Pragma—Long-term, Everyday Kind of Marital Love

04 Tuesday Sep 2018

Posted by Rev. Nadine Drayton-Keen in Poetry

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agape, altruistic, caring, compassionate, enduring, Eros, everlasting, everyday love, familial, familiarity, friendship, goodwill, kind, long marriage, loyal, Ludus, Mania, narcissistic, patient, Philautia, Philia, platonic, playful, Pragma, reciprocity, romantic, sacrificial, selfish, selfless, sexual attraction, Storge, ties of filiation, tolerant, unconditional, understading

4 Love is large and incredibly patient. Love is gentle and consistently kind to all. It refuses to be jealous when blessing comes to someone else. Love does not brag about one’s achievements nor inflate its own importance. 5 Love does not traffic in shame and disrespect, nor selfishly seek its own honor. Love is not easily irritated or quick to take offense. 6 Love joyfully celebrates honesty and finds no delight in what is wrong. 7 Love is a safe place of shelter, for it never stops believing the best for others. Love never takes failure as defeat, for it never gives up.

8 Love never stops loving. It extends beyond the gift of prophecy, which eventually fades away. It is more enduring than tongues, which will one day fall silent. Love remains long after words of knowledge are forgotten. ~ 1 Corinthians 13:4-8, TPT

Father, Son, and Spirit love me
This I know;
But, godly love differs from what
Family and friends show.

I’ve known all too well humanity’s
Distinctive loves;
Natural, instinctual, familial – storgē,
That fits like gloves;
Friendly, brotherly familiarity – philía,
Full of goodwill;
Healthy/unhealthy self-love – philautía,
Troubling twin bill;
Insatiable, sensual – éros; flirting, teasing – ludus,
Stronger than lust;
Manipulative, controlling, – mania
Obsessively robust.

But, Godhead’s Agápe eclipses familial love,
As storgē is mere fondness—
The type familiarity births, and friendly love
Or philía is deep kindness—
Allegiance associated with companionship,
Dependability and trust;
Agápe outshines storgē and philía because
It’s radical, universal, just;
An altruistic—selfless, non-exclusive—love
That can’t snub anyone;
Free, perfect, blissful, committed love, never
Understated nor overdone;
Agápe seeks no reciprocity or ties of filiation
Craves no fame, pleasure;
Not narcissistic, selfish, platonic or romantic
Produces no puny treasure;
Creates no wrong friendships or relationships
Isn’t a playful love;
Not expressed as sociable banter, laughter, affection
Like puppy love;
Is neither irrational nor sexual, yet it’s intimate
Committed, enduring;
Similar to but different from the pragma kind of love
That is so alluring.

For sure Agápe is unconditional and sacrificial love
That’s practical;
Like pragma, Agápe is dependable and longstanding,
Never cynical;
Arouses hope and desire to make commitment work,
Always responsible.

Father, Son, and Spirit freely given Agápe love
This I know;
Unknown is pragma human love happily married
Couples show;
Compared to sexual attraction, everyday love is
More preponderant;
Favors one another’s qualities, compatibilities—love
Downright tolerant;
Godhead’s superior Agápe is altruistic but pragma
Makes relationships last;
Partners work together for marital permanence,
Emotionally steadfast;
Empathetic, cooperative, caring, selfless human love—
Weathers every forecast.
This I wish I knew.

– by Nadine Drayton Keen, created September 4, 2018

Love’s Journey Lasts Beyond a Lifetime

16 Tuesday Feb 2016

Posted by Rev. Nadine Drayton-Keen in Poetry

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agape, beyond lifetime, eternal Love, everlasting, forgiveness, glorifies, Jesus, kindness, life sentences, love, loving, mercy, no greater Love, personifies, resentful, selfish, selfless, service, Son, substitutionary atonement, throw-away world

Who can separate us from the love of Christ? Can affliction or anguish or persecution or famine or nakedness or danger or sword? As it is written: Because of You we are being put to death all day long; we are counted as sheep to be slaughtered. No, in all these things we are more than victorious through Him who loved us. For I am persuaded that not even death or life, angels or rulers, things present or things to come, hostile powers, height or depth, or any other created thing will have the power to separate us from the love of God that is in Christ Jesus our Lord! ~ Romans 8:35-39, HCSB

Give thanks to the LORD, for He is good. His love is eternal. Give thanks to the God of gods. His love is eternal. Give thanks to the Lord of lords. His love is eternal. He alone does great wonders. His love is eternal. ~ Psalm 136:1-4, HCSB

Indifference is the path of least resistance
Fools enjoy walking,
Kicking against His Will as they go,
Never wanting to show
Their bewitched bodies and souls
Were in the middle of loving others before
They scarcely knew they had begun.

