October 29, 2025 • 22 mins
Empowered Living With Jeff Byrd.
Welcome to Empowered Living. Listen as Jeff tackles critical issues in a way that brings "Insight for business, leadership, and life!
https://www.talknetworkradio.com/hosts/EmpoweredLiving
Welcome to Empowered Living. Listen as Jeff tackles critical issues in a way that brings "Insight for business, leadership, and life!
https://www.talknetworkradio.com/hosts/EmpoweredLiving
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Episode Transcript
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Speaker 1 (00:29):
Hello, this is Gabriella on the scene today with Top
Network Radio.
Speaker 2 (00:34):
We have a real treat for you just around the corner,
and that is Empowered Living with Jeff Bird.
Speaker 1 (00:42):
Jeff is the owner of Jeffreyber Coaching and he will
be coming to you weekly to teach.
Speaker 2 (00:48):
You more about empowered living.
Speaker 1 (00:51):
Now, let's join Jeff already in the studio.
Speaker 3 (00:55):
Hello and welcome. I'm Jeff Bird with Jeffrey Bird Coaching,
and this is Empowered Living. Now. We know that this
month is the month of Valentines, the month of love.
This is February, and I hope you have some great
plans coming up for Valentine's Day. I was just worth
a group of seniors prior to filming the show today,
(01:18):
and I asked them if they had any plans, and
several of them said, well, you know, not anymore, and
meaning they had lost their spouses. They used to do
things with their spouses on Valentine's Day, and now that
the spousers are gone, they don't have that anymore. And
I think that that's an issue a lot of the
time with us in the culture that we have as
we think of Valentine's and that love as just a
(01:40):
romantic love. I can remember back when I was single.
I was single for a long long time before I
met my fantastic and beautiful wife Angie. And now we
have plans for Valentine's Day every year, But for many
many years I would kind of jokingly and somewhat truthfully
post on Facebook or social media, you know, happy Singles
Awareness Day, because you know, if you had Valentine and
(02:03):
you had somebody you were dating or married to, you know,
you could have a great time. But if not, the
whole culture was centered so much around celebrating that that
if you were single and you didn't have a date
or you weren't doing anything with anybody that single, the
fact that you were single became very much in your
consciousness and you really became aware that it was definitely
(02:23):
a singles day if if you weren't married or with
somebody at the time. So what I really like, though,
is what my Latin friends do, not in Central and
South America. For them, Valentine's Day is Eldea de lamore elamistad,
the day of love and friendship. And what they do
(02:46):
is they're spreading the nets wide or they're reaching out
to other friends that mean something to them, who they
care for, who they love, And it's not just this
romantic love with a partner that you wish Valentine's Day too.
They actually spread that out. They spread the nets wide.
They reach out to their family, they reach out to
their friends. The first time, the first year. This is
way back, a long time ago, that I had some
(03:06):
Latin friends. I got a Valentine's Day message from one
of the guys, and I was a little concerned, and
I asked somebody else, I said, do you have anything
I should be concerned about? They said, no, no, No, that's
just normal. That's what we do. It considers you a
good friend. That's why he's reaching out to you. I thought, well,
that's fantastic. I wish we all did more of that.
So nowadays, I think we should take a cue from
my Latin American friends and reach out to everybody who
(03:30):
means something to us and not make it so exclusive
to the romantic love. But this all brings up a
bigger point. What do we mean when we say to
somebody I love you? What are we saying in our culture? Again,
in the Western society, we often use the word love
to mean so many different things. And we can say,
(03:51):
perhaps I love ice cream, great, you just can't wait
to consume it. I love ice cream, it tastes good,
makes me happy. We might say we love football, or
some people unfortunately love money. We all need it. Some
people love it, or we love sunsets, we love something beautiful,
we love something that inspires us. But we use this
(04:12):
word love for so many things, so it leaves us
getting the question when we say to somebody or someone says,
does I love you? What do they mean? What does
that actually mean? Because we use it to me and everything.
You know, I love you like I love ice cream
or cheesecake. I just want to, you know, consume you,
you know, for my benefit, for my pleasure, or perhaps
(04:34):
like I love a sunset, Well, you're just beautiful. I
just admire you. I appreciate that. Maybe that's what we
mean her. Maybe we mean something deeper. Maybe hopefully it's
not like money where it just gives us control and
we're not saying, yeah, I just want to be able
to control you or things through you. So we needed
to find this what do we mean? So the Greek
helps a lot. And I've got a good friend who
(04:56):
is Greek, and I was chatting back and forth on
Facebook messenger with her this week. Thank you very much,
Maria Papasis for helping me understand some of the meanings
of the Greek words that we would translate them all
into love. They mean something very very different, and the
Greek really brings that out. So there's four of those.
