Tag Archives: agape

November 30, 2024 · 2:54 pm

Two Ways to Prove that You Really Love Christ

Then Comes the Abiding

How does the abiding come into us? God promised that He would abide in us after certain conditions were met. It is a conditional promise. We are not talking about doing something to attain salvation. As a child of the King, we already have salvation. But to grow past spiritual childhood, to have the Spirit grow in us and dwell in us—that is conditional. Christ is saying, “If you really love Me, then you can manifest the agape love that I am. But you must prove to Me that you love Me.”

Two Ways to Prove that We Love Christ

At this growth level, Christ is trying our hearts, to see if He can trust us with His deepest secrets. He desires a clean vessel to pour His Spirit into.

Christ is looking for two criteria. Christ explains the first one: “If a man love Me, he will keep my words: and my Father will love him, and we will come into him and make our abode with him (John 14:23). “If a man love Me…” Here is the first condition. The person that loves Christ will “keep His words.   

If we love Christ by keeping His words, then the Father will love us. And the godhead will come and stay and dwell within us. This is the abiding.

The Father Himself has promised to live in us—if we keep Christ’s words! As we have seen before, the word “keep” is translated from the Greek word meaning “to guard, to preserve.” And the word “words” comes from the Greek word logos, which is the plan and purpose of God spelled out from the beginning. We know that Christ is the Logos, the Word “made flesh” that dwelt among us and still does in the Spirit. Christ is the Purpose enacted for us all to see.

We are told to guard, protect, cherish, and preserve His words, the Logos. We are to watch and guard His eternal purpose, which was with God in the beginning. And His purpose is this: God is reproducing Himself. When we guard the Logos, the Father will love us, and God will abide, stay, and remain in us. That is the abiding.

Why isn’t this happening much more often in the world? Because before you can guard and preserve His eternal plan and purpose, you must know what His plan and purpose is. We are talking about “knowledge of the holy.” Those that love Christ will learn of the Logos.

And that brings us to the second way we show Christ that we love Him. You remember the story. The risen Christ has appeared to the disciples on the shores of Galilee. He asks Peter three times, “Do you love Me?” And Peter says “yes” three times. After each “yes,” Christ says, “Feed my lambs…feed my sheep…feed my sheep.” Christ was saying, “If you love Me, you will be feeding my lambs and sheep” (John 21:15-17).

But feed them what? We are to feed them the truth contained in the Logos. And the Logos is the very “mind of Christ.” From His mind comes His thoughts that reveal His plan and purpose. He wants to use us. Consequently, the Father will prune us like a vine, that we may bear more fruit.

Finally, we love Christ by guarding and protecting the truth, which is the Logos. We must cherish His mind, for it contains the boundless expanse of Love for us His people. He is the hidden treasure that is more precious than gold, diamonds and rubies. We love Him when we feed His lambs and sheep the vision found in His magnanimous heart. It is the vision of hope that He may abide and dwell in us forever.     Kenneth Wayne Hancock

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October 28, 2023 · 11:41 am

…With Me from the Beginning

(from journal entry, 12-8-21)

It was early morning, and I was still in bed. I opened my eyes, and the first thought that crystalized out of the foggy dream mind was – “The Beginning.” The “beginning?” Why was I thinking that? Then another thought came that answered the question: “… with Me from the beginning.” With ME. I was with Christ. I knew that it was the Spirit speaking to me through thoughts. I began then to ponder these cryptic words. What did the Spirit mean?

So, I looked the word “beginning” up in the Greek. The “beginning” comes from the word arche, #G746 in Strong’s. It means “the origin, the active cause, used absolutely of the beginning of all things.”

Christ said, “I am the beginning and the end.” Christ is the “active cause.” He is our origin (Revelation 1:8-11,17-18). “In the beginning was the Word.” Christ is the beginning. Therefore, in Christ was the Word. Word = Logos [the purpose and plan of God]. Christ is the “active cause” in the creation of heaven and earth. “All things were made by him; and without him was not anything made that was made” (John 1:3).