Fools they are for
Choosing easier course to follow,
Opposing faithful obedience
To Him who knows
Spirits, bodies, and souls
For He’s their Creator,
Whose purposeful designs
Revealed in wonders and signs
Owning many unalterable truths:
They are loved with everlasting Love
Son personifies, glorifies with
Substitutionary atonement—
No greater Love than His
For IT dishonors no one,
Is not self-seeking, nor easily angered;
His Love keeps no record
Of humans’ wrongs;
Application lasts as long
As earthly existences,
Morphing into life sentences
Served in His infinity zone,
Once fools lay down their own
Plans in exchange for His—
Power and authority to:
Bear all things,
Believe all things,
Hope all things,
Endure all things;
Prove love for Him
Who first Loved them
With love, kindness, forgiveness, mercy, service
Bared to all mankind.

Selfishness and resentment typify throw-away world’s
Corrupt spirits—hearts unclothed,
Naked without Jesus’ Love;
In receipt of His Agápe,
Now prepared to pour out theirs
Effortlessly, and accept love
Confessed by others, unconditionally,
Eternally demonstrating
No indifferences, no denials, no desertions.

Agápe Each Other!

22 Thursday Aug 2013

Posted by Rev. Nadine Drayton-Keen in Spiritual

≈ 2 Comments

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agape, altruistic, endures insults and injuries, God's Love, Good Samaritan, kind, long-suffering, patient, self-denying, self-sacrifice, selfless, supportive, unconditional

For God so loved the world, that he gave his only Son, that whoever believes in him should not perish but have eternal life. ~ John 3:16, ESV

A new commandment I give to you, that you love one another: just as I have loved you, you also are to love one another. By this all people will know that you are my disciples, if you have love for one another. ~ John 13:34-35, ESV

Greater love has no one than this, that someone lay down his life for his friends. ~ John 15:13, ESV

Love is patient and kind; love does not envy or boast; it is not arrogant or rude. It does not insist on its own way; it is not irritable or resentful; it does not rejoice at wrongdoing, but rejoices with the truth. Love bears all things, believes all things, hopes all things, endures all things. Love never ends… ~ 1 Corinthians 13:4-8, ESV

The main way that agápe differs with the other kinds of love that are in this world is that agápe means self-sacrifice. Thus, when God commands us to show agápe love, He is telling us to show His nature and His character—God is love (cf. 1 John 4:8, ESV). Put differently, just like God demonstrated His agápe love for us when He sent His son into this world to die for us, and just like Christ Jesus demonstrated His agápe love for us by willingly dying on the cross in our place, God is demanding that we love each other the same way—sacrificially (altruistically), unselfishly putting other people and their needs first (read about sacrificial love in the parable of the Good Samaritan in Luke 10:25-37, ESV).

Love doesn’t get any nobler than agápe. For sure, agápe is the highest type of love there is. No other kind of love can come close to God’s unconditional, self-denying, long-suffering, kind, and supportive type of love. Also there is no other type of earthly love that can come close to being the kind of love we are commanded to show our God and all mankind, which means even our enemies are included in every love command (see Matthew 5:44; Matthew 22:37-39).

Furthermore, very few people would die for an enemy, let alone for people they love with a lesser kind of love than agápe. Yet, this is exactly what God’s agápe has moved Him to do. We were sinners, rebels, children of the devil and thus enemies of God who didn’t deserve to be redeemed. For this reason, we not only are to sacrifice our good for the good of our brothers and sisters in Christ, but also we are to sacrifice our good for the greater good—for the good of all mankind.

In addition to the self-sacrifice meaning, agápe also means long-sufferance. In other words, agápe is patient. It takes a person with agápe love a very long time to get angry. In the case of loving one’s enemy, the person who has agápe love endures insults and injuries while patiently attempting to win over his or her adversary.

