Dial Daily Bread

Dear Friends of "Dial Daily Bread":

Something unusual has just been published in our small town local newspaper: a high schooler in English class wrote a piece about the love which is agape! It’s entitled, “Time to express some selfless love”:

 

“While sitting in English class.... we were discussing a recent boiler topic..... It seemed the whole class agreed that there really is no deed that is.... selfless..... No act done by man is ever unselfish..... [But] there are rare occasions where completely unselfish and self-sacrificing acts of kindness are performed.... agape..... It seems that people who donate to the Salvation Army their clothes do it more for the tax write-off rather than.... this selfless love [which] is extremely rare..... But that does not make it non-existent..... Acts of agape love do not have to be a big deed that is almost miraculous-like.” (This girl learned about agape from C. S. Lewis.) But she didn’t tell us where to learn agape!

 

John says that no one who has not learned to love with agape could be happy in heaven, because he doesn’t “know God” (cf. 1 John 4:7, 8, 17; at the gate of the New Jerusalem we’ll be asked one question—have you learned to love with agape?). Agape love has been revealed and demonstrated to the world in Jesus (vs. 9). Salvation does not depend on us loving God with agape, but on our receiving His agape into our empty hearts (vs. 10; Rom. 5:5). Peter wisely declined to claim that he loved Christ with agape (cf. John 21:15-17, Greek). What’s important in God’s sight is for us to love somebody else, not Him, with agape (1 John 4:11, 20)!

 

Paul prayed for us that we might “comprehend.... the width and length and depth and height [of] the agape of Christ” (Eph. 3:14-19). Those are the dimensions of Christ’s cross! Do the “comprehending” (one writer suggests it takes an hour a day to “behold”), and the agape love will “constrain” you to selfless living which brings honor to Jesus (2 Cor. 5:13-15). It doesn’t have to be so rare!

Be sure to check your e-mail for "Dial Daily Bread" again tomorrow.

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