John 13:34 A new commandment I give to you, that you love one another; as I have loved you, that you also love one another.
When I read this passage today, I come to one dramatic conclusion: We have a lot of work to do! I'm afraid that many of us love, but not with a love that resembles God's love for us. We love with strings attached. We love those who are similar to us. We love those whom we are comfortable with. We love those whom we deem to be worthy of. If Jesus loved with that kind of love, He would not have loved His disciples, and definitely not us! I often wonder how many times I have sinned against God. How many times I have ignored Him. How many times, if He were not God, I would've "got on His nerves", or annoyed Him. I'm afraid that number would be larger than I would expect, but even then, He loved me still! So let's ask this question: Who are we, that we can refuse someone our love because they are different, hard to live with, or even irritating? Really? When we find ourselves only loving the "loveable", we must come to this conclusion: we have left our first love, and we are no longer walking in the Spirit. God is love, and His Spirit will always manifest Himself in that way. You can give, sacrifice, even speak the language of angels, but if you don't have love.......it's useless and worthless. Like I said, we have a lot of work to do. Amen
The sum of all that God wants from us is to love. And not as we would love but as He does. I remember being relieved when I heard that I didn't have the right stuff to love like I wanted to. I didn't have to feel the condemnation anymore for not being good enough. All I had to do was let go of my pride and see things God's way. He would give me the right stuff and He did! I am not where I want to be with maturity in God's love but I am not where I once was. God has brought me a long way from the selfish, self-centered, prideful man that I was. Actually, that old person is dead and God's love keeps him dead everyday. Without the daily slaughter of God's love we are useless and worthless to others and ourselves. God, I open wide the mouth of my heart,FILL ME UP!
ReplyDeleteWow, this is exactly what the spirit was speaking to me this morning. God is Love and if we all are full of hate and unforgiveness towards others we definitely aren't living in Christ. Actually I was given the scripture 1 Thessalonians 1:3 remember without ceasing your work of faith, LABOR OF LOVE, and patience of hope in our Lord Jesus Christ in the sight of our God and Father, knowing, beloved brethren , your election by God. And then I was given the scripture 1 John 5:11 And this is the testimony: that God has given us eternal life, and this life is in His Son. That expresses the greatest amount of LOVE that our father has for us and we can't give someone eternal life but we can live Christ like and share encouraging words of Faith to bring someone to Him. Thank you pastor Pate for sharing this.
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