That's why this is title the Ford Love's there are
(05:16):
four types of love. They actually have a fifth, but
I'm going to focus on the four today. Four types
of love that i'd like to talk about. The first
one is probably the most widely used, at least the
most familiar, and that is eros aeros love. This is
the in love. This is the physical, This is excitement,
and this is arousal. This is this is that type
(05:39):
of in love, romanticized love that we typically think of.
If you're watching this, you can see on the slide
the couple kissing with the firecracker is a very romantic scene.
If you're listening to it, you'll just have to picture written.
You've probably been in a situation like that. So that's
the aros node. But then that's that's kind of just
(06:01):
like the not as deep as some of the others,
and some of these others I really want to talk about.
I really love them. The next one is store Gay
and Storgay is a very tender, very tender, very familial
type of love. And what I think of when I
think of Storregay, there's a couple of images that come
(06:22):
to mind. The first is many of you have probably
heard the story of the prodigal son that Jesus told
in the Gospel of Luke, and in Luke fifteen twenty
it's speaking of this father whose son basically told him
he wished he was dead. He said, I just give
me my part of the inheritance that only happens when
the parent dies, and I just want to go off
(06:43):
and have a good time. I don't care about you,
don't care about the family, don't care about anything. So
the prodigal son, he gets the money from the father.
The father gave it to him to bite it up,
the inheritance gave it to him, and he went off
and just went and spent it on while living and
just wasted it. But eventually he comes to his senses
and he wants to come back home to his father
and preparing this speech. But it says that while he
(07:04):
was still a long way off. His father saw him
and felt compassion for him, and ran to him and
embraced him and kissed him. This note, if you don't
understand much about that culture back then, I understand that
in that culture it was very undignified and dishonorable for
(07:25):
an older man to run, especially to a younger man,
to show such flagrant display of emotion and sentiment towards
him and fatherly love and concern. But it says, you know, again,
he saw him, he felt compassion for him, he ran
and embraced him and kissed him. That's a lot of
going on with the father there. He's taking a lot
(07:47):
of action because of his deep, deep, tenderhearted love for
this son. I know there's a lot of spiritual implications.
I'm not going to go into that today. Just on
the familial side there, just as a parent to a child, well,
there's that deep connection. And I'm another type of another
expression of the story. Gay love is just with the
(08:08):
mother with her child, with her newborn and for those
of you who have them, and you just think back
and remember that first time that that maybe was placed
in your arms, and what you felt and you were
exuding love to the child through your eye contact, through
your through your voice and your tone of voice, through
your touch, through your embrace, just through the through the
unspoken things of your spirit, and and just the essence
(08:30):
and your your love and depth of love for that child.
But this is so important, and I really have come
to believe that this is extremely important to experience this
type of love in order to have healthy development. When
storygay love is unexperienced, this is the problem. If that's
not experienced, this deep being cherished by parents and my family,
(08:54):
and this deep sense of the lungi, where that's not present,
eros may run rampant in an attempt to restore the
lost love. Was listening to him talk this morning and
someone said that if a child isn't touched in the
right ways as a child, they will allow themselves to
(09:14):
be touched in the wrong ways as an adolescent. And
I think when we look and try to account for
why so much of this flagrant sensuality is so prevalent,
I think that maybe it goes bad to the fact
that there are so many who haven't really genuinely experienced
that Storegate law. Just this lavish love. You don't do
(09:36):
anything to deserve it, anything to warrant it. It's just
there from parents. And now I'll tell you, as a
person of faith, I've come to understand and to believe
that I've experienced this that even in the things that
we're lacking from our parents, and let's face it, none
of us were tended by angels, we all have something
that was lacking. When that's lacking, there's a verse in Psalms.
(09:57):
I can't recall where it is right now. There's a
verse in Sums and it says that when my father
and mother forsake me, the Lord will take me up.
So none of our parents have met our needs fully,
no other human can. But when that love is missing,
there is something God is wanting to give to us.
It's also when the storegate is missing, and we haven't
(10:18):
experienced that in families. It may be almost impossible to
believe in a goape love and a God who loves
us that way. It's been studied that so many people
who just don't believe that that there is a God.
