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There are probably more songs written about love than any other emotion — all the way from Mario Lanza’s “Be My Love” to Elvis’ “Love Me Tender” and Abba’s “What the World Needs Now Is Love”. Love could be the most-used four-letter word in the English language!

However, there are two kinds of love mentioned in the New Testament, and before we see the Positive Power of Love in the teachings of Jesus, we need to distinguish between the two. The first kind of love is the one the songs are about — it is a fondness, a human love, and it is basically selfish. The Greeks used the word “phileo” for this love. The other kind is expressed by the Greeks as “agapao” love — God’s love, by which we can love the unlovely. God’s love does not replace human fondness, but it goes beyond it, it intensifies the “phileo” kind of love. “Agapao” is considered by some to be a word that Jesus coined, for it does not appear prior to His time on earth. About one-half of its usage is in John’s gospel and epistles, and because of this he has been called the apostle of love.
Let’s look at John’s gospel and discover how Jesus loved. In John 13:34 Jesus gives us the eleventh commandment — that’s right, there are eleven commandments! “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” Note the word “as”. In the same way that Jesus loved His disciples, they were to love one another. Jesus not only showed fondness for people (such as Lazarus, the man He raised from the dead — John 11:36), but also God’s love. He loved John: “One of his disciples, whom Jesus loved” (John 13:23). He loved the twelve disciples: “As the Father has loved me, so have I loved you…” (John 15:9). And He loved all those who believed in Him: “Greater love has no one than this, that someone lays down his life for his friends” (John 15:13). This Jesus did, the total expression of the God-kind of love.
Since this is how Jesus loved, then how should we love? The truth is that unless we have the God-kind of love, then we are incapable of truly loving. Jesus taught that to get that kind of love we should first love Him. “And he who loves me will be loved by my Father, and I will love him… and we will come to him and make our home with him” (John 14:21,23). “For the Father himself loves you, because you have loved me and have believed that I came from God.” (John 16:27). Jesus also prayed to God these words: “the love with which you have loved me may be in them…” (John 17:26). So it is possible to have the God-kind of love within, by believing in the Son of God, Jesus Christ.
Once you are a Christian, you have the God-kind of love (“agapao” love) and so you can love one another, you can love the unlovely. This is the fulfillment of the eleventh commandment: “Love one another, just as I have loved you” (John 13:34 and repeated in 15:12,17). “What the world needs now” is the God-kind of love, it needs humans who love one another. And if we want to make our world a better place, then introduce others to Jesus Christ so they too can have the God-kind of love resident within them.
However, the God-kind of love does not stop at just loving those in our immediate circle. Jesus also taught in the Sermon on the Mount that we should “love our enemies, and do good…” (Luke 6:35). Yes, your enemies! It does not really take a lot of effort to love those who love you, but it will take a little action on your part to love those who oppose you in some way or another. God Himself demonstrated His kind of love for us “in that while we were still sinners, Christ died for us” (Romans 5:8). So it worked in our case, and it will as work as we apply it to our enemies.
Paul took up this theme of the God-kind of love, and in his prayer for the Ephesians he prayed: “that you, being rooted and grounded in love, may have strength to comprehend with all the saints what is the breadth and length and height and depth [of love]” (3:17-19). Tap into the Positive Power of Love and the results will amaze you!