Agape is the word the New Testament reaches for when it speaks of the highest love — not a feeling that happens to us but a deliberate, self-giving commitment to another's good. It is the love God is (God is love, 1 John 4:8), the love shown at the cross (God commendeth his love toward us, Romans 5:8), and the love Christians are commanded to have for one another and even for enemies.
Because agape is a decision more than an emotion, it can be commanded, promised, and practised when feelings run dry. In 1 Corinthians 13 — the great love chapter, where the King James Version renders agape as charity — it is described entirely by what it does: it suffers long, is kind, seeks not its own, bears all things, never fails. This is love with its sleeves rolled up, the love that spends itself for another.
Agape in Scripture
Charity suffereth long, and is kind; charity envieth not; charity vaunteth not itself, is not puffed up,