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     Becoming an honorable citizen in Jesus kingdom requires a radical change from living for self to living for Jesus.  From selfishness to selflessness.  This change is turning from the path of the devil (evil) to that of Jesus (servant of righteousness) (Romans 6:13, 16).  It is a 180 degree turnabout (fruit of repentance).  That one must turn from the selfish success standard of the society to the selfless giving of Jesus, a struggle within the heart to say the least, let alone in actions.

     The prerequisite of such change is faith, the deep trust in Jesus who promises to provide strength (Philippians 4:13).  Recently we considered the initial change to stop sinning, those of commission such as lying, stealing, fornication, envy, covetousness, and etc (Galatians 5:19-21; Colossians 3:5-9; 1 Peter 4:3).  The other side of this transformation to become an honorable citizenship is adapting the attributes of Jesus, the King (Galatians 5:19-23; Romans 12:1-2; Philippians 2:1-8).  The character trait most emphasized in the New Testament is love.  It is a unique word used 300 times in the New Testament (Greek- original language), but rarely elsewhere in the classical Greek writings.  What is the meaning of this “love” (Greek - agape)?

     Since God is love (1 John 4:8, 16), we necessarily search for God’s attributes to discover the characteristic and depth of this love (agape).  God loved sinful mankind so much, He sent Jesus to pay for our sins (John 3:16; Galatians 3:13; Ephesians 1:7; Revelation 5:9).  God’s action tells us (1) Love is active; (2) Love is sacrificial (3) Love does what is necessary, not simply what a person wants.  (4) Love does what is best.  Although God’s righteousness, prompts His judgment to punish sin, Jesus paid the price (death) of our sin, so we would not spend eternity in hell.  This is truly a profound outreach of love to mankind.

     That God is love is an inherent trait of His.  In other words He did not suddenly develop love because man sinned.  In fact, God anticipated man’s downfall before the creation (Ephesians 1:4-7) and because He is love, He determined a way to save a person without compromising His righteousness which demands justice.

     Most of us are familiar with “All things work together for the good of those who love God” (Romans 8:28).  And most folks have their own thought about what it means to love God.  The word for love in this verse is agape.  Now consider those attributes of God, of His love (agape).  Do you really love God?

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