Welcome back to another episode of Rising 365, a podcast committed to inspiring and
supporting others to embrace the opportunity to rise with each new day.
I'm Mike Pena and Rising Daily can be a challenge for many and it is and continues to be a challenge
for myself and it is my hope that what you hear in these episodes will assist you in
rising every day of the year.
We are in episode 23 entitled Love or better yet agape love.
Different types of love can be found and I'm not talking about the love that you say in
our English language.
The word love can define so many different things like I love McDonald's and I love
Alabama football and I love summer days and surfing and beaches and I love my family.
We only have one word.
So to understand the type of love I am talking about, I'm talking about a love that endures
through all things.
You know when we look at the word love and some background on who I am, I'm a man of
God's holy word, the Bible, the man that's trying to follow after Jesus to lead my family
and to lead this ministry that I'm a missionary for for child evangelism fellowship here in
central Nebraska and the understanding of these different types of love that we can
see them played out biblically.
There are four types of love.
There's Ahab, which is defined as to love with no specific significance.
That's like what I mentioned earlier.
I love pizza.
I love dogs and whatever.
Then there's Dodd, love, D-O-D.
That's the romantic love.
That's the idealistic of a relationship that you have with another person when you endeavor
to make another person feel valued.
You find those in marriages.
You find those in relationships that endure through things.
That's Dodd love.
There's Eros, love, where we get erotics.
Word erotics is that's the sensual, the sexual romantic love again.
So this imparts the physical nature of love.
Many of phileo, phileo, this is the fraternal love, something where we get Philadelphia
from the city of brotherly love.
It's a friendly type of love.
Those aren't the type of loves that I'm talking about that help us rise to meet the new day
that we're given.
The type of love I am talking about called the gaphe love.
Those other loves, yes, they can drive you to meet a physical, maternal, materialistic
type of love and maybe it will help you for a little while.
They all fade eventually.
There's a give and take in these kinds of love and they don't stand the test of time.
Eventually those loves fade.
The type of love I am talking about is the gaphe love.
This is the love that is selfless, sacrificial, and is unconditional, meaning that no matter
what happens or if the love is reciprocated to you, you're going to love anyways.
There's no amount of trials that you could face that you would stop loving and you would
not go to the extremes and make every step possible for what you are loving to know that
you're loving.
It puts a picture of your mind of you're making someone's life better no matter if they can
return that love to you at all.
You're willing to do it and you're willing to put forth the effort selflessly and sacrificially.
That's the type of love that stands the test of time.
We can see that throughout scripture and that's why when you're looking at the podcast image
that I use, we don't shoot this and I don't record this video wise because I'm trying
to capture what I'm trying to help people embrace visually with little pictures.
What you're seeing there is from a website called Eyes Wide Open.
You see a picture there of Christ and fists raised to him on the day of his crucifixion
and yet he still endured, he sacrificed so that we would see what love truly means, what
love truly looks like, love that can truly change your life.
I think that's why Christianity has stood the test of time because the people who embrace
it and embrace the love that God showed to us from the very beginning of Genesis to the
end of Revelation and especially in the acts of Jesus and the early church leaders, they're
willing to die for the love that was poured out for us.
There's a verse that tells us that while we were still sinners, still doing bad things,
selfish things, breaking laws, Christ died for us.
He loved us.
It was very last breath here on earth.
He promised that he will restore us for those who place their trust in him.
He will fill us up with so much love that we can endure all things, we can hope all
things, we can believe all things that he promises us.
Now that's the love I want you as a listener to grasp.
Some people think it's impossible because only, especially Christian teachers, only
God can show us a Godly love.
I don't think that's true.
I think when the Lord fills us with who he is, with his spirit, and we get an understanding
of what scripture teaches us, we're willing to endure love for our neighbor and the stranger
so that they can experience the love that he offers and the life-changing power that
that has.
It's taken me a while to believe that from all my broken pasts and the choices I've made
that really scarred who I am and who I was.
And sometimes if I dwell too long in the mirror, I see those things.
But then the cleansing love of what Jesus did washes over me and I can see what I was
meant to be and meant to do.
That inspires me to go out and share this with others, strangers, even though they may
not have the capacity to reciprocate.
That's what drives me and we see this played out.
There's a great re-accountment of one of the early church leaders, Stephen.
Stephen was one of the early seven who became one of Jesus' followers and he's just trying
to get the church of Acts to believe.
And he does that with love.
May you grasp onto that.
May you experience that.
Stephen took stones to death just so they could see how much he loved him and how much
the truth of Jesus can really change a person's life.
So go and pour out love to show love.
And don't hold like a standard that someone has to meet.
When you have something to show sacrificial love for, man, things in life and the ability
to rise is so much easier.
Well, thank you for tuning in.
I hope each episode brings you inspiration to embrace every new day.
To support this podcast, consider booking me as a speaker for your next conference,
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Well, until we meet again, I'm Mike Penney reminding you to rise and seize the gift of
a new day.
You are destined for this moment.