attraction but has absolutely no connection with any righteous acts.  The erotic love is what produces the one night stands that result in unwanted pregnancies or the pornographic industry that is so popular in the world today.  There are no righteous acts to meet someone's needs.  Now the verse, or passage for today is one of the most popular and well known verses in the Bible.  John 3:16 presents the needs, that our sins might be cleansed, and the One that is doing it is God Himself.  The word used for “loved” in this passage is agape, the righteous act  to meet the needs of another.  We have the need and God met it with the sacrifice of His only begotten Son, the Lord Jesus Christ on the cross.  So, we are not speaking about “gutter” love in this passage, but one of the most supreme examples of meeting someone else's needs, our needs of payment for sin.  When you want to look at this further, go to John 21 and look at the passage of the fish breakfast and the conversation with Peter.  Both are using the word “love” but in the first  two instances, they are different words.  Ask yourself what is Christ saying and what is Peter saying.  Praise God for His agape love for mankind including you and me.