Agape Love

A Seven Part Homily Series

Part Six

Love Always Protects, Trusts, Hopes and Perseveres

 

By Michael K. Farrar, O.D.,

© God’s Breath Publications

 

I Corinthians 4-8

“Love is patient, love is kind. It does not envy, it does not boast, it is not proud. It is not rude, it is not self-seeking, it is not easily angered, it keeps no record of wrongs. Love does not delight in evil but rejoices with the truth. It always protects, always trusts, always hopes, always perseveres. Love never fails.”

 

Love Always Protects

 

The word for protect in this verse can also imply bearing or supporting as well as covering. How do these words relate to love as protecting?

 

God’s agape love protects because it can bear up under tremendous pressure. As the old Timex watch advertisement told us on television, “It can take a lick’in and keep on tick’in.” Love can protect the person loving but also the person who is loved. The power of Agape love is that it is empowered by God Himself. His Spirit can give us the strength to bear up under all degrees of relational insults and cruelty.

 

God carries us through tough times if we love as He loves. Love protects because it motivates us to carry the burdens of other people for their sake and well-being. Galatians 6:2 tells us, “Carry each other’s burdens, and in this way you will fulfill the law of Christ.” But it is also wise to listen to Galatians 6:5 that we are to “carry our own burdens.” Wisdom will direct us when to take on the burdens of others and when to instruct them to carry their own burdens.

 

God’s love also supports us as we love and support others. It is easy to love the easy-to-love. It is the people who treat us with indifference or cruelty that are difficult to love. They require God’s agape love in us to be manifested if we are going to love appropriately. That is when we need the power and protection from God over us as we seek to love the hard-to-love.

 

God’s love also covers us in such situations.

 

1 Peter 4:8 states, “Love covers a multitude of sins.” Love keeps quiet and is cautious about what is said in conversations about relationships. Love allows us to keep our mouth shut when it needs to be shut. As our mother used to say, “If you can’t say something good, then don’t say anything at all.” God’s love covers us as well as others because it hates scandals and gossip. This love protects not only our reputation but also the reputation of those we love. A person who loves as God loves turns away from gossip because gossip hurts people. Love is concerned about the healing of others and allows us to keep quiet so that people can heal behind the scenes of vicious gossip and rumor. Matthew 18:15 speaks to this issue. When others offend us we demonstrate love when we go personally to them to discuss it. We don’t go to others and share our hurts and wounds to cause discord in relationships. There are situations when love will disclose information at times. God’s wisdom will guide us when to cover and when to expose the actions of others. When justice is required, love will seek to expose sins in a loving and appropriate manner.

 

Love can also protect and carry relationships through tough times. In the case of a marriage Lewis B. Smedes states, “Agape is the power for sticking with a marriage when the passion has burned down to dreary toleration. It is the power to wait and see if desire might be ignited, and eros re-created later. Agape is the energy to do the works of eros even when the feelings of eros are gone. With agapic love what might otherwise be the causes of divorce can become the challenge of re-creation. Agape forgives the guilty spouse, affirms the unlovely spouse, bears with bad taste, insensitive neglect, stupid decisions, and cruel aggressiveness. With agape, two people can bear tough confrontation and mutual criticism and rise ready for healing from even the bitterest experience of anger and hate.” Love protects relationships while healing can occur and deeper intimacy can develop.

 

Love Always Trusts

 

