All You Need is Agape: Ch. V - Action, Not Feeling

Despite being one of the hardest languages to learn, English has a way of simplifying concepts by a lack of specificity.
Perhaps the most obvious example is the word "love".
Think of it, we use the same word to express our feelings towards our pets, our spouses, our parents, our favorite movies, our favorite food, our favorite shirts, etc., etc.
Of course, we mean totally different things when we say we love our spouse and that we love our pet...hopefully.

But consider the Greeks: they used different words for each connotation of love.
Eros for sexual love.
Philia for friendship.
Storge for affection.
Thelema for generic desire.
And then there is Agape which literally means "I love you". It is a word that can match up with any of the above ones but often means something more high-minded, such as admiration.
Agape is often referred to as divine love; the kind of love God enacts towards His children.
The word "enacts" is key; it's one thing to say you love a friend, but it's another thing to enact it either by telling him or doing some action that pleases him.

It turns out that Agape is the word that almost always used in the original Greek sources of the New Testament.
Some Bibles translate it into "love"; others into "charity", which is probably a better translation in my opinion.
What is important is that even in the Bibles that say "love", it is almost always mentioned in relation to Jesus Christ.
He is the example of how to love, or charity, or agape, or whatever word you prefer.

C.S. Lewis makes a compelling case for not manufacturing a lovey-dovey feeling to people as the way to follow in Jesus' footsteps.
In Mere Christianity, he states plainly that "you cannot feel fond of a person by trying," and that loving one self does not mean feeling fond of one's weaknesses hence their is no obligation to feel fond of weak, or sinful, people (99).
Lewis then uses the specific term Charity, which has been simplified over the years into giving to the poor. Even this simplification implies action, not feeling. When you give money to a person collecting for charity on a busy street, do you really need to feel eros, philia, storge, or thelema to give money? No, but the act of giving the money is Agape.
This idea of love doesn't mean liking, but wanting the best for others (109).
That "want" means nothing if you don't do anything about it, even if the only thing you do is say a sincere prayer for them.

But Lewis points out that there isn't such a thing as a loveless loving action!

The rule for all of us is perfectly simple. Do not waste time bothering whether you 'love' your neighbor; act as if you did. As soon as we do this we find one of the great secrets. When you are behaving as if you loved someone, you will presently come to love him (110).

This may sound rather "Mickey Mouse" or silly to the cynical, but the examples of Jesus will illustrate the true nature of this Love as Action and how it automatically produces the correct feeling...which still may not always mean "liking" them.