It's not all of them, but there's a whole lot
of them who shows that there was something broken back
at the home side of things. But we're going to
(10:40):
get more to Agapi in a minute, but just keep
in mind for the time being that there's a tie
between this storegate and the Agape Love. There's one other
I want to talk about before we get to a gope,
and this one is Falley Oh Love Fialay. Now you
may have heard that, or you possibly you're more familiar
with it than you think you are, because the city
of Philadelphia is named after Falleo Love. And it's been
(11:05):
said that Philadelphia was originally the city of brotherly love,
but now it's come to be more the city of
brotherly shove. But this is a bonding. This is like
band of brothers, brothers in arms. This is a deep
seated friendship and understanding. And the image that's up on
the screen there again, if you're watching this, it's a
little bit blurry. It's one I took from CBS News.
(11:28):
But I want to explain to you what's happening in this.
There's the man with the sunglasses on his captain he's
a major now, but at the time he was Captain
William Swinson, and he went through a remarkable series of
events on September eighth, two thousand and nine. And I'm
going to read this right here what Wikipedia wrote about that,
(11:50):
and Wikipedia stated that according to the US Army's detailed
official narrative the Coalitions forces, this is in Afghanistan. It
was a one hundred and six man column entered a valley,
and what they were trying to do is they were
trying to connect the government to some remote tribal leaders.
So this one hundred and six man column entered the
valley and they were ambushed about six a m by
(12:12):
as many as sixty insurgent fighters who soon surrounded the
column on three sides. They're completely surrounded, situated on terraced
high ground, so they've got these insurgents, they've got the
high ground, they've surrounded them on three sides, and they're
shooting at them. Within an hour, communication to the front
of the column, including four US servicemen, was lost. Meanwhile,
(12:34):
Captain Swinson, who initially was positioned toward the rear of
the column, called for air support and with two comrades,
crossed fifty meters of open space under direct enemy fire
to administer life extending first aid to his severely wounded sergeant.
They had gotten word that this sergeant had been wounded,
and they covered fifty years that's about a half of
(12:55):
football a little over a half of football field fifty
meters to get to him while they under fire. When
the column was surrounded by enemy fighters that advanced within
fifty meters, Swinson responded to talidan demands for surrender by
throwing a hand grenade, an active defiance that rallied his
comrades to repel the enemy advance. Swinson and comrades moved
(13:16):
his sergeant and other wounded to a helicopter for medical
evacuation before returning to the enemy's kill zone for at
least two more trips in an unarmored vehicle to evacuate
additional wounded, returning even more deeply through the kill zone
toward the location of the head of the column in
search of the four US servicemen, Swinson's party first rescued
(13:38):
and recovered several Afghan National Security Force wounded and dead,
and then finally Swinson had a small contingent recovered the
forefallen US servicemen who had been discovered by a search
and rescue aircraft at noon. The sixty seven hour firefight
caused fifteen coalition debts, including the four US servicemen, and
also Swinson's sergeant, Kenneth Westbrook, died of his wounds after
(14:00):
returning from Afghanistan. Swinson's actions are believed to have directly
contributed to saving more than a dozen afghan lives. Now,
this is amazing. Here's this column under fire. Swinson comes
from the back, calls in air support, lands a METOVAC helicopter,
goes and rescues his sergeant, and then goes and makes
multiple more runs to rescue others. But this is the
(14:21):
important thing. There was a picture on the screen. If
you were watching, you saw it just a minute ago,
and it's a man with glasses and he's leaned over
next to another man and you can just see the
top of this head. And I want to explain to
you what's happening in that photo. That photo is just
after Swinson, and the man with the glasses is Swinson.
Just after they got his sergeant into the Medavac helicopter
(14:44):
before going back out to rescue others. Swinson stops and
he leans over and he kisses him on the top
of the forehead. If you can't see the picture, that
is a love. That is philet oh love in the
midst of attack in the midst of gunfire and dust
and chaos and all these things he was doing, calling
(15:05):
in the air support landing the Metovac helicopter with just
a little strip of red cloth. I guess was laying
around somewhere with getting ready to go back out and
rescue these others. He cared deeply enough, he had such compassion,
such connection, such bonding, that he stopped in the midst
of all that to take him in and to turn
around and to lean over and to kiss his sergeant.