Love always strives to trust others. Love will often let its guard down so that a relationship can mend or that damaged emotions can heal. This might seem careless, but it is a risk that love is willing to take at times in order for God to work. This risk that love takes is not fool hearty but balanced with wisdom and bathed in prayer. It is difficult to trust those that have hurt us, but love calls us to take the risk that we might be hurt again so that a relationship can be restored and an offense be forgiven. Love trusts because it is greatly concerned about the other person’s needs. A person with this love can risk trust at times because he or she knows that God is giving them the courage to take on such a challenge. The power of loving forgiveness is powerful and can drive such trust. A person can take the risk to trust in a loving way because they have already trusted in God and His ability to guide them and protect them. Lewis B. Smedes states, “Agape…does not fear being taken advantage of, made a fool of, or being let down…Agape has nothing to lose. It is in the business of giving itself away. How could it be deceived; how could it be betrayed? It is invulnerable. For its strength is inexhaustible; its very power is in its giving.” Out of this strength in agape love comes its ability to trust. Such love looks at the person who has wounded us and sees the necessity of risking trust so that a chance is given for repentance, restoration and reconciliation. Possibly we should look at what God risks to love us. We fail Him often and in many ways, yet He continues to risk loving us continually because He knows we are worth it in His eyes. We grieve His Holy Spirit with our actions and attitudes but He keeps hanging in there with us and forgiving us. He continues to love us with His agape love and He calls us to do the same with those we love and even those who reject us or hurt us with their actions.

 

Love Always Hopes

 

Love always hopes. A person with such love continues to hope that there is always a chance, or a possibility that truth will win, that wounds can be healed, that people can change with God’s help. A person with such love continues to hope because their love is fueled by the truth in God’s Word, the power of the Holy Spirit and their experience of being loved by their Heavenly Father. Love always hopes because we have a strong confidence to hope that God will work in miraculous ways to bring resolution to a problem, reconciliation to a relationship or healing to a trauma. One of the main ingredients of being hopeful in this type of loving is to trust God and wait on Him. “Wait for the Lord; be strong and take heart and wait for the Lord.” Psalms 27:14

 

Often we can’t bring ourselves to trust people and we have no control over situations, but we can trust in God who is trustworthy and in control of everything that happens. He knows every detail of what has taken place, what is taking place and what will happen. He doesn’t allow anything to occur unless it is filtered through His loving hands and is in accordance with His divine will (Romans 8:28). Hope can flourish when we trust in God. We can face the unknown future with gladness and joy as our faith encourages us to trust in God for His will to be done. Several verses verify these truths.

 

Romans 5:5

“And hope does not disappoint us, because God has poured out His love into our hearts by the Holy Spirit, whom He has given us.”

 

Romans 8:25

“But if we hope for what we do not yet have, we wait for it patiently.”

 

Romans 15:13

“May the God of hope fill you with all joy and peace as you trust in Him, so that you overflow with hope by the power of the Holy Spirit.”

 

2 Corinthians 3:12

“Therefore, since we have such a hope, we are very bold.”

 

Hope is not certainty, but hope is a desire that God will grant us what we want and if not, we will be given the faith and courage to accept whatever results takes place in our lives or the relationships we have with others. Love will also allow our selfish hopes to die when we see that they are different from the hopes that God has for others and us.

 

Love Always Perseveres

 

Agape love has the amazing power to endure and persevere in the midst of horrible situations. Lewis B. Smedes makes a very interesting observation about the perseverance of love. He states, “In the biblical experience, enduring has a passive, accepting side called patience, and an active, aggressive side called courage. In patience we say Yes to life in the midst of evil assaults on our own existence. In courage we counter-attack against the evil that assaults us. To endure is to blend patience and courage in the face of all that hurts us and so to grow into a fuller person…Patience in the Bible is not a spineless submission to whatever comes along…patience is the power to see some joy, some gladness, some light in the midst of life. It is the power to see point and meaning in living while one’s life is under assault. Courage is an inner power to resist the painful experiences of life by counterattacking evil even when we cannot expect to conquer it on our own.” I would make a very important point here though. We need to remember that in the courageous part of loving endurance we attack evil, but not the people we are called to love.

 

Hebrews 10:36 gives instruction on perseverance, “You need to persevere so that when you have done the will of God, you will receive what He has promised.”

 

This love of God that was demonstrated by Jesus Christ always protects and supports. It always trusts. It always hopes and perseveres. May we seek in all we do and say to love others with this love. May we die to self and seek to protect others from themselves and their actions. May we strive to risk to trust whenever possible. May we hope in God and therefore have hope for the future of relationships we struggle with. May we persevere in our love by relying upon the guidance of God’s Word, the power of the Holy Spirit and the love we receive from our Heavenly Father.

 

1 John 4:16

“We know and rely on the love God has for us. God is love.”