What is God’s action?

As I continue considering the vast implications of agape as God’s only action, I find myself wondering: how do people personally experience the power of Creation? For my own spiritual awareness, the power of Creation manifests to me as agape. That’s how I see agape personalizing divine Presence. Of course, the power of agape is very subtle; and yet -- is that not how we ‘sense’ divine Presence? Even though I've read about the 'crashing, overwhelming, flash' type of spiritual encounter (for example, Paul on the road to Damascus), I've never met anyone who it happen to them.

I mentioned in my previous posting that I’ve come back several times to that section of the New Testament that we call 1 John. When I started re-reading it by leaving ‘agape’ in its original form (as we were meant to read it), I began to see much deeper meaning opening up to me. Slowly, over the last couple of years, my perspective was transformed as I realized that 1 John used ‘agape’ in a way to convey God's action as it is manifested to people.

So what follows is my reading of the most compelling verses:

 “Agape is from God, and everyone who shares agape is born from God and knows God. The person who doesn’t share agape does not know God, because God is agape. … We have known and have believed the agape that God has for us. God is agape, and those who remain in agape remain in God and God remains in them. … There is no fear in agape, but perfect agape drives out fear.” (1 Jn 4: 7-8; 16-18a)

When I read those verses that way (with 'agape' inserted in its spiritual power meaning), I'm able to see a whole new realm of meaning.

As I showed in last April 18’s posting, the very identity of the followers of Jesus is defined by living by the power of spiritual agape, and then sharing agape with each other and also allowing the Holy Spirit to extend agape through our actions out to others. (John 13:34-35) Jesus was demonstrating to his closest followers what that spiritual power could do in human life and in relationships. Also in that Last Supper section of John, Jesus promised, “If you share my agape, you will keep my commandments. I will ask the Father, and he will send spiritual power, to be with you forever.” (14:15-17) So for the Gospel of John, Christian = agape.

I see Paul confirming that with Romans 5:5 -- “The agape of God has been poured into our hearts through the Holy Spirit, who has been given to us.” Paul seemed to be saying that the spiritual power sent by Jesus continued to pour God's agape into the hearts of his followers and into the heart of the community of followers.

The sad realization, about the increasingly violent world, is that not enough of those claiming to be Christians actually do learn to live by agape. When Christians don’t put agape into action, then the potential divine influence (spread through Christian compassion and kindness) doesn’t get realized strongly enough to produce the desperately needed reduction in violence. And yet... God has specifically called us to that work of reducing violence.

I’ve always thought of those verses in 1 Jn. as starting a major new perspective on theology. So now, after 2,000 years, we can begin to see those verses showing that agape is the main action of God.
To me that leaves people throughout the world with the immediate work to come to terms with what that means for the survival of the human race. So it is through agape transforming human living, that we can see there is still a glimmer of hope for our very survival. Such transformation has vast implications for relations between individuals, within groups, between groups, in communities, and even between nations. Otherwise the fearfulness and destructive tendencies of humans will lead us to ruin our communities and our environment, thus jeopardizing the quality of living on the surface of this planet.