Our Savior, the “Word made flesh,” came to earth to bear witness to the truth, that He is the truth. And we, too, are to bear witness to the truth because we were with Him in the beginning. Christ said, “And ye also shall bear witness, because ye have been with me from the beginning” (John 15:27). This is not speaking of the beginning of Christ’s earthly ministry. The Greek word arche is used for the beginning of all things. It is used as such in this verse: “In the beginning was the Word…” (John 1:1).

 We are a part of the record in heaven of the things that will occur on earth. We were with him in the beginning. He knew us before because He created us as a member of His body in heaven before the earth was formed. Then He dipped us into the earth as we slid out of the matrix of our mothers’ wombs, and then we were cast out into the sea of lost mankind.

We, who had once basked in the glorious light of our Father in heaven, were now left to grow up, barely afloat in the treacherous rip tides of sin. Sin was our task master, and we obeyed his desires. The bondage to sin weighed heavily to the point of us drowning, and then we cried out in anguish and disillusionment, and then a hand reached down, a strong hand of love, and He pulled us up out of the quagmire.

He cleaned us up at the cross. He allowed us to identify our sinful selves with the Lamb, the sin sacrifice, and we died with Him. With the death of our old man, we believe that we are now buried with Him and raised with Him, now to walk in a “newness of life.” We now know and believe that “he that is dead is freed from sin.” We now spiritually step out on the water and walk in the Spirit (Rom. 6:1-11).

And then our earthly past died, and we began to grow as a seedling, tasting its first rays of light. Through study and communication with the Spirit, we grew and grew until He showed us that we had a special calling to fulfill, a special job to do. We are to share the love that saved us, by telling others the story of deliverance through His great love.

As we grow, we become a part of the witness in the earth of the record in heaven. God already knew that we would respond to His voice. He knew us and knew what we were made of. He made us, before the things we can see with our earthly eyes were made. For we were with Him in the beginning. And He has chosen us and given us a destiny way back there at the “Beginning.”

“…God works for the good of those who love him, who have been called according to his purpose. For those God foreknew, he also predestined to be conformed to the image of his Son…  And those he predestined, he also called; those he called, he also justified; those he justified, he also glorified” (Rom. 8:28-30). Yahweh predestined us, not to just be saved, but to be “conformed to the image of his Son.” At Christ’s return to earth, He will change our weak, earthly body, “that it may be fashioned like unto His glorious body” (Phil. 3:21).

We are talking about being like Christ and His apostles! Nothing less. But before this greatest of honors is bestowed upon us, we must “arm ourselves with the same mind.” We must know and do the apostles’ doctrine and add to our faith seven spiritual attributes of Christ.

We have so much knowledge to receive. Knowing His mind will finally drive out every thought that is contrary to His purpose and plan. The mind is the battlefield where we conquer the enemy’s errant desires for us. Amid the battle, it is easy to forget that we have already won, for “we are more than conquerors through Christ.” In Him lies our power, strength, and will.

O, let us shower Him with thanks for granting us the exit visa at the cross. Repentance from sin comes when we realize that we “are dead and our life is hid with Christ…” We are a part of His body now, unencumbered by that spiritually corrupt old life. We now believe that we are a part of Christ, and the Father’s heart of love dwells within us. All this happens because He mercifully allowed us to be with Him in the beginning.     Kenneth Wayne Hancock

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March 16, 2023 · 11:39 am

The Father’s Name Guards the Way for Agape Love

Christ said to dig deep. To find the vein of gold we must study thoroughly. The gold here is putting on Christ in the form of divine love. Christ’s prayer recorded in John 17 comes from the depths of the Father’s heart. It reveals how we will receive the seventh addition—agape love. And it is the Father’s name that takes center stage in our relationship with the Father.

At first, we flinch and say, “Huh? What does the Father’s name have to do with adding agape love in our spiritual walk?

Christ did say, “I have manifested thy name unto the men which thou gavest me out of the world…” (v. 6).  I have clearly shown thy name; I have made it apparent; I have made it known to them.  And they have believed that You have sent Me; they have kept My word, and they believe that it is You, Father, who is doing the works.  And they know that I came out of You, and that it is You who has sent Me (vs. 6-8).

