A powerful christian love devotion
An Affirmation Prayer Of Love
Dear Heavenly Father, I thank you that a POWERFUL CHRISTIAN LOVE DEVOTION reminds me of Your great love and comfort. Your plans for me are “plans to prosper me and not to harm me, plans to give me hope and a future” (Jer. 29:11). So, when I am faithless You remain faithful (2 Tim. 2:11). Nothing can separate me from Your love (Rom. 8:39). Thank You, Father, in Jesus’ loving and merciful name. Amen.
God Loves You Even Though Your Messy
You get to learn a little about my broken and messy past. Guess what? I’m still broken and messy. I’ve learned that God loves me anyway.
At a seminar, I (Bill) saw my first wife across the room and fell head-over-heels in love with her beauty. She was eight years younger than I and full of life. She made me feel alive with passion. I felt I could not live without her so after a short period of time I asked her to marry me.
Without cultivating affection, family ties, friendship or a deeper unconditional love we spent twelve rocky and tumultuous years together. Even the eros love that we started with couldn’t keep us together. My wife divorced me saying she never loved me.
Thankfully, right before she left me, I became a Christian. Since then the Lord taught me how to phileo (become friends), storge (family love) and agape (unconditional) love her. The Lord revealed to me that it takes two people to reconcile. No matter what I longed and prayed for she was not willing. Since the Lord was faithful to help me, I can pour out His love towards her. Now, I can say we have a caring friendship today, which has benefited our three children immensely.
THE LANGUAGE OF LOVE
Therefore, understanding love can be difficult for many of us because of how love has been expressed to us by our parents, families, friends, and church. Similarly, the early Christians faced a problem similar to the one we face today in that the surrounding society was so corrupt that “love” often equaled sheer lust (evil sexual desires).
Fortunately, the Greek language is very precise and has five words that we can use to distinguish and describe the various aspects of love. These words are:
- phileo (brotherly or affectionate love)
- storge (family love)
- eros (physical love)
- epithumia (a strong desire)
- agape (God’s unconditional covenant love). Let’s delve into the first two, and tomorrow the next two.
PHILEO—Friendship or Affectionate Love
Phileo-love speaks of a warmhearted, spontaneous affection. It is a desire to have a friendship with someone who has an attractive appeal. Fortunately for us, God never commands us to have this kind of love for everyone. However, Phileo cherishes and has a tender affection for the beloved, but always expects a response from the other person.
It is a loving friendship that emphasizes comradeship, communication, and sharing. While eros-love makes lovers, phileo-love makes dear friends who enjoy closeness and companionship.
They share each other’s plans, thoughts, feelings, attitudes, dreams, time, and interests. Friendship is very important for a marriage. Solomon always describes his Shulamite as his lover and friend.
STORGE-Family Love
The Judeo-Christian tradition has always been strongly family-oriented. Storge-family love could be described as a comfortable old-shoe relationship comprised of natural affection and a sense of belonging to each other. It is the kind of love shared by parents and children or brothers and sisters.
Storge-family love meets the need we all have to belong, to be part of a close-knit circle where people care and give the utmost loyalty to each other. Along with agape-love, Christian fellowship revolves around storge-love.
This family-love provides an atmosphere of security and safety in which the other types of love can dwell and flourish. Every person in a marriage needs and desires a sense of belonging, which storge-love provides.
Try Journaling the Following Questions
- Did you have strong storge-family love ties in your family of origin, how about your new family with your spouse?
- How does this affect (good or bad) your relationship with your spouse or fiance’?
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Christians now have something to give (Christ’s life) that has the power to change the entire course of someone else’s existence. — Dr. Larry Crabb, Connecting https://www.christianintimacyexperts.com/spiritual/naked-unashamed/
CLICK HERE TO READ DAY 5 https://www.christianintimacyexperts.com/a-powerful-heartfelt-christian-love-devotion-day-five/