â Today's Promise: "Love is patient and kind; love does not envy or boast; it is not arrogant  or rude. It does not insist on its own way; it is not irritable or resentful; it does not rejoice at wrongdoing, but rejoices with the truth. Love bears all things, believes all things, hopes all things, endures all things. Love never ends." Corinthians 1:1-13
Beloved brother,
What do I mean when I talk about this agape love? The agape love of God is the supernatural love that empowers us and is everlasting. I suppose that you have read
1 Corinthians 13 - the famous verses about love. You probably heard it read on your wedding day and not since then!
I am going to challenge you by telling you that living out these 1 Corinthians 13 verses is actually impossible in your own strength or without the infilling of the Holy Spirit. In order to attain this sort of love you MUST have the Lordâs help. So this is what I am referring to as growing your Agape love. Daily refreshment from the Lord, so that you too can have the perfect love for others from Him.
1 Corinthians 13 1-8 (ESV)
If I speak in the tongues of men and of angels, but have not love, I am a noisy gong or a clanging cymbal. And if I have prophetic powers, and understand all mysteries and all knowledge, and if I have all faith, so as to remove mountains, but have not love, I am nothing. If I give away all I have, and if I deliver up my body to be burned, but have not love, I gain nothing.
Love is patient and kind; love does not envy or boast; it is not arrogant  or rude. It does not insist on its own way; it is not irritable or resentful; it does not rejoice at wrongdoing, but rejoices with the truth. Love bears all things, believes all things, hopes all things, endures all things.
Love never ends. As for prophecies, they will pass away; as for tongues, they will cease; as for knowledge, it will pass away.
In order for you to love the way Lord has loved us, you will need to give up your way of doing things. Recently Iâve realised that I spent so much time striving to attain this type of love and then becoming a messed up heap when my wife did not reciprocate my strivings. I should have been praying for God's supernatural love to fill my heart so that I did not have to strive or become frustrated. That way my love would have been a spring of water running from the Lord and not the dried up well it was. Is this a familiar feeling? Do you feel like your wife never appreciated how much you sacrificed, how hard you worked? Did these feelings of being unappreciated lead to more bad feelings - this is striving!
Beloved, What should I have been doing instead? I should have been bringing everything to the Lord, even my strivings and asking the Lord to bless them or remove them. I wore my strivings like a badge of honour and what did they get me? Nothing! Quite the opposite, by striving so hard without asking for God's help I became irritable , unkind and even resentful.
But now you and I have learned the secret. When this happens we keep loving and asking God to refresh our love because his supernatural love does not run out, it is this love we need to complete our mission not only to our wives but to the world where we are called to be salt and light.
You cannot earn your salvation or expect your wife to love you like 1 Corinthians 13 by striving. You will not get it by demanding. You are going to get it by being humble; not arguing: - dying to yourselves. By dying to yourself I mean, not doing what you feel is right but doing what the Lord expects of you. Fleeing from arguments even when wronged, being quiet when accused , turning the other cheek, giving even though you have a little, love your enemy - even the OM, be always ready to forgive.
So I challenge you this month, now and always grow your agape love. Not through striving! But through daily refreshment with the Lord and infilling with the Holy Spirit and then you will be just like Him, you too will be love! Love is the evidence that we are His!
Matthew 22:34
Hearing that Jesus had silenced the Sadducees, the Pharisees got together. One of them, an expert in the law, tested him with this question:  âTeacher, which is the greatest commandment in the Law?â
Jesus replied: ââLove the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind.â This is the first and greatest commandment. And the second is like it: âLove your neighbor as yourself.â All the Law and the Prophets hang on these two commandments.â
~ Tad RESTORED in Australia
If you haven't already done so, please take a moment to read my testimony and then my wife's encouragement.