Christ goes on to say that it is His followers that He is praying for and not the world because they are the Father’s, who has given them to Christ.  And the time has come, He is saying, for Him to depart out of the earth, leaving His followers. So how will they remain in one mind and one accord with the Savior?  How will God keep them spiritually safe and sound after Christ departs?

Love and the Knowledge of His Name

He said to continue in His love. We continue in it through the knowledge of the Father’s name. “Father, keep through thine own name those whom thou hast given Me…” There is keeping power in the name of Yahweh.  The Greek word for “keep” means “to attend to carefully, to attend, to guard,” and is translated in other places as “to preserve.”  So, He is guarding us from the evil for this purpose: “That they may be one, as we are one” (vs. 9-11). We could then say that we will never be fully one with God without knowing His name.

He is the fountain of love. He wants us to be one with Him. It happens through the knowledge of His name. He goes on to say that while He was walking with them here on earth, He “kept them in thy name,” and none of them is lost except Judas Iscariot.  He “kept” them; He guarded them.  How?  By teaching them and showing them and revealing to them the Father’s name.  For in His name is the whole plan of God (v. 12).

Christ goes on to ask the Father to not give them an escape hatch “out of the world,” but rather guard and keep them from the evil.  “I do not pray that You should take them out of the world, but that You should keep them from the evil one” (v. 15, NKJV) {Side note: That speaks against the rapture theory}.

Now some will say that this prayer is only for His twelve disciples, His followers of that era.  But it is for all of us down through the ages. “Neither pray I for these alone, but for them also which shall believe on me through their word” (v. 20). That’s us. He was praying for you and me, so we can take these concepts to heart.

Consequently, if Christ is going to “keep” and guard us from the evil by manifesting the Father’s name to us that we all may be one with Him, then how can that happen when very few Christians know that the Father’s name is Yahweh?

Christ’s desire is that all of us His followers “would be with Me where I am; that they may behold my glory, which You have given Me” (vs. 24).  He desires that we all “may be made perfect in one” (v. 23).  But we have to ask ourselves, How can this happen if a Christian doesn’t know the Father’s name Yahweh, which God uses to guard us from the evil?

And lastly in this prayer in John 17, Christ repeats, “And I have declared unto them thy name, and will declare it…”  For this specific reason: “That the love wherewith thou hast loved me may be in them, and I in them.”  Let’s savor this.  He is saying, I have made known, shown clearly, Your name, Father, and I will continue to make it known, for this reason: That the same love You have loved Me with may be in My followers.  And that My very essence and Spirit of love may be in them!

What His Name Means

Here the very love and presence of God is tied into the knowledge of God’s name.  His name means “The Self-Existent One” and Yahweh is the Savior, which is what the Son of God’s Hebrew name means—Yahshua.

Inside, God’s name contains and reveals the very nature of Himself.  God is Love. Him being the Savior of His creation reveals or unveils His essence, which is Love. For “greater love hath no man than this than to lay down his life for his friends.”  This essence of the greatest love on earth–giving your life to save someone else–is implicit in the name of the Savior.  This is the reason that our hearts are touched and moved when we hear of someone giving up their own lives to save someone else.  It touches us because it is the heart of God and shows us what He has done, whether we realize it or not.

He guards us from the selfishness of the evil one, when we think on His name and how He gave His life for us. For the great invisible Spirit Yahweh poured Himself into a human form so that He could express fully the love that is His essence.  It is through realizing this knowledge of His love contained in His name that we can receive that same love—that God, who is Love, may dwell in our hearts, and that He and His love would thrive and grow in our hearts, so that we could make known who God is by the love exhibited through us to others. And thus fulfill Christ’s prayer.  “I have declared unto them thy name and will declare it: that the love wherewith thou hast loved me may be in them, and I in them.”  The addition of His love into us is realized through the remembrance of the meaning of His name. Kenneth Wayne Hancock

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February 24, 2023 · 9:44 am

Why Christ Said, “Love Your Enemies”

We all have enemies.  We all have people who have wronged us, and it is so easy to be bitter against them.  But I never could understand until now why God admonishes us to pray for our enemies. 

    Love your enemies, bless them that curse you, do good to them that hate you, and pray for them which despitefully use you, and persecute you (Matthew 5:44).  That is a tough assignment.  That stretches the abilities of our humanity.  It is too difficult for our earthly passions to do.  We in all our human frailties are being asked by the Master to do the impossible: Love, bless, and pray for those who hurt us.