(15:27):
That's falleio love, okay. But now as powerful as that is,
there's one more that I want to get to. And
this is absolutely perfect love. This is transcendent love. This
is a heartbreakingly beautiful love once you get a hold
of it. And this love is totally based on the
(15:49):
nature of the lover, without respect to the condition of
the love object or the reception or response to the
love given. It's perfect, it's unwavering, it's utterly steadfast. And
this is divine love. This love does not finds itself
(16:10):
solely residing in the heart of the lover with no
respect to again, let me repeat those things. The condition,
the receptiveness to the love, or the response to the
love on the part of the love object. This is
how God loves. His love is absolutely perfect. It dwells
within himself. It is not conditioned on anyone or anything
(16:33):
else or their response to it, which is why only
he can say of himself, I am love. God is love.
We read so this is perfect. This is exalted love.
And here's the trouble with that. I think that when
there's the problem back with the store gay part of
the love that's not experienced well. And this was my experience.
(16:55):
My parents loved me very much, but due to different things,
I wasn't able to receive that as it really was,
and that caused me a lot of problems. That caused
me just to run kind of wild for a while
because what I was really looking for and what I
was really wanting was this. I got a love, So
this is this is the perfect love. I couldn't believe
that there was a God who loved me because I
hadn't experienced in that kind of personal acceptance and intimacy
(17:19):
and just tenderness and other relationships. So let me tell
you this that if I'm describing you, God's got something
for you.
Speaker 1 (17:27):
Jeff will be back shortly to wrap up today's message.
This is Gabriela still on the scene today with Top
Network Radio. If you're just tuning in, you're listening to
Empowered Living with Jeff Bird. If you've missed any part
of today's message and you can hear it again online
as well as the entire archive of Empowered Living at
(17:49):
www dot Topnetwork Radio dot com or search keyword hashtag
empowered Living. We would like to acknowledge our music partners,
Sound Ideas for Corporate to the Max and Kevin McLeod
for Airport Lange. Any scriptures read during this broadcast are
(18:10):
from the New American Standard version of the Holy Bible.
Speaker 2 (18:15):
If you would like to learn more about Jeffrey Bird Coaching,
visit www dot Jeffbird Coaching dot com. That is j
E F F B y r D Coaching dot com.
Do a Facebook search for at coaching Rocks, or drop
Jeff a line at Jeff at Jeffbird Coaching dot com
(18:38):
Again j E F F B y r D Coaching
dot com. Let Jeff's coaching rocks be the building blocks
of your empowered success.
Speaker 3 (18:49):
Now let's go back to Jeff.
Speaker 2 (18:51):
For the rest of today's message.
Speaker 3 (18:56):
He can meet you and restore that type of cherish, deep, intimate, passionate.
And when I say passionate, I don't mean on the
arras side. I mean passionately profound love. That's just you
are his love object. I want you to know that.
So this month of Valentine's, whether you have a Valentine
or not to celebrate with that, I want you to
(19:17):
just be able to recall that, hey, you are his
love object, and he will emotionally, mentally, and of every
other way he wants to. He is longing to restore
that type of love to you, and that will heal
everything else. That will heal so many of the bad
decisions we make because we're, like the song says, looking
for love in all the wrong places. So I want
(19:38):
to ask you, in light of these spord loves we've
got arrows Storgie, fileto and agape. When you say I
love you to somebody, or when you hear that, what
does it mean? What are we really saying? And again,
we use that word so flippantly, so easily. We love cheesecake,
(19:58):
we love burgers, love bacon. You know what do we
really say to other people? So thank you so much
for tuning in today. I really hope that these different
this breakdown of these four types of love has been
meaningful to you. I hope it's maybe he helped you
understand some things that maybe weren't quite clear before. If
you have any questions or comments about this, feel free
(20:20):
to reach out to me. I'm simply Jeff at Jeffbirdcaching
dot com. You can go to the website. The website
is Jeffbirdcoaching dot com and you can send me a message.
And as you see on the screen behind us when
it comes to this month as well, this is a
picture of agape love too. This is the Normandy Graveyard
(20:43):
over where so many people gave their lives for us.
So let's remember remember too, not just what our romantic
love is in the immediate, but let's remember what's being given,
what sacrifice has been made, because in this agape love
there's an element of sacrifice too. I hope that you'll
feel loved because you are loved, and that you'll remember it,
(21:07):
review these things, dwell on them, and just know how
deep you really are. And I also just wish, over
every one of you and my desires, that you would
also know that there's a bigger picture than this earthly
little story going on, and there is a deep love
that God's had for you before the beginning of time,
because it's who he is and it's what He had
in mind when he made you. So thank you so
(21:28):
much for joining me today. I hope this has been
encouraging to you. I hope you have a wonderful Valentine's
and a great month of February. And we'll see you
next time. This is Jeff Bird with Jeff Bird Coaching,
and this is Empowered Living.
