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 How can we begin to live from agape so that stories like Matthew’s become the norm versus the exception? How can we create environments in which this kind of love flourishes?

We must first realize that love is the environment where we are already living. Love has to be a person to us before it can become a verb. And the One who is Love Incarnate—Jesus—doesn’t just love us when we’re at our best. He also loves us when we are at our worst. When we are caught in the act. When we fall asleep on Him instead of watching and praying with Him. When we deny Him three times. When we become His persecutors. When we come into His prayer meetings drunk—drunk on our ambition, our greed, our resentful grudges, our pornographic imaginations, our self-righteousness.

We should stop trying to love like Jesus and instead, first learn what it means to be with him, yes? Because the more we are with Jesus, the more we will become like him. Love is caught more than it is achieved. Get close to love, and love tends to rub off.


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