     Why would He put that on us? It’s in the very next verse: That you may be the children of your Father which is in heaven.  His spiritual offspring, His sons and daughters, His princes and princesses–they will overcome and do just that.  Because each seed bears its own kind, we, born of His seed, will become just like Him.  For He makes His sun to rise on the evil and on the good, and sends rain on the just and on the unjust.  He loves the whole world and knows that they “know not what they do.”  We, too, will realize that our calling is to be just like Him, and with His Spirit abiding within, we will overcome.

     Vengeance will be taken, but not by His sons and daughters.  We were created by Him as vessels of mercy.  He will show His mercy through us.  That’s why He emphasized, “Vengeance is mine, saith the LORD (Yahweh); I will repay.”

     Why did He want us to not rail on our enemies?  Because He knew that the moment we do, we will have given into a dark spirit, which entering into our heart and mind, will poison us spiritually.  Bitterness as gall will well up and sully our complete being.  He does not want this for us because we are not built by Him for revenge, hatred, and cursings.  We are not “wired” that way by the Creator.  We self-destruct if we hate others.  We are created to be channels of love, His love.

     So, we are told to “pray for them that persecute you.”  By doing this, the dark, spiritual acid of bitterness is neutralized, and then His love and peace begins to once again flow down and through us to others.               Kenneth Wayne Hancock

(If this has been helpful to you, please like, comment and/or share)

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February 1, 2022 · 11:08 am

Intercession and Spiritual Growth

Someone in your life is hurting. You feel that you cannot help them. You know that they are going the wrong way but find it difficult to alter their direction. You have tried telling them that Christ is the answer. But they will not listen. You have prayed for them, of course. You have held on helplessly, as you see time running out–for them and for you as the one who wants to help them.

You feel depleted, empty of sustenance that will, like chicken soup for the flu, comfort and lift them out of their spiritual disease. Then one day you realize that you have just not gotten down and asked God to intercede in your loved one’s condition. It’s not like you haven’t mentioned them in your communications with God. You have mentioned them, but have you asked the Father, like this: “Father, would you please help them to know that You love them? Father, would you reach down and show them Your wondrous love? Would You reach out Your hand to them and draw them into Your joyful bosom?” Or was your prayer a statement: “Father, I ask that you help them in their time of need.”

As you ask your Father for help, your heart begins to soften. You realize that He is not going to block His ears to your cry for help. In fact, He has been waiting for you to ask Him—not tell Him—what you desire of Him. Christ said, “Ask and it shall be given.” He continued, And if your son or daughter asked you for something to eat, would you give them a stone? If you know how to mercifully give good things to your children when they ask you, “how much more shall your Father which is in heaven give good things to them that ask him” ( Matthew 7:7-11).

And so, you ask Him, “Father would you please help them? Would you let your love embrace their fears? Would you show them that you are real and that you care?”

And then, something wonderful begins to happen in your heart. It is a realization that, yes, the Father is going to answer your prayers, but He wants to do it through you. He wants His Spirit of love to be magnified and multiplied in you. He wants to love the one you are praying for–the one that you’re concerned about—through you. You begin to realize that He will answer your prayer, in showing His love for them, through you.

This is intercessory prayer–real prayer that changes us.  God gives grace to the humble. Humility knocks on His door seeking help for someone else. God can work with that. And so he begins a change in our hearts, preparing us to be used as a vessel for his Spirit of love to work through. This is how we grow; this is actually how He grows in us.  Intercessory prayer is the process by which the Father fulfils his eternal purpose, which is to reproduce Himself in a body of many human beings. This is how He multiplies His love for his people.    

And it all starts with, “Ask and it shall be given.” But it is not selfishly asking for both physical and spiritual things. Rather it is asking the Father to touch someone else.

You love someone that is hurting…

Kenneth Wayne Hancock

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November 7, 2021 · 9:47 am

“What Becomes of the Brokenhearted?”

So went the Sixties love ballad. But now God has a heartbreak of much greater importance for us, one needed for our spiritual growth.

