August 7 – 14, 2026

LOVE IS A SIX-LETTER WORD

Matthew 22:37-39 “Jesus replied: ‘Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind. This is the first and greatest commandment. And the second is like it: Love your neighbor as yourself.’”  

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If we love God and others according to this verse, we will be loving God in the way that God desires. How do we love Him? With everything that is within us—all our heart, all our soul and all our mind. Jesus was very specific and very deliberate to instruct that it must be ALL and not just some—why?  Because the Lord gave His ALL for us. The Father gave us His Son. The Son gave us Himself. 

Humans have three types of natural love: the affectionate kind, the sexual kind, the friendship kind. These may work for loving the people in our lives but none of these work for loving God! For example, affection is our natural and emotional feeling of love. However, if we only have affection for God, our love will go up and down depending upon our circumstances, depending upon what we’re thinking and how we’re feeling. One day we’re “up” and feeling close to God and the next day we’re “down” and feeling far from Him.

But the word that Jesus is using in the verses above is a six-letter word, “agapao,” the verb form of the Greek word “agape.” Agape is pure, unconditional love, “the love that consumes,” the highest and purest form of love, one that surpasses all other types of affection. Agapao is agape in action! Agapao is us loving God with ALL our hearts and minds and souls and strength! No matter what we’re feeling or what we’re going through. It is loving Him the way He wants to be loved! 

Agapao is what gives us the ability to love more deeply, with more trust and more reverence than any form of human love, than we can love on our own. God’s love is a supernaturally charged love. You might say, “I’m only human, so how can that be possible?” Simple, through a supernatural God who lives in us! May our prayer be, “Lord, help me release this love that’s already living in my heart!”

 

This is an excerpt from a 90-day devotional written by Emil and Karen. To order the full devotional, click on the TO ORDER DEVOTIONAL page.