| Do you know that God loves you? Have you just acknowledged what someone told you or what you may have read in the Bible? Do you really KNOW God's love, or is it something you hope is true?
Would you like to hear the best news you'll ever hear?
The feelings God has for you are the most powerful force in the universe!
God loves you!
But when we use the word love, its a bit ambiguous. The Greek language is a bit clearer, separating it into three distinct terms. Eros refers to love of the Flesh, Phileo refers to love of the Soul and Agape refers to love of the Spirit.
As natural people, we can express both the Physical and Soul types of love. But the Spirit type of love is beyond us, we can't "just do" that. The reason is simple...the source of the Spirit type of love is God. It is His very nature to "agape".
We naturally understand and comprehend love based on some type of performance. We say, "I love you because..." and we expect the same from others..."they love me because..." But God's love is different. God doesn't say, "I love you because..." God says, "I love you...period."
If we never understand this about God's love, we won't be able to receive all the wonderful benefits that it affords us. God's love for us is completely unconditional. There are no strings attached.
If we believe that He loves us "because", then we feel the need to give Him a cause. In other words, we try to earn His love with our behavior. This doesn't really help, because God isn't impressed with our good deeds. In fact, Isaiah 64:6 tells us that all our good deeds are "like filthy rags". For our deeds to be truly righteous, they must be motivated and empowered by God's agape or Spirit love, and we can't earn that.
When we read 1 Corinthians 13, we see a very good definition of what agape love is supposed to be. But the problem isn't in our understanding of love's definitions, I believe its in our understanding of how to do it.
The first and greatest commandment is to Love the Lord your God with all of your heart, mind, soul and strength. And then Jesus gives us a new commandment, "Love one another, even as I have loved you."
In John 14:21, Jesus said, "He that has My commandments, and keeps them, he it is that loves Me"
The trouble I believe most of us have in understanding this is the word "commandments". By its very nature, it sounds like a leaning back toward the Law. But 1 Corinthians 15:56 says, "The sting of death is sin; and the strength of sin is the law."
We need to guard ourselves from going back toward the Law. In Romans 6:14, Paul says "for you are not under the law, but under grace."
We've all heard the preachers who "scold" us for not loving one another as we ought to. They proceed to give us all the Biblical definitions of what love should be and then berate us for not measuring up to what we're supposed to be. In conclusion, they point to scriptures like John 14:21 and say, "You don't love Jesus if you're not keeping His commandments to love one another."
Well, according to the Bible, that's true. But there are a couple of problems with scourging the sheep.
The first is making love a "legalistic" thing that "thou shalt" do and your failure to means you don't love Jesus. The ultimate implications can lead to confusion and doubt of our salvation, to the point of turning many away from the loving grace of our Heavenly Father.
For those who don't turn away, it gives strength to sin in our lives, and we find ourselves frustrated because we're being required to do something that is impossible for us to do and we remain in old bondages that should have been long gone from our lives.
The second problem with this kind of teaching is really pretty simple.
You can't give what you don't have. And that's what I want to talk about.
Do you have God's love?
Have you received it?
Now wait, I'm not asking if you prayed a "sinner's prayer", got baptized or joined a church. I'm not asking if you're a "Christian".
Have you received God's love?
What's the difference?
If we're not keeping Jesus' commandments to love, its simply because we need to get some before we can give it. Once you've received it, giving it away is no problem. We don't need to be told what to do.
When David said, "My cup runneth over!", he wasn't kidding. We can't contain His love. When He pours it out on us, it will spill over on others. When we get filled up with God's love, we don't need to be told to love, we can't be stopped from loving.
So...how do we receive God's love?
Well, the answer can be simple or it can be a little deeper. The quick and easy answer is to simply receive it by faith. But if you're like me, that's a bit ambiguous and it sounds too spiritualistic.
1 John 4:19 Tells us that "We love Him, because He first loved us." But how did He love us?
He came as a Prince for us...His betrothed. But we had turned away and been sold into slavery. We had played the harlot with the prince of this world and under God's law we were convicted, condemned and sentenced to death.
Instead of condemning us and executing our sentence, our Prince loved us and had compassion on us. He knew we couldn't bear the wrath of God's anger for our sin. So He stood in our place and allowed the Father to vent His full fury against Him. It cost Him His life...but He had freely laid it down.
What manner of love is this? How can He love those who want no part of Him enough to give all for them?
That's just it...such a deep and intense love draws us to Him. But here's the place where many of us have struggled...we aren't worthy of that kind of love.
In John 13, Jesus washed the disciples' feet. But Peter struggled with it, realizing that he wasn't worthy to be served by his Master. But Jesus told him that if he didn't receive it, he had no part in Him.
If we're not careful, we'll let our false sense of justice convince us that because we aren't worthy of His love and He isn't worthy of our punishment there must be more...I still have to work to pay Him back for all He has done.
Its OK to come to the foot of the Cross and realize that we aren't worthy of such love. In fact, I believe we really need to do that. But we can't just stop there.
Yes, I have sinned! And No, I am not worthy of His love. But when we reach up and lay our trembling hands on His broken body, that's it. He died to take our sin...so give it to Him and don't look back...we're forgiven...completely. It is finished!