For the closer we get to fulfilling God’s goal for us—to be His fully matured sons and daughters—the more is our need to be broken.

Call it self-protection, but we in our original state harden at heartbreak. We squirm away from suffering. Because the history of mankind is painted with pain, we sequester ourselves, building turrets on our castles of consciousness.

We are careful each day to put on man’s armor to protect us from the myriad souls who would rifle through our defenses with their troubles. If we were not hardened, we feel we would weep and lament for the needs of humanity. As medics in a MASH style hospital in Vietnam, we had to harden our hearts just to make it through another day of death and human destruction.

But now our Example arrives on the scene of our existence. He is Christ our King, the great Healer and Creator of the heavens and the earth and all that therein is. We see Him walking about humbly, a broken man, a man of grief and suffering. He was a man of sorrows—our sorrows. He looked out and observed faithless men, and He suffered, knowing what the world would go through.

He knew all this, but how would He get man to begin to love and be merciful to each other? He would first exhibit the greatest love in the world: To die for another. Thus, He left us an example “that we should follow His steps.” He would deliver us and command us to “present our bodies a living sacrifice.” In so doing, the seed of agape Love, which is God, would germinate by faith, and that Seed would grow into “trees of righteousness.” We are those trees, my brothers and sisters.

But before all of this happening, the ground of our hearts must be broken up to receive the Seed. The hardened ground of pride will not bear any kind of spiritual fruit.

And so it goes. Most men prattle on. Their grudges grow into granite walls. And there man lies down for the last time, the only thing left is a helpless granite slab, never to be remembered again, lost in a tomb of dust with no hope, except the Resurrection.

Believing this brings a broken humility which God rewards with grace. We all should ask Him for brokenness. God is near to those of a broken heart. That’s where we will find Him.     Kenneth Wayne Hancock

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October 30, 2021 · 1:10 pm

Adding Agape Love Produces the Abiding

I am working on my next book. The working title is The Additions to the Faith. Longtime readers have seen several articles here on the Additions.

When writing a book, hitting a roadblock to the flow is the greatest frustration. But there is no greater joy than to have God connect the dots for you. I was lying awake at 2 a.m. a few weeks back. Couldn’t sleep at all. But my eyes were closed. And then, in a moment of clarity seldom experienced, a missing ingredient, needed to advance the book, flew like an arrow of light into my brain. It concerned the additions and the abiding.

The Premise of the New Book

The Spirit through Peter commands us to “add to your faith virtue, and to virtue knowledge, and to knowledge temperance, and to temperance patience, and to patience godliness, and to godliness brotherly kindness, and to brotherly kindness agape love” (II Peter 1:5-7). This is one of Christ’s “new commandments.” [For more on this, be sure to order my current book; it’s free with free shipping. Here’s the link: Free Copy of The Eleventh Commandment | Immortality Road (wordpress.com) ]

As I have reported before, these additions are facets or aspects of God’s “divine nature” (v. 4). When added, these will insure that you will bear “much fruit” as a manifested son or daughter of God, and that you will “make…your election sure.” Also, the additions are the key unlocking the “entrance…into the everlasting kingdom of our Savior” (v. 10-11). They are extremely important and are the thesis of the upcoming book due out late 2022 or early 2023.

I knew that the Abiding that Christ speaks of in many places has a place in the Additions to the Faith. But how to explain it?  

This morning God whispered in my ear the revelation. The last addition is to add agape love. “God is agape love” (I John 4:8). The Abiding is when the Spirit comes into us and abides/remains/stays/continues in us.

When God—the Spirit of Truth—makes His home in us, that is the addition of agape love into our being. For He is agape love.

When we incorporate the Spirit and have Him abide in us, then this abiding is the addition of agape love in our hearts. The abiding of the Spirit within us is the seventh addition to the faith. The seventh addition is fulfilled by the abiding of His Spirit within us.

Visually it looks like this:

The Holy Spirit Abides in us

The Abiding = The 7th addition

The 7th Addition = Agape Love

 Therefore,

The Abiding = Agape Love

Connecting dots…

Kenneth Wayne Hancock

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April 22, 2021 · 12:41 pm

Forgiving Small Sleights

Forgive. This second New Commandment predicts that there will be things in your new life to forgive. Someone in your life is irritating you. How do I know? It’s built into the human experience.