Speaker 2 (22:00):
Are back back BA
Hello, this is Gabriella on the scene today with Top
Network Radio.
Speaker 2 (00:34):
We have a real treat for you just around the corner,
and that is Empowered Living with Jeff Bird.
Speaker 1 (00:42):
Jeff is the owner of Jeffreyber Coaching and he will
be coming to you weekly to teach.
Speaker 2 (00:48):
You more about empowered living.
Speaker 1 (00:51):
Now, let's join Jeff already in the studio.
Speaker 3 (00:55):
Hello and welcome. I'm Jeff Bird with Jeffrey Bird Coaching,
and this is Empowered Living. Now. We know that this
month is the month of Valentines, the month of love.
This is February, and I hope you have some great
plans coming up for Valentine's Day. I was just worth
a group of seniors prior to filming the show today,
(01:18):
and I asked them if they had any plans, and
several of them said, well, you know, not anymore, and
meaning they had lost their spouses. They used to do
things with their spouses on Valentine's Day, and now that
the spousers are gone, they don't have that anymore. And
I think that that's an issue a lot of the
time with us in the culture that we have as
we think of Valentine's and that love as just a
(01:40):
romantic love. I can remember back when I was single.
I was single for a long long time before I
met my fantastic and beautiful wife Angie. And now we
have plans for Valentine's Day every year, But for many
many years I would kind of jokingly and somewhat truthfully
post on Facebook or social media, you know, happy Singles
Awareness Day, because you know, if you had Valentine and
(02:03):
you had somebody you were dating or married to, you know,
you could have a great time. But if not, the
whole culture was centered so much around celebrating that that
if you were single and you didn't have a date
or you weren't doing anything with anybody that single, the
fact that you were single became very much in your
consciousness and you really became aware that it was definitely
(02:23):
a singles day if if you weren't married or with
somebody at the time. So what I really like, though,
is what my Latin friends do, not in Central and
South America. For them, Valentine's Day is Eldea de lamore elamistad,
the day of love and friendship. And what they do
(02:46):
is they're spreading the nets wide or they're reaching out
to other friends that mean something to them, who they
care for, who they love, And it's not just this
romantic love with a partner that you wish Valentine's Day too.
They actually spread that out. They spread the nets wide.
They reach out to their family, they reach out to
their friends. The first time, the first year. This is
way back, a long time ago, that I had some
(03:06):
Latin friends. I got a Valentine's Day message from one
of the guys, and I was a little concerned, and
I asked somebody else, I said, do you have anything
I should be concerned about? They said, no, no, No, that's
just normal. That's what we do. It considers you a
good friend. That's why he's reaching out to you. I thought, well,
that's fantastic. I wish we all did more of that.
So nowadays, I think we should take a cue from
my Latin American friends and reach out to everybody who
(03:30):
means something to us and not make it so exclusive
to the romantic love. But this all brings up a
bigger point. What do we mean when we say to
somebody I love you? What are we saying in our culture? Again,
in the Western society, we often use the word love
to mean so many different things. And we can say,
(03:51):
perhaps I love ice cream, great, you just can't wait
to consume it. I love ice cream, it tastes good,
makes me happy. We might say we love football, or
some people unfortunately love money. We all need it. Some
people love it, or we love sunsets, we love something beautiful,
we love something that inspires us. But we use this
(04:12):
word love for so many things, so it leaves us
getting the question when we say to somebody or someone says,
does I love you? What do they mean? What does
that actually mean? Because we use it to me and everything.
You know, I love you like I love ice cream
or cheesecake. I just want to, you know, consume you,
you know, for my benefit, for my pleasure, or perhaps
(04:34):
like I love a sunset, Well, you're just beautiful. I
just admire you. I appreciate that. Maybe that's what we
mean her. Maybe we mean something deeper. Maybe hopefully it's
not like money where it just gives us control and
we're not saying, yeah, I just want to be able
to control you or things through you. So we needed
to find this what do we mean? So the Greek
helps a lot. And I've got a good friend who
(04:56):
is Greek, and I was chatting back and forth on
Facebook messenger with her this week. Thank you very much,
Maria Papasis for helping me understand some of the meanings
of the Greek words that we would translate them all
into love. They mean something very very different, and the
Greek really brings that out. So there's four of those.
