Due to the lack of understanding of the concept of love, many people have wrongly attributed what they feel for someone else as love. Others have used it as a tool to hurt other people. While some have chosen to not associate themselves with love because they feel it is evil.

Based on these different perspectives about love, the application has not produced the expected result. Love now seems like a mystery, its understanding and purpose veiled. No wonder the abuse in the use and expression of the word love. The unfortunate thing is that what you don’t understand, you cannot come into.

Looking critically into all of the relationships we have and the very poor results we have obtained, does it look like we know what it really means to love? Truth is the world would have been a better place to live if love is rightly expressed.

Families are breaking up every day, business relationships are going bad per second, cities and countries are fighting each other. The confusion, hurt, pain and calamity seen in the world is attributed to one thing- love.

Love in itself is not bad. Love is in fact the most important thing and person in the world. To know love is to know life. To live love is to walk the path of heroes and legends. So I would ask again, what do you know about love?
How much understanding do you have about love? How much of it do you have in you? Have much of love have you given? How much love do you have to give? To what extent would you give love? Do not be in a hurry to answer my friend. At the end of this message we will know,

1. If you know and understand love.
2. If you have love at all in you.
3. If you have enough love to live through life.
4. How you can build excellent relationships with love.
5. How you can heal the world with love

UNVEILING THE MYSTERY AND SIMPLICITY OF LOVE IN CHRISTIANS

Love is placing the other’s person’s needs above yours in a way that requires personal sacrifice. From the definitions above, we can clearly point out three types of love;

1. Phileo.
2. Eros.
3. Agape

You must have heard about these types of love right?

• Phileo Love:

This is the kind of love that exists among friends and family. You can call it “brotherly love”. This kind of love is born from the emotion, which is found in the soul of a person. Its presence is experienced by the feeling of affection and attachment towards someone. Phileo love is a soulish kind of love. It can’t get deeper than the soul.

The love you have for your friend or family member, that you would do anything for them clearly states phileo love. This is why you would stand by their sides in good and in bad times. Anything that hurts them hurts you. This is an example of an affectionate kind of love void of any sexual feeling.

• Eros Love:

This is the passionate and sexual kind of love. It is experienced by the feeling of sexual attraction towards the opposite sex. This kind of love stems from the emotions and seeks to express itself through the body by have sexual interaction with the object of love.
This type of love is a necessary in building a marriage relationship. Since sex is important in marriage, it is important that one recognize if they are sexually attracted to the person they intend to marry.

• Agape:

This kind of love is called the God-kind of love. This is because this type of love typifies the true definition of love. It is the type only Gods can express. To operate agape is to personify God in all of His essence. You cannot love this way and fail in your relationship.

A couple that loves with the God-kind of love can never divorce. It is not possible to fail if both parties live it. This love is sacrificial, giving and forgiving. You can only operate agape love from your spirit. Your heart, which is the core of your being, is the house for agape love.
When agape love enters your heart, it turns your stone heart to a heart of flesh. It pours in compassion into your heart and makes you feel things the way God feel them.
To express the kind of love in your relationships is to constantly express heaven. And like you know, heaven is beautiful. It is the picture of the government of God. There are different realms of love. The deeper you go the more successful you become in all your relationships.

1. Love as an action.
2. Love as a nature.
3. Love as a person.
4. Love as an action

• Love as an action:

Love is beyond feelings. It is validated by actions. You cannot say you love someone without showing it. That is why it is a verb- an action. The way you love other people will expose your identity as a god or slave. The question now is are you a god or slave?

The unfortunate thing about this realm of love is that anybody can pretend to show it on the short or long term. And because we are configured to be loved, it is possible to fall for the wrong person.
This is why a player or selfish person who wants something from you will pretend to love you by their actions. But the good news is that time will usually expose them. When they don’t seem to get what they want from you, they become impatient.
Agape is patient, theirs is not. So after a period of time they get frustrated and start showing their true colour. You cannot pretend to love genuinely for a long time. Love is not just in words but in actions. Your actions validate your words of professing love. A larger majority of people are occupying this realm. This is not enough. There is need to go higher.

• Love as a nature:

When you get to this realm, love becomes effortless to express. You no longer struggle to show it. Your thoughts, words and actions will be consistently expressing love. To love from this realm means that you are living love as a virtue because God (love) is resident in your heart and has changed your nature.
You see, you cannot truly love except God has transformed you. This implies that no man can genuinely love another except they have a relationship with God. This is one reason many desire to be with a God-fearing man or woman.
Don’t be deceived; if he doesn’t have a relationship with God, he or she will love you at a superficial level. They will give you eros and phileo, what they will never give you agape. This means that they have the capacity to hurt and break your heart.

You just cannot give what you don’t have. They don’t have agape, so they can’t give agape. He or she might be nice, but that does not change the fact that they lack the nature where agape can be permanently resident. This information should help your decision-making skill.

Anyone without the nature of love has a hundred percent potential to hurt you. So don’t be surprised when that colleague or cousin of yourself hurt you. If they don’t have love as a nature, it means that they have the capacity to hurt you.
In building and excelling in a relationship with such kind of people, you must have this in mind. This is because it helps you create the right relationship boundaries.

• Love as a person:

This is the highest realm of expressing love. It entails graduating from having love as a nature to fully personifying love in thoughts, words and action. This implies that anywhere you go; the fragrance you express is love. It means that you are a walking love.

At this point you are God Himself. The implication of this is that anybody you love and have relationship with must come alive, feel better, improve, get well, prosper and blossom. When you love people, there should be no difference between God in heaven loving them and you loving them as well.
Imagine what the world would be like, loving from the exact same dimension as God. It is important that we know love from this realm. It makes us successful in any relationship we make up our minds to build. There is no failure within this arena.
To love as a person is know the personality of love. And that personality is God. Therefore, the more you know God, the deeper your understanding of love. He is love, so when there are unlimited dimensions of love in God that we can all access. The question is, do we really want to go that extra mile? “