God in His goodness toward us, in that He wants us to grow spiritually, has provided in each life an irritant to help develop His nature in us. These irritants are people and situations in our lives that frustrate us.

We need someone to forgive. So it starts with the family. God puts initial love for them so much so that we “cannot live without them.” And then their weaknesses come to the forefront, forcing us to come to grips with the irritation their selfishness provides.

There is no way to get rid of it. The answer to this problem comes from a spiritual change in our own heart. This is how God foments a correction and growth in our makeup. Overcoming the irritants is how we grow from “one degree of glory to another.”

Ironically, we think that those who “bum us out” and “bring us down” are the culprits, but God uses them to fulfill His purpose of multiplying Himself in and through us. When we forgive those who irritate us, His nature of agape love grows in us, thus fulfilling His purpose.

Not As Easy As All That

As you know, that is more difficult than it looks. It is difficult to forgive completely and openheartedly. Most human failure is caused by not forgiving simple sleights. Human nature does not want to forgive.

God says that the key is to realize that it is not us that does the forgiving. It is the Spirit of God in us that forgives. Remember? As Christians we are dead on the cross with Christ and buried with Him and now “raised to walk in a newness of life.” It is now Christ’s Spirit within us that forgives, by faith in His resurrection. He has already forgiven everyone of everything.

Our great King has already done it all. When we believe this, we walk in His faith, His belief system. He has already forgiven that person. That is the record in heaven. When we let Him forgive another through us, then we are His witness here on earth of His love to mankind. The Father is localized in our vessel, and it is Him that is doing the wonderful works.

By obeying this New Commandment, “Forgive,” His love grows in and through us.

{Please hit that “like” button to boost readership of this blog. Thank you. This article is chapter 19 of the brand new book that is now off to the printers. It is called The Eleventh Commandment. To receive a free copy with free shipping just send your name and mailing address, and name of book to my email address: wayneman5@hotmail.com It should be available in May sometime. God bless you and yours.}

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February 27, 2016 · 7:44 pm

“All You Need Is Love”–God Is Love

“Nothing you can do that can’t be done.” That famous line from the song “All You Need Is Love” flashed through my mind today.  I then thought of these biblical passages: “God is Love” and “With God all things are possible.”  With Love, then, all things are possible.  Or, with God’s Spirit (which is love personified) in us fully, all things are possible.

It’s possible for Christ’s Spirit (Love) to fully reside in us.  This is the “more excellent way” that Paul wrote about in I Corinthians 13, the “Love” chapter.  For this way is how God comes down and through us to others.  He desires to use us to spread His love.

As I wrote in my book The Unveiling of the Sons of God, this is agape love, from the Greek.  And Paul outlines just what God’s nature of love will look like in us in I Corinthians 13 (“charity” being from the Gr. word agape, which is “God is Love” [https://immortalityroad.wordpress.com/ebook-the-unveiling-of-the-sons-of-god/ ].

This agape love is all we need.  It is what every heart is hungry for–the unconditional love that can only come from the Unselfish One. The need to be loved is universal, and only one Being can satisfy that longing, and that is He who laid down His mortal life for us.  kwh

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January 12, 2015 · 6:59 pm

Adding Agape Love to Our Faith–The Greatest Love

“Greater love hath no man than this, that a man lay down his life for his friends” *

Those Christians chosen by God to answer the “high calling” in being His manifested sons and daughters in these last days must add seven things to their faith “obtained” from Him. The apostle Peter clearly lines them out in his second letter. The last one is agape, the divine love that is God Himself [1].

When added, these seven attributes make us “partakers of the divine nature.” They insure that we will never be “barren nor unfruitful” in Him. Adding them is the way to “make [our] calling and election sure.” In other words, they are extremely important to study out and incorporate into our being.

Adding “godliness” is adding an increased love and appreciation of God. Adding “brotherly kindness” is loving your fellow man as God does. Adding agape love to them is when the very essence of God’s divine nature, which is Love, is placed by Him into His temple, you and me.