That's why this is title the Ford Love's there are
(05:16):
four types of love. They actually have a fifth, but
I'm going to focus on the four today. Four types
of love that i'd like to talk about. The first
one is probably the most widely used, at least the
most familiar, and that is eros aeros love. This is
the in love. This is the physical, This is excitement,
and this is arousal. This is this is that type
(05:39):
of in love, romanticized love that we typically think of.
If you're watching this, you can see on the slide
the couple kissing with the firecracker is a very romantic scene.
If you're listening to it, you'll just have to picture written.
You've probably been in a situation like that. So that's
the aros node. But then that's that's kind of just
(06:01):
like the not as deep as some of the others,
and some of these others I really want to talk about.
I really love them. The next one is store Gay
and Storgay is a very tender, very tender, very familial
type of love. And what I think of when I
think of Storregay, there's a couple of images that come
(06:22):
to mind. The first is many of you have probably
heard the story of the prodigal son that Jesus told
in the Gospel of Luke, and in Luke fifteen twenty
it's speaking of this father whose son basically told him
he wished he was dead. He said, I just give
me my part of the inheritance that only happens when
the parent dies, and I just want to go off
(06:43):
and have a good time. I don't care about you,
don't care about the family, don't care about anything. So
the prodigal son, he gets the money from the father.
The father gave it to him to bite it up,
the inheritance gave it to him, and he went off
and just went and spent it on while living and
just wasted it. But eventually he comes to his senses
and he wants to come back home to his father
and preparing this speech. But it says that while he
(07:04):
was still a long way off. His father saw him
and felt compassion for him, and ran to him and
embraced him and kissed him. This note, if you don't
understand much about that culture back then, I understand that
in that culture it was very undignified and dishonorable for
(07:25):
an older man to run, especially to a younger man,
to show such flagrant display of emotion and sentiment towards
him and fatherly love and concern. But it says, you know, again,
he saw him, he felt compassion for him, he ran
and embraced him and kissed him. That's a lot of
going on with the father there. He's taking a lot
(07:47):
of action because of his deep, deep, tenderhearted love for
this son. I know there's a lot of spiritual implications.
I'm not going to go into that today. Just on
the familial side there, just as a parent to a child, well,
there's that deep connection. And I'm another type of another
expression of the story. Gay love is just with the
(08:08):
mother with her child, with her newborn and for those
of you who have them, and you just think back
and remember that first time that that maybe was placed
in your arms, and what you felt and you were
exuding love to the child through your eye contact, through
your through your voice and your tone of voice, through
your touch, through your embrace, just through the through the
unspoken things of your spirit, and and just the essence
(08:30):
and your your love and depth of love for that child.
But this is so important, and I really have come
to believe that this is extremely important to experience this
type of love in order to have healthy development. When
storygay love is unexperienced, this is the problem. If that's
not experienced, this deep being cherished by parents and my family,
(08:54):
and this deep sense of the lungi, where that's not present,
eros may run rampant in an attempt to restore the
lost love. Was listening to him talk this morning and
someone said that if a child isn't touched in the
right ways as a child, they will allow themselves to
(09:14):
be touched in the wrong ways as an adolescent. And
I think when we look and try to account for
why so much of this flagrant sensuality is so prevalent,
I think that maybe it goes bad to the fact
that there are so many who haven't really genuinely experienced
that Storegate law. Just this lavish love. You don't do
(09:36):
anything to deserve it, anything to warrant it. It's just
there from parents. And now I'll tell you, as a
person of faith, I've come to understand and to believe
that I've experienced this that even in the things that
we're lacking from our parents, and let's face it, none
of us were tended by angels, we all have something
that was lacking. When that's lacking, there's a verse in Psalms.
(09:57):
I can't recall where it is right now. There's a
verse in Sums and it says that when my father
and mother forsake me, the Lord will take me up.
So none of our parents have met our needs fully,
no other human can. But when that love is missing,
there is something God is wanting to give to us.
It's also when the storegate is missing, and we haven't
(10:18):
experienced that in families. It may be almost impossible to
believe in a goape love and a God who loves
us that way. It's been studied that so many people
who just don't believe that that there is a God.
