Love is a Weapon

I LOVE love.  I know it has been said that Love doesn't love anybody.  It's been said that love is dangerous and has the propensity to make you crazy...that love is a weapon. 

I would guess that it all depends on what your individual viewpoint of love is and how it was generated.  Did you grow up in a home where one spouse told the other that he beats her because he loves her? 

Either way, love has been given a bad name in society these days.  Love is NOT lust, abuse, codependency, neglect, insanity or violence.  The only thing I can agree with above is the fact that love is a WEAPON.

There are four types of love outlined in the Greek language of the Bible's New Testament that we can discuss:

- STORGE:  family love.  The kind of love that develops in homes across America.  At times, it is genuine, at other times, it is an "I LOVE you, but I don't LIKE you very much" type of vibe.

- EROS:  erotic, sexual, lustful love.  This is what Hollywood would have you to believe is the end all-be all definition of what to expect in a relationship.  Don't get me wrong...sex is great, but eventually a person has got to get out of bed (or off the floor...out of the bathtub...off the beach...whenever, wherever, whatever) to LIVE  a little.  If love is nothing more than being horny, what good is it?

- PHILEO:  brotherly love.  This is the love you develop with friends you grow up with, and close connections made throughout life. 

- AGAPE:  Selfless, sacrifical love as outlined in 1 Corinthans 13.  This is the kind of love that one soldier has for his fellow soldiers by throwing himself on a grenade so they can live.  This is the kind of love that a Savior had for all mankind by allowing Himself to die on a cross so we wouldn't have to pay for our own sins with death.  Controversial?  Of course.  Impotent?  Definitely not.

In its most pure Agape form, love can move mountains.  Try to move a mountain without some kind of destructive bomb in your arsenal, and you will be committed to an asylum.  Trust me.  It is not insanity to want to express Aagpe love to everyone we come in contact with.  Try to show the other three types of love to EVERYONE you come in contact with, and you will find yourself heartbroken and--especially these days--in some kind of danger if not careful. 

The essence of  this kind of love is change.  When you come in contact with it, you will find yourself forever changed.  It will never cause you to regress into a vortex of negativity.  It will, however, always stretch you and leave you better than you were before.  

So here's to love:  the most powerful weapon for good in all the world. 

One Love!

~ H. Roberta Williams