1 John 4:8
God is LOVE
8 Whoever does not love does not know God, because God is love.
1 John 4:18
Perfect LOVE Drives out Fear
8 There is no fear in love. But perfect love drives out fear, because fear has to do with punishment. The one who fears is not made perfect in love.
Matthew 5:48
Be Perfect Like our Father is Perfect
48 Be perfect, therefore, as your heavenly Father is perfect.
1 Corinthians 13:1-13
St. Paul Writes about Love
If I speak in the tongues of men or of angels, but do not have love, I am only a resounding gong or a clanging cymbal. 2 If I have the gift of prophecy and can fathom all mysteries and all knowledge, and if I have a faith that can move mountains, but do not have love, I am nothing. 3 If I give all I possess to the poor and give over my body to hardship that I may boast, but do not have love, I gain nothing.
4 Love is patient, love is kind. It does not envy, it does not boast, it is not proud. 5 It does not dishonor others, it is not self-seeking, it is not easily angered, it keeps no record of wrongs. 6 Love does not delight in evil but rejoices with the truth. 7 It always protects, always trusts, always hopes, always perseveres.
8 Love never fails. But where there are prophecies, they will cease; where there are tongues, they will be stilled; where there is knowledge, it will pass away. 9 For we know in part and we prophesy in part, 10 but when completeness comes, what is in part disappears. 11 When I was a child, I talked like a child, I thought like a child, I reasoned like a child. When I became a man, I put the ways of childhood behind me. 12 For now we see only a reflection as in a mirror; then we shall see face to face. Now I know in part; then I shall know fully, even as I am fully known.
13 And now these three remain: faith, hope and love. But the greatest of these is love.
Perfect LOVE...How can one describe and even try to write about a Perfect Love...God is LOVE...How can one put love into words?...So even though it is very difficult to write about, St. John and Jesus did a great job describing love, as did St. Paul...So when we read the written verses above, we can see that the closest thing we will get to perfection in this world is in loving and in love...St. Paul said that of faith, hope, and love, -love is the greatest...When Jesus said be perfect in love as our heavenly Father is perfect, He is of course talking about God...And God is LOVE...God is Perfect, and Perfect in LOVE...I believe Jesus is teaching us to try to attain a love that simulates the LOVE from His Father, and the way His Father LOVES...
Love has always been a most interesting subject...The ancient Greeks talked about and wrote about four types of love...They was storge, which is an affectionate type love...There was philia, a friendship type love...There was eros, a physical passionate love...And there was Agape, a Spiritual type of love...In C. S. Lewis' book the Four Loves, he wrote about these different kinds and types of love...There is friendship, which is the love between friends...Lewis saw friendship as a lost art, yet an important and very appreciated type of love...Lewis said this about friendship love, “In a perfect Friendship this Appreciative love is, I think, often so great and so firmly based that each member of the circle feels, in his secret heart, humbled before the rest...Sometimes he wonders what he is doing there among his betters...He is lucky beyond desert to be in such company...Especially when the whole group is together; each bringing out all that is best, wisest, or funniest in all the others...Those are the golden sessions; when four or five of us after a hard day's walk have come to our inn; when our slippers are on, our feet spread out toward the blaze and our drinks are at our elbows; when the whole world, and something beyond the world, opens itself to our minds as we talk; and no one has any claim on or any responsibility for another, but all are freemen and equals as if we had first met an hour ago, while at the same time an Affection mellowed by the years enfolds us...Life — natural life — has no better gift to give...Who could have deserved it?”...
There is also an eros love, a romancing type of love, which partners have with their spouses...Lewis saw an affectionate and natural love for family and certain friends...And the Agape LOVE of our Spiritual Father...God is LOVE...His LOVE is a different type of love than we have...Love does make a life...
There is affection, natural type love -which is the love among those in one's family or others...Natural love is usually found between family members or people who have otherwise found themselves together by chance, and have hit it off and are close...Lewis says “Affection is responsible for nine-tenths of whatever solid and durable happiness there is in our natural lives.”...
And then there is charity or Agape, an unconditional and Spiritual love...The kind of love that God gives and God has and God is...And God wants us to take advantage of His LOVE...Lewis said “God, who needs nothing, loves into existence wholly superfluous creatures in order that He may love and perfect them...He creates the universe, already foreseeing - or should we say "seeing?"...There are no tenses in God - the buzzing cloud of flies about the cross, the flayed back pressed against the uneven stake, the nails driven through the mesial nerves, the repeated incipient suffocation as the body droops, the repeated torture of back and arms as it is time after time, for breath's sake, hitched up...If I may dare the biological image, God is a "host" who deliberately creates His own parasites; causes us to be that we may exploit and "take advantage of" Him...Herein is love...This is the diagram of Love Himself, the Inventor of all loves.”...
Love is humble and kind and not forced upon one...Love does not control...There is so much that can be written because there must be so much free will in love...St. Paul adds that love is patient, and that love is kind...Love does not envy, it does not boast, love is not proud...Love does not dishonor others, it is not self-seeking, love is not easily angered, it keeps no record of wrongs...Love does not delight in evil but rejoices with the truth...Love always protects, always trusts, always hopes, always perseveres...Love never fails...
Man hungers for appreciation and affection and love -all the types of love...Man desires many other things, including material things...Lewis said, “In God there is no hunger that needs to be filled, only plenteousness that desires to give.” ...God desires to give us His LOVE...God has everything He needs, and through His Completeness wants to LOVE, and give us His Agape LOVE...God's LOVE is the special kind of LOVE, the Perfect LOVE...And since He is different from us, His LOVE is different than ours...Perfect in that sense...Everything in God is LOVE...He completely gives and He completely gives LOVE...He gave us His Son...God's gives His LOVE away each and everyday -day in and day out, without ever a worry or concern about ever receiving anything back at anytime...Maybe this is a part of the description of Perfect LOVE...