This won't be my only post about my mission trip in Detroit, because it will take much more than a day and a half to digest the beauty that happened there. This one is about Agape.
If you know what the word means, you don't have to keep reading if you don't want to, but it takes a different turn then you think. If you don't know what it means, keep reading.
Agape means Sacrificial Love. It means the love that Christ felt for us as He hung on that tree. It means the love He felt as He sacrificed His reputation, cleanliness by Jewish law, His status, His everything to become the least of these for our souls. It means the kind of love we are to have for the least os these.
To be first one must be last. I continued to tell myself I wanted to be last, but did I? Did I really believe myself when I said that? Until this week I thought so, but being told that there is a HUGE difference in the complacent Christian Philao (give and take only) type of love and agape love...I knew I was wrong. After a full week (and when I say full, I mean full) of serving, loving, and growing with and without 14 other human beings. We encountered broken and lonely, broken and rebuilding, healed and helping, and those who were unreadable. I am amazed by the love God pushed into my face through all the incredible people we met.
One night we were all dead tired, but I kept volunteering songs for us all to sing. I just wanted us to praise and worship, and feel God in the home we stayed in. There was a man who had come in off the streets (he was a regular to the family we stayed with, and such a sweet and gentle human being) and as he listened to our praise and worship for almost 45 minutes, on top of the talking and growing on an already renewed faith in God with our host father - he made the decision after our singing to get baptized on Easter Sunday.
If we hadn't sacrificed our tired, sleep deprived selves to sing to God and give Him the glory, that man would not have made that decision that night. I amazed by Agape.
It will take some growing pains, some work, and a lot of God's grace to work on sacrificing myself more and more - but God made my heart this big for a reason. He'll break it a thousand times for what breaks His if He has to.
Agape.
until next time (:
While your explanation and understanding of agape is absolutely beautiful, I think that agape furthermore is UNCONDITIONAL love, which God has for us. Not just the sacrificial.
ReplyDeleteI completely agree, we are not perfect and He loves us for our imperfections because to God - there are no imperfections. Thanks so much for your input! (:
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