You may hear it in the Church these days: “Maranatha!” It speaks of the coming of the LORD Jesus Christ! We are expectant!

“waiting for our blessed hope, the appearing [epiphaneian] of the glory of our great God and Savior Jesus Christ,” Titus 2:13

I was looking up in a thesaurus, the word “expectant” because we should be more than expectant for the LORD Jesus Christ to return! Two words I came across: a-gape (2 syllables) and a-ga-pe (3 syllables). These words are called “heteronyms.”

THE FIRST WORD: “A-gape”

“A-gape” (2 syllables, from Old Norse), an adjective or adverb, means “having the mouth open because of wonder…”

We will be “a-gape” with wonder when He comes.

“Beloved, we are God’s children now, and what we will be has not yet appeared; but we know that when He appears we shall be like Him, because we shall see Him as He is.” 1 John 3:2

THE SECOND WORD: “A-ga-pe”

The second word is pronounced “a-ga-pe.” This is the Greek word for brotherly love.

The Word of God states that “we shall be like Him.” We will be “a-ga-pe” because God is “a-ga-pe”!  God is love! (1 John 4:15)

We don’t have the severe persecution of the saints, here in America. But the saints under tyrannical oppression are crying, “Come, LORD Jesus!” We must think about others, not only ourselves. We are one in the LORD. Let us show faithfulness in prayer for the saints and their persecutions.

See The Philadelphia Prayer.