LOVE IN YOUR HOME
Part 2

“You yourselves are taught of God to love one another”
(1 Thessalonians 4:9).

More adjectives about agape love for you today.

1. AFFECTIONATE Love (Titus 2:4).

The Bible gives us two different words for affectionate love in this Scripture, one for wives and one for mothers—a special word for each role. The wifely love is philandros and the motherly love is philoteknos. They both come from the root word philos which means “to be friendly and affectionate.” In other words, we physically show our love by touching, hugging, and kissing.

Do you tangibly show love to your husband each day? Caressing him? Touching him? Kissing him? Cuddling him?

Our children need this tangible love too. It’s easy to show this cuddly love when our children are little, but we must keep on showing it physically even as they grow older.

2. BELIEVING Love (1 Corinthians 13:7 and Galatians 5:6).

“Love believeth all things.” The AMPC translation says: “Love . . . is ever ready to believe the best of every person.”

3. BEARING UP Love (1 Corinthians 13:7).

“Love bears up under anything and everything that comes” (AMPC).

4. CHASTENING Love (Hebrews 12:6).

Forgive me, ladies. I made a huge oversight. I had completed this beautiful study of  the adjectives the Bible uses to describe agape love, when all of a sudden, I realize I had missed one! How could I miss Chastening Love when its theme runs through the Old and New Testaments?

I am placing it in alphabetical order here for you even though I didn’t remember it until the end. I am glad the Holy Spirit prompted me before I closed this study (you will now discover 35 different adjectives describing agape love in the coming devotions).

            Hebrews 12:5, 6: “My son, despise not thou the chastening of the Lord, nor faint when thou art rebuked of him: for whom the Lord loveth he chasteneth, and scourgeth every son whom he receiveth.” Strong language. We don’t like to associate love with chastening, do we? However, God’s love chastens us for or blessing. For our good. To conform us to divine truth.

God uses this same word for the love He has for His Beloved Son and for us His adopted children. Paul often referred to the saints as “beloved.” Therefore, let’s not get into a tizzy when God corrects us. His discipline reveals His love for us.

Even more, it reveals that we truly belong to Him. If we do not receive any correction or discipline from the Lord, are we truly His children? The Bible says No. Let’s read verse 7 and 8 from the NLT: “As you endure this divine discipline, remember that God is treating you as his own children. Who ever heard of a child who is never disciplined by its father? If God doesn’t discipline you as he does all of his children, it means that you are illegitimate and are not really his children at all.”

How does God discipline us? Many times, it comes through other people and sometimes members of our own family. We find this hard to receive, but it is actually God’s discipline.

Job 5:17: “Behold, happy is the man whom God correcteth: therefore despise not thou the chastening of the Almighty.”

Psalm 94:12: “Blessed is the man whom thou chastenest, O LORD, and teachest him out of thy law.”

Proverbs 3:11, 12: “My son, despise not the chastening of the LORD; neither be weary of his correction. For whom the LORD loveth he correcteth; even as a father the son in whom he delighteth.”

Revelation 3:19: “As many as I love, I rebuke and chasten: be zealous therefore, and repent.”

Because God, as a loving Father, deals with us this way, we also chasten our children. We don’t parent haphazardly. We don’t yell at our children when they do crazy things. We parent intentionally because we passionately them. We want them to grow into maturity and live god-fearing lives. Therefore, we discipline and chasten them with godly love.

To be recipients of God’s great agape love, we must also receive His correcting and chastening.

PRAYER:

Dear Father, I thank You for Your love which is so overwhelming. I thank You that I can bask in Your love for me. Please help me to also embrace the correcting anointing of Your love. Help me to receive instead of resist. I know You do it for my good, to change me from glory to glory and to conform me into the image of your dear Son. Amen.”

AFFIRMATION:

Without the chastening of the Lord I am not a true child of God.

 

Did you know, I am now doing a podcast for you each week called FROM OUR HOME TO YOURS w/ Nancy Campbell? I know you will be blessed and encouraged. Go to www.aboverubies.org and you’ll see the icon. Or go to http://ARPoddy.buzzsprout.com