Agápe also means kindness. When a person is kind to others, he or she usually is demonstrating true compassion and/or tenderness, as well as being sincerely generous and/or friendly. For sure, kindness holds in check every kind of abuse. Thus, when any Scripture tells us that we are to be kind to every person, that Word of God only is reiterating that we must agápe each other—show love to everybody.

Agápe also means support (it bears all things; puts up with anything). The person who has agápe love is supportive either by being slow to expose the sins and mistakes of others or, figuratively speaking, by standing under the person who has fallen or who is in trouble and lifting that individual up with encouragement and help.

Since agápe means self-sacrifice, long-sufferance, kindness, and support, the person who displays agápe love definitely will not be envious, boastful, arrogant, rude, self-centered (always “me” first), cantankerous (easy to provoke), or resentful/bitter (a recorder or keeper of other people’s sins and/or the hurts they cause). Additionally, this person who has agápe love won’t rejoice in what’s wrong but will rejoice in the truth. Ultimately, because the person who is displaying agápe love also is demonstrating the God kind of Trust (gives the benefit of the doubt; believes all things; always trusts God), is demonstrating the God kind of Hope (has the highest expectations; hopes all things), and is demonstrating the God kind of Determination (never gives up; endures all things; never looks back), as a result, the agápe love this person shows others is the kind of love that keeps going until the end—never fades, never becomes obsolete, and never is done/finished.

The bottom line is that it takes God pouring into us His agápe love before we ever would be able to release agápe love to Him or to all humanity. That’s why His agápe love commands are painlessly achievable and not burdensome in the least bit. We can love God and others the way God loves us, because He first loved us enough to decide He would give us a part of His nature and His character.

Why We Love

22 Thursday Aug 2013

Posted by Rev. Nadine Drayton-Keen in Spiritual

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agape, brotherly love, Eros, family love, mental love, natural affection, passionate love, Philia, physical, sensual, spiritual Divine Love, Storge, temple harlotry, temple of Aphrodite, unconditional love of God

We ourselves love now because he loved us first. If anyone says, ‘I love God,’ and hates his brother, he is a liar. For if a person does not love his brother, whom he has seen, then he cannot love God, whom he has not seen. Yes, this is the command we have from him: whoever loves God must love his brother too. ~ 1 John 4:19-21, CJB

Long before God ever created us in His image He loved us. Since love is reciprocal, it should be obvious that God created us primarily so that we would choose to love Him back. He also created us so that we would choose to love everyone He created. In other words, both our temporal life (limited by time) and our eternal life (existing outside of time) are about LOVE—God’s love for us and our love for Him and others.

Since love started with God (cf. 1 John 4:19), who graciously gave us the ability to love, we should seek to understand how much God loves us, as well as learn how to recognize His love, especially during those times when we don’t seem to feel His love. We also should seek to understand why it is impossible for us to love God and not sincerely demonstrate to EVERY person the same kind of love He shows us.

In this world we live in, there are many different kinds of love. Some of these types of love are addressed in the New Testament. In the New Testament we find:

Agápe, which is the highest type of love. In the Holy Bible, this spiritual kind of Divine Love (the unconditional love of God) is the love that Christ Jesus showed Father God and humanity.
Philia, which is a general type of love that usually is used between family members and friends, plus used when a person is conveying a desire or the enjoyment of an activity. In the Holy Bible, this mental kind of brotherly love is the love that the early Christians showed one another.
Storge, which is a natural affection type of love that parents show to their children. Storge also expresses patience (putting up with) or acceptance of situations. Throughout the Holy Bible, this caring kind of family love is seen, even though storge is a word that is never mentioned in the Holy Bible.
Eros, which is the basest type of love. This sensual, physical, passionate love usually is shared between individuals who are physically attracted to one another. In the Holy Bible, in particular in 1 Corinthians, this kind of intimate sexual love is forbidden, even though the word eros is not used. In 1 Corinthians, the apostle Paul admonishes the Corinthian believers who were engaging in temple harlotry—fornicating with the temple prostitutes in Corinth, who were priestesses of the temple of Aphrodite (see 1 Corinthians 6:15-20). Aphrodite was the Greek goddess of erotic (eros) love.

