09/11/2018
Love is central to our faith as Christians, and not just a personal love that is limited to family, friends, and self, but a love that flows into all of the world, and beyond. The love we exhibit is meant to be so profound that it is witnessed and taken as a spectacle in heaven itself! Are you living such a life today? Has your love become other-worldly?
“"This is my commandment, that you love one another as I have loved you.”
John 15:12 ESV
We begin to grow into the love that God designed us for by first loving one another. We are told to love one another, that is, our friends and other Christians. This is not like loving our families, which comes built into us from the factory, but a love that is added on, much as a teenaged boy transforms the old family automobile into a high performing car. We gain the wisdom and educated to know what it means, and then we do the work that extends its performance. Loving in this way requires that we undergo a change in who we are... to become like Jesus. He is our blueprint, our instruction sheet for a life of love and faith.
This is the first step in extending our love to the degree that God desires of us. You see, we are not meant to remain the limited people of the selfsame love that all the world demonstrates, the base model we were born as, but to be more! We are instructed to love one another not as we have been doing, but as Jesus Christ loves us. Learning this requires that we not only enhance the love that we received at birth, but that we defeat or remove those things that have limited our ability to love with the intensity of Christ. Using our analogy of the old family car and the teenage boy... the first thing he must do is to remove anything from the old car’s engine that governs it’s power and speed. We need to do the same to who we are so that our spiritual being is prepared to receive the enhancements that will boost our faith.
Once we have begun to change, one of the first indicators that we are being successful, besides loving ourselves and family better, is an increase in the love we share with our friends and neighbors. We begin to demonstrate, beyond our core family, the love that Jesus gave so readily.
Loving in this manner is not an easy thing to do, and some believers stop right here. Some of us never perfect this step, while others think this is the ultimate goal, but we are asked to go further... not only are we to love ourselves, our families, and our immediate neighbors, as Jesus loved us, but we are told to reach out into the world and love them as God loved us too.
“"For God so loved the world, that he gave his only Son, that whoever believes in him should not perish but have eternal life.”
John 3:16 ESV
Have you ever been loved, or felt love, for a complete stranger? How about someone whose habits and customs are so different from yours that you are put off by them? Have you tried foods, worn clothes, or participated in celebrations and customs that you felt uncomfortable with because doing otherwise would have offend a newfound friend, or acquaintance? Reaching out into the world with the Love of Christ means we must be prepared to show that love in ways that might make us feel uneasy. Yet the love you show, even though it is uncomfortable to you, makes those who are strange to you feel at ease, and in this way you might lead them to Christ by your example.
“And there came a voice to him: "Rise, Peter; kill and eat." But Peter said, "By no means, Lord; for I have never eaten anything that is common or unclean." And the voice came to him again a second time, "What God has made clean, do not call common."”
Acts 10:13-15 ESV
So we extend our love into the world and become an example to them of God’s love, and of Jesus Christ. In this way they will be inclined to hear the gospel through you. Now you are probably shaking your head yes, and thinking this is the ultimate display of love, but there is one more step that is required of us... to be an example of love to heaven itself! Had you ever considered this to be required of you, or even possible? Well listen as Paul writes to the Corinthians...
“For I think that God has exhibited us apostles as last of all, like men sentenced to death, because we have become a spectacle to the world, to angels, and to men.”
1 Corinthians 4:9 ESV
We are not only to be a spectacle to men, and to the world, but to angels. Even in our physical bodies we are to extend into heaven itself by the love we are able to show. Are we prepared to enter the kingdom of God and treat its inhabitants with love? We talk all of the time about loving God, and Jesus, but what about demonstrating love to angels? Or how about the other inhabitants? What will you feel when you see them? How far is the reach of your love?
“the first living creature like a lion, the second living creature like an ox, the third living creature with the face of a man, and the fourth living creature like an eagle in flight. And the four living creatures, each of them with six wings, are full of eyes all around and within, and day and night they never cease to say, "Holy, holy, holy, is the Lord God Almighty, who was and is and is to come!"”
Revelation 4:7-8 ESV
So we are to take the love which comes naturally to us and abide in it perfecting it as we become more like Jesus. We are to love our families, our neighbors, the world, and indeed the inhabitants of heaven. Even as I ask myself, where do I stand in all of this, you should be asking yourself. Have you removed the governors, the limiting factors, from your love? Have you begun to improve the performance of your ability to love as you reach out into the world? Or are you nearing perfection, and resemble a high performance race car in heaven itself?
The love of God knows no bounds... are you striving to accompany Him on that journey?
“Love bears all things, believes all things, hopes all things, endures all things. Love never ends. As for prophecies, they will pass away; as for tongues, they will cease; as for knowledge, it will pass away.
So now faith, hope, and love abide, these three; but the greatest of these is love.”
1 Corinthians 13:7-8, 13 ESV
Prayer:
Father, I thank you for the love you instilled in me at birth, and for the greater love you teach me to experience with each passing day. Help me Heavenly Father as I reach out to the world, and even into heaven; help me as I learn to love them as you do. My love for you Holy Father is beyond all I have ever dreamed possible, and the love I have for your Son Jesus, who teaches me of your love, raises me up, and thrills my heart. Never let me dwell so completely on knowledge that I forget it will pass away. Never let me think that what I understand is my treasure, but help me Gracious Father to stand before you with love in my eyes and say ABBA, Father, I am home. Comfort me in that moment with the love you have prepared for me since the inception of creation itself. In your bosom let me find the essence of you in the perfect love that resides there. Let me abide in you Father, even as Jesus abides in you. Let me camp within your love forever. You are worthy of all glory, and all praise, for you are the Holy, Holy, Holy, God of love unending. Hear me as I pray...
“By this we know that we abide in him and he in us, because he has given us of his Spirit.
Whoever confesses that Jesus is the Son of God, God abides in him, and he in God. So we have come to know and to believe the love that God has for us. God is love, and whoever abides in love abides in God, and God abides in him.”
1 John 4:13, 15-16 ESV
Rich Forbes