True Success Part 9/9

Love. Not the Hollywood/Bollywood kind. The GOD kind.
Theres a word for it in Greek which has different levels of loving.
In English the word for love is the same whether you love your car, your dog or your wife. I'm not going to say which one I love most !

There's Eros which is the pure emotional and sensual love. It's the cinematic kind with special effects which can and often does vanish the morning after like 007. This is love without commitment to a person. Puppy love.

Then theres Phileo which is the paternal or platonic love or marital relationships. A love that is based in friendship and sacrifice. This is often a mutual love. You scratch my back and I scratch yours. This symbiotic relationship easily terminates when one does not live up to the other's expectation.

And finally there is the Agape love. This is the God kind of love. I often think of it as true love. This kind of love is not dependent on the recipient and their behaviour but only on the giver.

Theres a beautiful chapter in the Word of God about the qualities of this Love.


Even if I speak in all the languages of Angels and Men and have not Love, I am an irritating gong. If I can know the future as God does, and understand everything in the universe and have the power of Superman but have no love, I am nothing. If I donate all my worldly goods to the impoverished and am persecuted and killed for my faith, and have no Love, I am the loser.

Love is showing patience and still remains kind.
Without envy of others success or boasting about your own.
Not being rude or selfish and rarely angered, it doesn't hold a grudge. Delights in truth and good rather than in evil.
Always defends others and trusts others, with hope and endurance.
Love cannot fail. Prophecies can fail, and languages will fade away, knowledge will be outdated quickly.

For the revelation of the future is only partial, and we wait for God's perfect plan so our imperfect path can be done away with.
When I was a child, I thought immaturely.
But now as a man I put away childishness.

Now what we see of God is reflected in us, is as if through a bad mirror, but Love brings us face to face. Now I know this partially, but soon I shall experience God fully, just the same way that he knows me.

Now the top three are Faith, Hope and Love. The greatest of these is Love. I have show you the way to excellence. Follow the way of Agape desiring the gifts.