Yes we need to acknowledge our sin, but once we've done that, we need to stop beating ourselves up because we were so bad and simply receive the goodness of His love for us. We must let Him forgive us AND receive that forgiveness by our faith in Him.
We can and should remember what He did for us, and we do that through the Holy Communion. But it is His demonstration of love that needs to remain before us, not an ongoing guilt over our failures. He demonstrated His love for us to set us free from the bondage of guilt and shame for our failures.
That's just the beginning. In Romans 8:15, Paul tells us that we "have received the Spirit of adoption, whereby we cry, Abba, Father."
But once again, we face that "I'm not worthy" barrier. No, we weren't worthy to be Sons and Daughters of the Most High before we received His forgiveness. But that changes after we receive Jesus...we become worthy because He is worthy.
We must get past our religious ideaologies about our sin. We're not perfect. He knows it and He loves us just the way we are. That's why He paid the price for our sin.
When we can see beyond our unworthy-ness of His love, it opens the way for us to receive it...in full measure. He wants to pour it out on us, filling us up till our cups run over. All we have to do is lift our cups to Him and receive it.
After I've received His love, then what?
Live it!
What does that mean? How can I live it?
One of the most important things we can do is come into agreement with God's Will and His Word. That's the essence of the word 'repentance', it is a change of mind. Proper repentance is to change our minds that they agree with God.
In the great Love chapter; 1 Corinthians 13, the first three verses tell us that all the things we might do are essentially a senseless, worthless waste of time without love. Now that might seem a bit strong, but the precepts that support it are pretty clear.
Romans 14:23 tells us that "whatever is not of faith is sin." In Hebrews 11:6, we read, "without faith it is impossible to please God." And Galatians 5:6 says that "faith works by love."
Add it all up and what do you get?
All the things we do and say that aren't motivated by His love are senseless, worthless to Him and a waste of our time. It doesn't matter how well we might modify our behavior or speech. It doesn't matter how many sermons we preach, how many poor people we help or how much money we give...nothing we do or say has any value if it isn't motivated by the love of God.
Remember the old country song "Lookin' For Love"? Most of us may remember or at least associate with the lyrics that talk about looking for love in all the wrong places.
You see, the thing about God's love is that it not only fills FULL our lives, it FULL fills our lives, too. And that's what we're all looking for...fulfillment.
When we live our lives trying to please God with our good behavior, what we're actually doing is seeking the the fulfillment that can only be found in Him. We're trying to buy the approval that He has already given us in Christ. And I hate to say it, but that's just dead religion.
Have you been tithing and giving money to churches and ministers because "that's what we're supposed to do"? Do you wonder where's the harvest from all you financial seed?
Have you been taught to give, then receive and after you receive to give thanks?
We do that at the grocery store, its called a 'purchase'.
I'm not saying that we should stop giving. But we can't give what we don't have. I believe the better approach is to first receive, then to give thanks for and with what we have received.
I believe that all of our "problem" behaviors and addictions are somewhere founded in our lack of fulfillment. Once the thing we lack is fulfilled, the problem behaviors and addictions aren't needed any more and amazingly, they just go away.
So, what's the application? What's our part in all of this?
Romans 1:25 speaks of men exchanging the truth of God for a lie. The first thing that we need to do is undo that exchange. As long as we believe the 'Liar', we'll always be told how unworthy we are and how angry God is with us.
The truth is:
For God so loved the world that He gave His only begotten Son, that whoever believes in Him should not perish but have everlasting life. For God did not send His Son into the world to condemn the world, but that the world through Him might be saved. John 3:16-17
But God demonstrated His own love toward us, in that while we were still sinners, Christ died for us. Romans 5:8
But God, who is rich in mercy, because of His great love with which He loved us, even when we were dead in trespasses, made us alive together with Christ (by grace you have been saved), and raised us up together, and made us sit together in the heavenly places in Christ Jesus, that in the ages to come He might show the exceeding riches of His grace in His kindness toward us in Christ Jesus. Ephesians 2:4-7
He who does not love does not know God, for God is love. In this the love of God was manifested toward us, that God has sent His only begotten Son into the world, that we might live through Him. In this is love, not that we loved God, but that He loved us and sent His Son to be the propitiation for our sins. 1 John 4:8-10
Don't fall for the lie. Spend some time in the truth of God's Word. Seek the truth of His love for you. He wants you to know without any doubt that His love for you is real. He wants you to be whole, complete, at peace and fulfilled.
You can KNOW that God loves you!
For this reason I bow my knees to the Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, from whom the whole family in heaven and earth is named, that He would grant you, according to the riches of His glory, to be strengthened with might through His Spirit in the inner man, that Christ may dwell in your hearts through faith; that you, being rooted and grounded in love, may be able to comprehend with all the saints what is the width and length and depth and height-- to know the love of Christ which passes knowledge; that you may be filled with all the fullness of God. Now to Him who is able to do exceedingly abundantly above all that we ask or think, according to the power that works in us, to Him be glory in the church by Christ Jesus to all generations, forever and ever. Amen. |
