AS FOR ME …

Now when Abram was ninety-nine years old, the LORD appeared to Abram and said to him, “I am God Almighty; Walk before Me, and be blameless.   “I will establish My covenant between Me and you, And I will multiply you exceedingly.”   Abram fell on his face, and God talked with him, saying,  “As for Me, behold, My covenant is with you,….’”
Genesis 17:1-4NAS

The blood-covenant commitment God made to Abraham is the best Old Testament picture we have of he true agape kind of love.  There we see God, by an act of His will, making a blood-covenant oath to Abraham to BLESS him, care for him and be all he needed Him to be.

God didn’t wait to see if Abraham was going to love Him in return before He made the commitment.  He didn’t say, “If I keep having warm feelings toward you, Abraham, I’ll keep acting in love toward you.  But if you aggravate Me and take Me for granted, I’m walking out on you.”

No, God made His choice to love and commit Himself to Abraham, regardless of what Abraham chose to do.  Abraham could either receive His love or reject it.  He could take God up on His commitment or turn away.  But on God’s part, the decision was already made.  He said, As for Me, My covenant is with you.

God loves us the very same way.  He determined to love us before we ever decided whether or not we would respond to His love.  He sent Jesus to the cross as the most precious blood-covenant sacrifice ever made…while we were yet sinners.  He didn’t wait to see what we would do.  He went ahead and made the commitment to love.  He said, As for Me, behold, My covenant is with you.

Now that we’ve received His love, He expects us to love each other the same way.   In fact, He commands us to do it.  He commands us to make the same decision He did.  He desires that we commit ourselves to others in the Body of Christ regardless of how they respond to us, to love them when they appreciate it and when they don’t.  He expects us to honor the covenant blood of Jesus with the same unconditional love for others that He has given us.  He expects us to say to them, ‘No matter how you act, no matter what you do, as for me, I’m in covenant with you.”

How do you walk in that kind of love?  You do it by making a decision.  You do it by an act of your will.  Of course, you don’t love by your own will or your own strength.  You simply use your will to open the door to God’s love that abides within you.  When you make the decision and open the door, His own mighty covenant love comes pouring through.