The next parable was for those who reveled in their self-righteousness while everyone else was scorned.
— Luke 18:9 (Mirror Bible)
The love of God is amazing, and yet in some ways so misunderstood. We filter God’s love through our love, human love, which in the Greek is called eros. This is love for the beautiful, lovely and best which is then easily replaced by the more beautiful, the more lovely and the better. This is human love and is always based on the beauty and behavior of the one to whom the love is directed.
However, this is not God’s love. God’s love is agape, not eros. God’s love is truly a love of another kind. It is a love that is totally foreign to us. We only know a love that is based on being the most and the best – eros.
Agape love is based on the giver of the love and not on the object of the love. We are loved because it is God’s nature to love, not because of our behavior. Love flows from God, unhindered, because it is who He is.
In Luke 18:9-13, we have the story of the pharisee and the tax collector praying in the temple. The pharisee filtered God’s love through eros, the beautiful, lovely and best. The pharisee prayed emphasizing the reason he should be acceptable to God. It was through eros love, being the best. He gloated in not being greedy, a swindler, or an adulterer like everyone else. He bragged in his fasting twice a week (they were only required to fast one time a year) and that he paid tithes on all his possessions (they were only required to tithe on their gains, the annual increase).
What is he doing? He is making himself to be spiritually beautiful. He was trying to prove himself as acceptable to God by going above and beyond, or so he thought. This is eros love, being loved because of what I do. He thinks if he is spiritually beautiful, then God will love him.
We work so hard to make ourselves spiritually beautiful, believing then we will be acceptable to God. Yet, God is the source of love. His love just is, because He is. God’s love doesn’t require spiritual beauty, to be loved. God’s love is Agape love, based on Himself, not eros love, based on me.
The very fact that you live and breath means you are loved. It has nothing to do with your behavior, but just that you are. His love is given to you simply because you exist. That is it. You exist, you are alive and breathing, therefore you are loved.
“Because I exist, therefore I am loved.”
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Do Not Fear