LEGENDARY LOVE – LOVE is not a four letter word.
Love… is actually a nine letter combination of two words. Agab and Agape the two most important and defining words of love known to man. They are the words that God used to define what love is. He not only used words but He also showed us what these words meant by actions.
AGAB is Hebrew for love. It means to “breath after”. I have to say that when I heard this definition of love, it caught in my throat. You see, I know what it means to be physically required to breath after someone and it is earthshaking. When I was diving in Cozumel a number of years ago, I was at about 70 feet below the surface and I ran out of air. This is not a good thing to have happen anytime but at 70 feet below the water, if you ascend to quickly you could die or become permanently disabled due to the “bends”.
So as a trained diver, you always dive with a “buddy”. As part of your dive training you learn to do what is called “Buddy Breathing”. You approach your buddy and signal to them that you are out of air. You grab ahold of their buoyancy compensator and they grab ahold of yours – so you don’t float apart. They take a deep breath and then hand you their regulator. You literally breath after them.
You have to trust them with your life. They have to trust you with theirs as well.
This is the picture of what it means to be breath after someone in a love relationship. You depend on them for your very next breath and they depend on you for the same thing. If one partner hogs the air… the other will die (the relationship dies). You can’t make it on your own either… IF your partner dies at depth and they were the ones supplying the air, you will never make it to the surface either.
God created love between a man and a woman. He designed it so that they would be this kind of close… this kind of intimate…. this kind of dependent upon one another. Completely equal – locked in a relationship – face to face, arm in arm – attached so closely that their entire lives are on display before the other. Nothing gets in between them. Nothing separates them.
This is the relationship that God designed for us with Him as well.
The second word is the Greek word for love – Agape. There are actually two words here… agape and agapao. One means a love feast and the other is to love with everything that we are and all that we have. Both are used in various situations but the concept is the same. To love is to serve and to give to the point that we have nothing left of our own and that we are then dependent upon the object of that love to resupply our needs – much like the Hebrew – to breath after.
This kind of love should drive out fear because it is real love – a deep abiding love that changes us from the inside out. It come to take up residence through the power of the Holy Spirit. It can turn two people that would never get along into life long partners. It can bring two that are headed for the divorce court into true and real reconciliation and restoration. It is what binds two people together for life – a life full of all that God has planned for them.
There is far more here and we will revisit this topic a little more from time to time. But I would love to hear your thoughts on this topic.
But just remember that love is not a four letter word, nor is it to be tossed around and used lightly, as this society has become apt to do… At its very best, it brought our Savior back from the dead and breathes life into us. We have been given that breath so that we can then be the very next breath for someone else, who will surely die without it. Perfect love drives our fear because it takes fear out of the equation all together.
AMEN!
Dr.Cliff Robertson, Jr.
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