It's not all of them, but there's a whole lot
of them who shows that there was something broken back
at the home side of things. But we're going to
(10:40):
get more to Agapi in a minute, but just keep
in mind for the time being that there's a tie
between this storegate and the Agape Love. There's one other
I want to talk about before we get to a gope,
and this one is Falley Oh Love Fialay. Now you
may have heard that, or you possibly you're more familiar
with it than you think you are, because the city
of Philadelphia is named after Falleo Love. And it's been
(11:05):
said that Philadelphia was originally the city of brotherly love,
but now it's come to be more the city of
brotherly shove. But this is a bonding. This is like
band of brothers, brothers in arms. This is a deep
seated friendship and understanding. And the image that's up on
the screen there again, if you're watching this, it's a
little bit blurry. It's one I took from CBS News.
(11:28):
But I want to explain to you what's happening in this.
There's the man with the sunglasses on his captain he's
a major now, but at the time he was Captain
William Swinson, and he went through a remarkable series of
events on September eighth, two thousand and nine. And I'm
going to read this right here what Wikipedia wrote about that,
(11:50):
and Wikipedia stated that according to the US Army's detailed
official narrative the Coalitions forces, this is in Afghanistan. It
was a one hundred and six man column entered a valley,
and what they were trying to do is they were
trying to connect the government to some remote tribal leaders.
So this one hundred and six man column entered the
valley and they were ambushed about six a m by
(12:12):
as many as sixty insurgent fighters who soon surrounded the
column on three sides. They're completely surrounded, situated on terraced
high ground, so they've got these insurgents, they've got the
high ground, they've surrounded them on three sides, and they're
shooting at them. Within an hour, communication to the front
of the column, including four US servicemen, was lost. Meanwhile,
(12:34):
Captain Swinson, who initially was positioned toward the rear of
the column, called for air support and with two comrades,
crossed fifty meters of open space under direct enemy fire
to administer life extending first aid to his severely wounded sergeant.
They had gotten word that this sergeant had been wounded,
and they covered fifty years that's about a half of
(12:55):
football a little over a half of football field fifty
meters to get to him while they under fire. When
the column was surrounded by enemy fighters that advanced within
fifty meters, Swinson responded to talidan demands for surrender by
throwing a hand grenade, an active defiance that rallied his
comrades to repel the enemy advance. Swinson and comrades moved
(13:16):
his sergeant and other wounded to a helicopter for medical
evacuation before returning to the enemy's kill zone for at
least two more trips in an unarmored vehicle to evacuate
additional wounded, returning even more deeply through the kill zone
toward the location of the head of the column in
search of the four US servicemen, Swinson's party first rescued
(13:38):
and recovered several Afghan National Security Force wounded and dead,
and then finally Swinson had a small contingent recovered the
forefallen US servicemen who had been discovered by a search
and rescue aircraft at noon. The sixty seven hour firefight
caused fifteen coalition debts, including the four US servicemen, and
also Swinson's sergeant, Kenneth Westbrook, died of his wounds after
(14:00):
returning from Afghanistan. Swinson's actions are believed to have directly
contributed to saving more than a dozen afghan lives. Now,
this is amazing. Here's this column under fire. Swinson comes
from the back, calls in air support, lands a METOVAC helicopter,
goes and rescues his sergeant, and then goes and makes
multiple more runs to rescue others. But this is the
(14:21):
important thing. There was a picture on the screen. If
you were watching, you saw it just a minute ago,
and it's a man with glasses and he's leaned over
next to another man and you can just see the
top of this head. And I want to explain to
you what's happening in that photo. That photo is just
after Swinson, and the man with the glasses is Swinson.
Just after they got his sergeant into the Medavac helicopter
(14:44):
before going back out to rescue others. Swinson stops and
he leans over and he kisses him on the top
of the forehead. If you can't see the picture, that
is a love. That is philet oh love in the
midst of attack in the midst of gunfire and dust
and chaos and all these things he was doing, calling
(15:05):
in the air support landing the Metovac helicopter with just
a little strip of red cloth. I guess was laying
around somewhere with getting ready to go back out and
rescue these others. He cared deeply enough, he had such compassion,
such connection, such bonding, that he stopped in the midst
of all that to take him in and to turn
around and to lean over and to kiss his sergeant.
(15:27):
That's falleio love, okay. But now as powerful as that is,
there's one more that I want to get to. And
this is absolutely perfect love. This is transcendent love. This
is a heartbreakingly beautiful love once you get a hold
of it. And this love is totally based on the
(15:49):
nature of the lover, without respect to the condition of
the love object or the reception or response to the
love given. It's perfect, it's unwavering, it's utterly steadfast. And
this is divine love. This love does not finds itself
(16:10):
solely residing in the heart of the lover with no
respect to again, let me repeat those things. The condition,
the receptiveness to the love, or the response to the
love on the part of the love object. This is
how God loves. His love is absolutely perfect. It dwells
within himself. It is not conditioned on anyone or anything
(16:33):
else or their response to it, which is why only
he can say of himself, I am love. God is love.
