If our nation will once again return to God in a bold and powerful way, remorseful, repentant, and professing our love for Him, then He will circumcise our hearts so that we will be able to not only love him minimally, but with all our heart, mind, soul, and strength… even to our children. He does this so that we can love Him as His greatest commandment spoke of, and so that we might have eternal life.
As Christian men and women of faith we have received various gifts and callings from God so that together, as one body, we can bring His perfect will to light in the world. We each are inclined to see our calling as the all in all, but in the whole it must be joined with the calling of all the others to produce the result that God has planned. For this to happen the glue, and the mortar must join them together; this everlasting adhesive being love. Are we ready to join our calling with all the others through the power that binds us… love?
You are a Christian, but are there certain sins that you feel are holding you captive? Is your faith suffering because of some stubborn sinful behavior that you just can’t shake loose from? Sometimes we can begin to feel like a sin is holding us hostage, and that there is nothing we can do to escape it, but that is simply untrue because we have been crucified with Jesus, and in Him our sins have been brought to naught. We have been emancipated… set free from the bondage of sin.
Through the Holy Spirit we receive love, and many various gifts from God, and we know that we are to use them in doing God’s will, and to bring Him glory, but there are other reasons we have been given these gifts… we are to use them in service to one another, and also as we serve to be stewards of God’s grace. Do we receive a gift from God but neglect to use it as a means of helping and loving others? Do we love our brothers and sisters in Christ, and our neighbors, as a dispensation of grace by using our gifts to ease the burdens in their lives, and to further God’s influence in them?
God knows our hearts, and Jesus knows us too, but unless we are given instructions from Them, or the Holy Spirit, we can’t know these things about one another…. Or can we? There are occasions when we are given insight into a person, or situation that there is no way we could have known. This is not accomplished by mind reading, or deductive reasoning, but through the gift of empathy, or seeing into another’s heart, and we are led to know these things so that we can accomplish the will of God.
What we say, and the way we behave influences others, and as Christians this can win souls for the kingdom of God, or drive them away towards eternal damnation. The consequences of the decisions we make, actions we take, and things we profess as being true, are profound in their effect on others... whether we intend for them to be this way or not. Our faith, or lack of it, holds the key to life and death for all those who witness our behavior, hear what we teach, and otherwise see our faith in action. In a dark world they are drawn to even a dim light of hope… how true is the light we shine into the darkness?
When the love of God has been given us as a gift of the Spirit it is never a burden, but a joy to wake up to every morning, and a pleasure that fills our entire day. We are told to keep His commandments, and to obey the commandments of Jesus, but neither of these are unpleasant, nor difficult, if our heart is in the right place. In this way His love takes control of our every breath and action, and we are renewed by it with every new dawn. Our dread is overcome, and we are never alone.
There is a difference between loving someone as man does, and loving someone as God does. It is good to like others, but we are instructed in scripture to dig deeper than that; we are told to love. To meet others, especially others of faith, and simply like them, or to go through the motions as if we love them is far from where we should be spiritually. Liking is a superficial emotion, that can be based on nothing more than having similar interests, or enjoying the same things, but love comes from the heart, and soul. Love is of God, and is God.
When the laws and efforts of men place chains on us, the followers of Jesus Christ, and attempt to imprison our faith, do not lose heart, but know that while chains might constrain our bodies, the Word of God is not bound. This gives all those of faith the ability to love their enemies, and pray for the souls of the oppressors who stand against them. This allows us to obey our call the name of Christ, and worship God always. We should never lose faith when persecuted, or become disheartened when our prayers are prohibited in open forums. No, our prayers are heard always, even when our tongues are stilled by force, because the Word of God remains free, and we will praise Him even in our shackles.
We talk about the word “Love” a great deal, and we even say it to one another with great frequency, but by saying it, teaching it, studying it, and reciting poems and scriptures containing it, have we trivialized the true emotion and power of this word? Have we taken an emotion that is amazingly precious, given by God, and then systematically drained the true meaning from it? Is the love we once professed verbally for a spouse by saying the word “love” still capable of expressing how we feel after years of marriage, or has that “love” become something much more, something that even an hourly profession of “I love you” can’t convey? Was saying the word ever anything more than an incomplete attempt at expressing the depth of emotion we felt? We can say the word “love” a million times in our lifetimes and mean nothing by it, but if we have ever felt it, even once, we know just how ill equipped this word was at describing it.
Scripture teaches us over and over again that we are to be like Jesus, and our Heavenly Father. We were created in the image of God, and then we are instructed to love as God loves, pray as Jesus prays, and among many other examples, we are instructed to forgive as they forgive. These things lead us towards becoming perfect as God is perfect… which is what we have been instructed to be. Yet, given our damaged human nature doesn’t the thought of failing to be perfect frighten us?
When we forgive someone who has wronged us do we actually forgive them as we should? Oh, we might say the words, hug one another, kiss, shake hands, and even shed tears, but do we put our differences completely behind us? Do we forgive, and then choose not to remember their iniquities; putting them out of our minds, never to be thought of again? Do we separate ourselves from them as God does?
One of the hardest commandments that Jesus spoke to us regarding love is for us to love our enemies, and pray for them. It seems unnatural to love someone who seeks your demise, or wants to harm you in some way. For an unbelieving man this is truly impossible. When we read these words we wonder if loving our enemy is a sacrifice we are asked to make in order to change this person in some way, but as we study these verses we come to understand that by obeying Jesus we are actually refining our own faith, because without knowing, and leaning heavily on the Lord, then loving someone who hates us would be impossible for us to accomplish.
We are a lot like Moses when it comes to delivering the Gospel message. We question our ability with the same excuses which he used… we begin with saying that we are not the right person for the job and that God has obviously made a mistake by asking us to do this. Do you remember the universal excuse that Moses used, and that we are often guilty of employing?
Have you ever met someone that you have never known before, but have instantly recognized as a Christian? Before the first word was spoken, or introduction had been made, was there something that drew you to them as if your meeting had been planned all along? What is it that occurs at such moments? As certainly as we have physical appearances that our eyes recognize, we also have spiritual presences that one’s spirit recognizes in another. Do you believe this?