Love.

We use that word so casually.

I love Justin Bieber.
I love my girlfriend.
I love macaroni and cheese.
I love that wolf guy from Twilight.

I think we're losing the meaning of the word love.

Just to make clear to what kind of love they're referring, there are 4 words for love in the greek language.

Storge: affectionate love like parents have for their children
Philia: brotherly love, or love for your friends
Eros: a love that goes beyond friendship, like the love of a husband/wife
Agape: true love, unconditional love, sacrificial love; the love God has for us.

Agape love is hard for us to wrap our minds around. Unconditional love: love that crosses bounds. Love that overlooks faults. God loves us when we feel unloveable. He loves us when all others abandon us. He loves us no matter what.

You want evidence of God's love?

Jesus could have given up.

When the God of the universe, the divine Creator, all powerful and mighty God, had to spend 9 months in the womb, He could have backed out.

When he saw the dirty, smelly, disgusting manger that He would be born in, He could have called a quits.

The first time His stomach growled for food.

The first time He scraped His knee.

The first time He smashed His finger with a hammer.

He could have given up. When He saw the cross, He could have backed out.

But He didn't. Why? Because love (true, unconditional, Agape love) goes the distance.

Christ traveled from the power of limitless eternity to be confined by humanity, to be restricted by flesh.

He didn't have to. But He did. Because, "Love endures all things..." - 1 Cor. 13:4-7