“If you love me, obey my commandments.” (John 14:15)
God has continued giving me the revelation of His love for His people this week. The question can be asked from this verse “What are Jesus’s commandments?”
There is only one example of His commandments listed in Matthew 22:36-40 “Teacher, which is the most important commandment in the law of Moses?” Jesus replied, “‘You must love the LORD your God with all your heart, all your soul, and all your mind.’ This is the first and greatest commandment. A second is equally important: ‘Love your neighbor as yourself.’The entire law and all the demands of the prophets are based on these two commandments.”
Basically speaking, we are called to first, love God with all our heart, all our soul, and all our mind, and second, love our neighbor as ourselves. The message I have been given for the church is to love people. I think the greatest fault in the western church is that we have lost the ability to love others as much as we love ourselves. The mindset of entitlement has warped our view. Instead of laying our lives down for others, we expect to have others lay down their lives for us (John 15:13 “There is no greater love than to lay down one’s life for one’s friends.”). It’s not just to say this in a literal sense, even though it may become the case for some. What I mean by this is that we are to sacrifice ourselves for others. Humble ourselves. For instance, how many times have we seen a homeless person on the street corner and not even make eye contact with them? How many times have we asked ourselves how they feel as a human being who is loved and cherished by our Father? Can we even dare to view them as a valued person in the Kingdom of God? Are they not one of His children, as you and I are?
Sacrifice can even mean something as simple as taking time out of our day to go park somewhere nearby and *gasp* approach this person. Maybe spend some time hearing their life story. Listening to their struggles and triumphs. You may or may not be called to give them money, but why not? Tithing can be above just giving your church some cash. Honestly speaking, I have found myself saying “It might be wasted on drugs or alcohol…” Well, who am I to say God can’t use that money to help someone in need? It doesn’t matter what I think they may use it on. God knows their heart. They may actually waste it, or they might not. It’s not for me to decide. I can tell you that if you even spend some time with them, to fully hear them out, and demonstrate that they have even have enough value to someone by paying some attention to them, that it speaks volumes to their hearts.
What I have found that a universal need for human beings is that we all want to be loved. We all want to be accepted. We all want to be valued. We all want to feel significant. Christians in the western church, and even elsewhere in the world definitely do not portray to people that they are loved. It’s quite the opposite. People freely think that we are the most judgmental hypocrites that have ever walked the Earth. Go ahead, ask some of your friends, or a complete stranger. The universal agreement is that we do not love people. We judge them. We display hate, or even worse, love with an agenda. We cannot simply display acts of kindness without attaching religion to it.
Something a friend of mine has told me over and over is that if we were to go out and randomly help people without attaching any sort of requirement to be helped, it would speak volumes to people. For instance, going out to a parking area on a normal basis and randomly putting coins in the meters that were expired. Sure, if someone asked, we can tell them what we were up to and why. Just tell them that we love them, and where we are from.
Another example is a church setting aside a bit of cash to pay people’s delinquent water or electric bill without an agenda. Just send the message that we love them and want to bless them.
People respond to pure love and kindness. It doesn’t have to be recruiting people into a congregation. We just need to demonstrate love.
1John 4:19 says “We love each other because he loved us first.”, and 1 John 4:8-11 says “But anyone who does not love does not know God, for God is love. God showed how much he loved us by sending his one and only Son into the world so that we might have eternal life through him. This is real love—not that we loved God, but that he loved us and sent his Son as a sacrifice to take away our sins. Dear friends, since God loved us that much, we surely ought to love each other.”
I know it seems hard to love others. Loving people cannot be done through our own strength. Love comes as an overflow. First, as Jesus pointed out in His commandments, is to love God. Loving God comes as a response. As I pointed out in 1 John 4:19, we see that we love God because He first loved us. We allow Him to love us, and we love Him in return. What we can do is just meditate, or think of how much He loves us. How does God see you? There is a lot I can speak on just this alone. For example, John 4:20-21 says “When I am raised to life again, you will know that I am in my Father, and you are in me, and I am in you. Those who accept my commandments and obey them are the ones who love me. And because they love me, my Father will love them. And I will love them and reveal myself to each of them.”