“Love, Love, Love”

The poets and writers know that “love is all you need,” that “love is the answer,” that “nobody gets too much” of it. They herald love’s necessity  today as they have since mankind first spoke of their inner feelings. They know that “what the world needs now is love, sweet love.” We hum the tunes and whisper the words of this ancient truth, but how do we tap into and receive into our hearts that divine entity, that attribute of the divine nature that eludes us?

We first look to family for love, to our dear mothers who innately gave of themselves to us. Then to friends and acquaintances we go searching for love and acceptance. Then on to our search for “the one,” the one we will marry, the one who will love us surely; surely they will.

Natural mankind is filled with this longing to be loved. But the very people that he wants love, respect, and admiration from do not know how to give it really. Unconditional love is not man’s forte because it is the divine love that mankind is really craving. For only divine love is strong and selfless enough to forgive  mankind’s sins and shortcomings. Besides, the very person that we seek unconditional love from is limited, also, and doesn’t have the capacity to love like that. Most are bogged down in their own pursuit of love for themselves from others in this world.

And so this unrequited love on all sides seethes oftentimes into a bitter bile of dissatisfaction and dismay. The swirl of perceived rejection and angst can begin to flush one’s mind down into the pit of despair.

Consequently, the real need for us all is to forgive those who have not loved us like we thought they should have. But forgiveness only issues from a heart of love.

Alexander Pope, the 18th Century English poet, was right. “To err is human; to forgive divine.” The water of forgiveness can only be drawn from the divine well of Love. Agape love is the fountain of forgiveness. I cannot forgive you unless I love you because forgiveness is fashioned only from a heart of love.

Where Is This Fountain of Love?

But where do we get that divine love? Where is that rarefied pool of love, the “living waters” that we sojourners may drink and fill our hearts for our journey through “the valley of the shadow of death”?

It comes from God, for “God is love” [2]. Everyone knows that; it’s been repeated over and over down through the millennia. Yet, repeating it will still not fill us with this most ethereal of elixirs, agape love.

The Key

The key lies in answering this question: How is it that “God is love”? How is He agape love? Why is He love? We begin to sip this life-giving love when we finally see it in action. But not just see it. We must believe it, believe in it, trust it, breathe it, and live it.

For God, who is Divine Love, poured His essence of love into a man. Agape love is the Word, and the Word was God, and Love “was made flesh and dwelt among us” [3]. This Divine Love was incarnated in Christ and dwelt with mankind in the form of our Savior.

When we believe Christ’s story of God’s great love displayed when Christ laid down His life for the salvation of the world, we begin to add His nature of divine love to our spirit. When we believe in His death, burial, and resurrection, then through faith (belief) in Him and this very action of love, we begin to tap into that flow of the Spirit of love. He begins to love that hard to love person in our life through us. It is God who is loving them through us. He is the actor, we are the medium.”

Our belief in His resurrection in us localizes God, who is love. Our belief in His resurrection raises up His Spirit of love in us, the divine Spirit of love. This is how God magnifies and multiplies Himself. He reproduces Himself through His spiritual nature of love manifested through us, His offspring.

Christ showed the greatest love in the universe when He willingly laid down His life for us. Meditating on this revelation of the greatest love witnessed on earth in Christ is the key to exponential spiritual growth. It is the key to understanding the Holy Bible. It is the key to solving all the mysteries of God.

It is when we follow Him in His baptism, when we willingly lay down our selfish lives on the cross with Him, when we are buried with Him, and when we believe that we are risen with Him–then that very same Love–the greatest Love of all–flows through us from Agape Love Himself. Our belief in the greatest Love of all is believing in Christ’s laying down His life and taking it back up again. When we follow Him in this, we tap into that Spirit of Love and add it to His divine nature in us [4].     Kenneth Wayne Hancock    [For more information on this topic, I invite you to peruse these articles found here: https://immortalityroad.wordpress.com/?s=additions ]

*John 15: 13

1. II Peter 1: 4-11; Eph. 1: 4.  [Agape is the Greek word that is translated in many versions as “charity.” Because of “charity’s” obvious modern connotation, it clouds the true meaning of the passage.]

2. I John 4: 8, 16.

3. John 1: 1, 14.

4. Romans 6: 1-12

*John 15: 13

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