What Makes God Happy: Agape — Loving the Way He Does

GodsPreciousTreasure
Jun 6
6 min read

"And now these three remain: faith, hope and love. But the greatest of these is love." — 1 Corinthians 13:13 (NIV)

I hear it more and more these days. The Bible was relevant two thousand years ago — but the world is too far gone now. Too broken. Too lost. And sometimes, if we're honest, the voice saying that isn't coming from outside us. It's coming from within. I am too far gone. Too broken.

But here's what I keep finding every time I open Scripture: it doesn't read like a relic. It reads like a mirror. And the longer I study it, the more convinced I am — the Bible isn't less relevant today. It may be more relevant now than ever.

Agape — The Love That Defines Him

Look around. Division. Bitterness. People drawing harder lines and extending less grace with each passing year. If ever there was a moment the world needed to understand how God loves — it's now.

And yet here's the hard truth: we can't love the way God loves. Not on our own. It sounds like a cliché to say imagine a world where everyone loved like Jesus — but if we slow down and actually consider what that would require, we realize it isn't just difficult. It's humanly impossible.

That kind of unconditional love has a name.

The Greek word agape (ἀγάπη) is the word the New Testament reaches for when describing the love of God. Not storge — affection. Not philia — friendship. Not eros — romance. Agape is unconditional, self-giving love. Love that acts for the good of another regardless of how that person responds. Love without an exit clause. Love that doesn't keep score.

"But God demonstrates his own love for us in this: While we were still sinners, Christ died for us." — Romans 5:8 (NIV)

While we were still sinners. Not after we cleaned ourselves up. Not once we got our act together. God's agape came toward us at our lowest — and it didn't flinch.

What It Means to Love Like Jesus

Jesus didn't present this kind of love as an aspiration. He modeled it completely — and then He commanded it.

His love is not seasonal or situational. It is eternal, complete, and without condition. The same love that hung on the cross for you is the same love that reaches for you today, in every moment you feel furthest from deserving it. It has no off switch. No expiration date. It does not wear thin.

"You have heard that it was said, 'Love your neighbor and hate your enemy.' But I tell you, love your enemies and pray for those who persecute you, that you may be children of your Father in heaven. He causes his sun to rise on the evil and the good, and sends rain on the righteous and the unrighteous. If you love those who love you, what reward will you get? Be perfect, therefore, as your heavenly Father is perfect." — Matthew 5:43–45, 48 (NIV)

Love your enemies. In today's world, that may be the most countercultural sentence ever spoken. We live in an age of grievance — where offenses are catalogued and the idea of extending love to someone who has wronged you is seen as weakness at best and foolishness at worst.

But here's what I want you to hear — and this changed something in me when I finally sat with it:

This command is not primarily about them. It's about you.

Jesus isn't asking you to pretend the wound didn't happen. He isn't saying what they did was right. He is inviting you into something far more liberating than justice as the world defines it. When we hold onto bitterness — rehearsing the wrong, nursing the offense, waiting for the scales to balance — we are in chains. Enslaved to a version of justice we were never equipped to carry.

But when we choose to love — even when that love isn't received, even when it goes unacknowledged — something in us is set free.

Let that land. The battle belongs to the Lord. You don't have to fight it. You don't have to make sure they get what's coming — because God is both perfectly just and perfectly good, and He will not miss a thing. Your job is not to wage the war. Your job is to lay it down. And in the laying down, you look more like your Father in heaven.

His Love Never Fails

"Love never fails." — 1 Corinthians 13:8 (NIV)

Not rarely fails.

Not usually holds up.

Never fails.

No matter how many times you've turned away, the love of God has not failed. No matter how deep your doubt, how dark your season, how long you've been wandering — His love did not run out. It did not grow cold. It did not give up.

I know that because I've lived it. I've failed Him and found Him waiting. I've walked away and been pursued. His love is not something I earned. It is something He is.

"God is love." — 1 John 4:8 (NIV)

Not God has love. Not God shows love sometimes. God is love. Agape is not just something He offers — it is His very nature. And that means it cannot fail, because He cannot fail.

Living It Out

So where does that leave us? If we can't love the way He loves in our own strength, are we off the hook?

No. Because we are not called to generate agape from within ourselves. We are called to receive it — and let it flow through us.

"We love because he first loved us." — 1 John 4:19 (NIV)

This is the order. He loves first. We receive that love. And from that place of being deeply, unshakably loved by God, we begin to love others differently. Not perfectly — we will fail. Not effortlessly — it will cost us something. But genuinely, increasingly, supernaturally.

Living the way He does means choosing love when it isn't returned. Extending grace to people who haven't earned it — because grace, by definition, is never earned. Forgiving not because the other person deserves it, but because you have been forgiven a debt you could never repay.

It is the hardest kind of living. And it is the most beautiful.

A Word to the One Who Feels Too Broken

If you came here carrying the weight of I am too far gone — I want to speak directly to you.

You are not too far gone for agape.

The cross is God's permanent answer to that lie. Jesus didn't die for people who had it together. He died for the broken, the lost, the wandering, the ashamed. He died for you as you are — not as you wish you were. His love doesn't require you to arrive cleaned up. It meets you exactly where you are. And it does not let go.

A Prayer

Lord, thank You for loving me in a way I cannot fully comprehend. Your agape reaches further than my failures, deeper than my doubts, and outlasts every broken moment. I can't manufacture this kind of love on my own — but I don't have to. Teach me to receive Your love more fully, so that what flows out of me looks more like You. Help me love the unlovable, forgive the unforgiving, and lay down the battles that belong to You. In Jesus' name, Amen.

A Word of Encouragement

You don't have to have it all figured out to be loved by God. You don't have to fix yourself before He'll reach for you. Agape means He's already there — already pursuing, already present, already for you. Your job isn't to earn it. Your job is to receive it, and then pass it on. Love the person in front of you today the way God has loved you — not because they deserve it, but because He is worth it. That's how the world changes. One act of agape at a time.