Jesus and you (as a believer) are one. God does not see you as a separate being. Just realizing that you are accepted as God’s son or daughter as He accepts Jesus has to give you a mind blowing vision of your value. God loves you as an individual absolutely. Completely. Without end. Romans8:38 says “And I am convinced that nothing can ever separate us from God’s love. Neither death nor life, neither angels nor demons, neither our fears for today nor our worries about tomorrow—not even the powers of hell can separate us from God’s love.”
So how much value do you think God has for you?
Ok, so we see how much God loves us, and we naturally respond in love to Him. The thing is, when we respond to Him with the love He already gave us, we cannot keep it to ourselves. We begin to see others through the love He demonstrates for us. God loves every single person, and values them as much as He does us. So when we see how much He loves them, and how He views them, our perspective changes as a response. We can love people because the love that is in us begins to boil over. Our limited bodies cannot fully hold the love of God. The Spirit of God that lives within us longs to come out. His love spills over like a fountain. John 7:37-39 says “On the last day, the climax of the festival, Jesus stood and shouted to the crowds, “Anyone who is thirsty may come to me! Anyone who believes in me may come and drink! For the Scriptures declare, ‘Rivers of living water will flow from his heart.’” (When he said “living water,” he was speaking of the Spirit, who would be given to everyone believing in him. But the Spirit had not yet been given, because Jesus had not yet entered into his glory.)”
What God is calling His people to do is simply love. Love is a universal need every single person has. We are born with this desire. We die without it. Simply put, God is love (1 John 4:16). We are to demonstrate to every person how much God loves them, and it begins with allowing God to love us.
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Awesome word David! Wow so true its all about LOVE
“Simply love”.
The third topic is “love one another.” It’s been said that they will know we are His by our love. Sadly, the church somehow interpreted that as we’d be recognized as being followers of Christ by our doctrinal beliefs, our church attendance, our adherence to rules and traditions, our awesome worship services, our in depth knowledge of the Bible, and so forth. Then we scratch our heads and wonder why so many want nothing to do with God. We convinced ourselves we loved one another but the truth is the church has been totally relationally impaired. Everything has been agenda driven and all our interpretations of the Bible have been from an institutional perspective. We’d go through great contortions in order to force the New Testament that was written entirely from a relational reality to fit into our institutional boxes. Our relationships resembled those found within a corporation or a social club rather than a family. And that’s just it; for the most part the reality of the body of Christ being a family was simply not present. At most the church resembled some kind of horribly dysfunctional family in which certain brothers dominated their other siblings as they kept them at a distance from their Father, all the while convincing their siblings and themselves they were doing their Father a service. But that season is coming to a close as the children of God are refusing to allow any person to stand between them and their Father any longer. Many who once dominated their siblings are realizing they are actually equals and repenting of their domineering ways and finding great joy in simply being a part of the family. Believers are shedding old identities and starting to place their identities in Christ and Christ alone. Because of this, believers are finding it easier to love others, especially those who are different from themselves. Relationship with one another is rapidly becoming the priority among the saints.
When our hearts are reluctant we often have to compel ourselves to pray for our enemies, to pour out prayer for those who are against us. Would that our hearts were filled with love! How frequently we offer a prayer for our enemies, but do it because we are commanded to, not out of love for them. We ask the gift of life for them even while we are afraid that our prayer may be heard. The Judge of our souls considers our hearts rather than our words. Those who do not pray for their enemies out of love are not asking anything for their benefit. St. Gregory the Great, Be Friends of God.
When our hearts are reluctant we often have to compel ourselves to pray for our enemies, to pour out prayer for those who are against us. Would that our hearts were filled with love! How frequently we offer a prayer for our enemies, but do it because we are commanded to, not out of love for them. We ask the gift of life for them even while we are afraid that our prayer may be heard. The Judge of our souls considers our hearts rather than our words. Those who do not pray for their enemies out of love are not asking anything for their benefit. St. Gregory the Great, Be Friends of God.
Loving God first we would discover Pure Love and would find ourselves unable to wean ourselves away from it. We would discover that the love we experience from spouses, children, family and friends cannot compare to the love of God. The love of God compared to the love of human beings is like comparing the Sistine Chapel to paint-by-numbers. We would begin to let go of the belief that life and happiness can be found in this changing world and our attachments to it would begin to break down. We would become mystics, burning with divine fire, overflowing with love for all and joy unbounded and who, in their right mind, would want that?