Of these four types of love, God’s agápe love is the kind of love He commands us to demonstrate. Even Christ Jesus commanded us to show the agápe kind of love to God, ourselves, our neighbors, and our fellow believing brothers and sisters (see Matthew 22:37-39; John 13:34; 1 Thessalonians 4:9). Indeed, to make sure that we could fulfill this command to love with the agápe kind of love, God gave us His Holy Spirit, and His Holy Spirit then poured into our hearts/spirits this unconditional love of God. As proof, the apostle Paul writes that “…God’s love has been poured into our hearts through the Holy Spirit who has been given to us” (Romans 5:5, ESV).

Lastly, since God’s agápe love is a sign that we are Christians (see 1 John 5:1-2), let us who are born again, saved, justified, filled with the Holy Spirit, and being sanctified believers seek to please God not only with the Faith He has given us, but also by loving Him with our whole heart, strength, mind and soul, and by loving others as we love ourselves.

The SPIRIT of FEAR

30 Wednesday Nov 2011

Posted by Rev. Nadine Drayton-Keen in Faith and Wisdom

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agape, children of Light, dunamis, foul demonic spirit, self-controlled, self-disciplined, sons and daughters of disobedience, sound mind, SPIRIT of fear, tormenting spirit, well-balanced

“For God hath not given us the spirit of fear…” (2 Timothy 1:7a, KJV).

So many of us let our emotional barometers rule our lives instead of letting our moral compasses lead our way. Although we experience a variety of emotions, with fear being one of the major ones, we need to know that there is a world of difference between having anxieties and misgivings over situations (even to the point that we tremble and shake), and having the kind of fear the Apostle Paul speaks about in 2 Timothy 1:7a. This kind of fear is much more than just an emotion. It is a SPIRIT!

A “spirit” of fear is an unclean or foul entity that is in league with Satan, who commands this foul spirit to torment nonbelievers. The way this foul spirit works in the sons and daughters of disobedience is by getting these unsaved people to conduct their lives according to the lusts of their flesh—to fulfill the desires of their flesh and their mind (cf. Ephesians 2:1-3). With believers, the Devil’s “spirit” of fear seeks to make God’s children unstable, unreliable, and uncertain about everything, especially everything God has promised His children in His Word.

Therefore, the “spirit” of fear is in conflict with the godly spirits of a sound mind (calm, well-balanced and self-disciplined mind), love (agape, the God kind of love), and power (dunamis, self-controlled might/physical strength), because these heavenly spirits are associated with God’s Holy Spirit and with His children of Light (cf. 2 Timothy 1:7b; Ephesians 5:8-12; 1 Thessalonians 5:5; James 1:6-8; 1 John 1:5, 7; 1 John 2:9-10; 1 John 4:18). In other words, God has given His children His godly spirits of self-discipline, self-control, and love so that His children will be protected from the demonic “spirit” of fear, which is nothing more than Satan’s smokescreen—his false evidence appearing real (F E A R).

Furthermore, the godly spirits of power, love, and a sound mind are the manifestations of God’s pledge (promise) to His children—His guarantee that His Holy Spirit will transform, fully conform, them to the image of Jesus the Christ (cf. Romans 8:1-30 and 2 Corinthians 1:22). So then, for believers to conquer the demonic “spirit” of fear, which seeks to hinder them from conforming to the image of Jesus the Christ, believers must guard their hearts (the centers of their individual physical, intellectual, mental, moral, and spiritual lives) against the external influences that attack believers’ measure of faith. Additionally, believers must trust in the true and living God, by turning their attention to (focusing on) the Lord, and by seeking God’s Divine Strength and Divine Wisdom to counteract every tormenting attack. In essence, believers must put into use God’s holy spirits of power, love, and a sound mind!

Last but not least, believers also must become bold, on fire for Jesus the Christ, Holy Spirit-filled followers of the Lord who cannot be controlled by the demonic “spirit” of fear. In fact, the only fear that affects these believers should be their godly fear: awe, reverence, an attitude of deep respect for, bowing down in worship of, and having an intense love and admiration for their Father who is Almighty God. AMEN.