We read so this is perfect. This is exalted love.
And here's the trouble with that. I think that when
there's the problem back with the store gay part of
the love that's not experienced well. And this was my experience.
(16:55):
My parents loved me very much, but due to different things,
I wasn't able to receive that as it really was,
and that caused me a lot of problems. That caused
me just to run kind of wild for a while
because what I was really looking for and what I
was really wanting was this. I got a love, So
this is this is the perfect love. I couldn't believe
that there was a God who loved me because I
hadn't experienced in that kind of personal acceptance and intimacy
(17:19):
and just tenderness and other relationships. So let me tell
you this that if I'm describing you, God's got something
for you.
Speaker 1 (17:27):
Jeff will be back shortly to wrap up today's message.
This is Gabriela still on the scene today with Top
Network Radio. If you're just tuning in, you're listening to
Empowered Living with Jeff Bird. If you've missed any part
of today's message and you can hear it again online
as well as the entire archive of Empowered Living at
(17:49):
www dot Topnetwork Radio dot com or search keyword hashtag
empowered Living. We would like to acknowledge our music partners,
Sound Ideas for Corporate to the Max and Kevin McLeod
for Airport Lange. Any scriptures read during this broadcast are
(18:10):
from the New American Standard version of the Holy Bible.
Speaker 2 (18:15):
If you would like to learn more about Jeffrey Bird Coaching,
visit www dot Jeffbird Coaching dot com. That is j
E F F B y r D Coaching dot com.
Do a Facebook search for at coaching Rocks, or drop
Jeff a line at Jeff at Jeffbird Coaching dot com
(18:38):
Again j E F F B y r D Coaching
dot com. Let Jeff's coaching rocks be the building blocks
of your empowered success.
Speaker 3 (18:49):
Now let's go back to Jeff.
Speaker 2 (18:51):
For the rest of today's message.
Speaker 3 (18:56):
He can meet you and restore that type of cherish, deep, intimate, passionate.
And when I say passionate, I don't mean on the
arras side. I mean passionately profound love. That's just you
are his love object. I want you to know that.
So this month of Valentine's, whether you have a Valentine
or not to celebrate with that, I want you to
(19:17):
just be able to recall that, hey, you are his
love object, and he will emotionally, mentally, and of every
other way he wants to. He is longing to restore
that type of love to you, and that will heal
everything else. That will heal so many of the bad
decisions we make because we're, like the song says, looking
for love in all the wrong places. So I want
(19:38):
to ask you, in light of these spord loves we've
got arrows Storgie, fileto and agape. When you say I
love you to somebody, or when you hear that, what
does it mean? What are we really saying? And again,
we use that word so flippantly, so easily. We love cheesecake,
(19:58):
we love burgers, love bacon. You know what do we
really say to other people? So thank you so much
for tuning in today. I really hope that these different
this breakdown of these four types of love has been
meaningful to you. I hope it's maybe he helped you
understand some things that maybe weren't quite clear before. If
you have any questions or comments about this, feel free
(20:20):
to reach out to me. I'm simply Jeff at Jeffbirdcaching
dot com. You can go to the website. The website
is Jeffbirdcoaching dot com and you can send me a message.
And as you see on the screen behind us when
it comes to this month as well, this is a
picture of agape love too. This is the Normandy Graveyard
(20:43):
over where so many people gave their lives for us.
So let's remember remember too, not just what our romantic
love is in the immediate, but let's remember what's being given,
what sacrifice has been made, because in this agape love
there's an element of sacrifice too. I hope that you'll
feel loved because you are loved, and that you'll remember it,
(21:07):
review these things, dwell on them, and just know how
deep you really are. And I also just wish, over
every one of you and my desires, that you would
also know that there's a bigger picture than this earthly
little story going on, and there is a deep love
that God's had for you before the beginning of time,
because it's who he is and it's what He had
in mind when he made you. So thank you so
(21:28):
much for joining me today. I hope this has been
encouraging to you. I hope you have a wonderful Valentine's
and a great month of February. And we'll see you
next time. This is Jeff Bird with Jeff Bird Coaching,
and this is Empowered Living.
Speaker 2 (22:00):
Are back back BA
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