02/22/2021
After accepting God as our Lord, and Jesus as our Savior, we find ourselves able to love those around us as God loves, and to love the Father as Jesus did. We are blessed in this way because we have become the sons and daughters of God, and bear not only His name, and image, but His Spirit within us. Yet, we are still challenged by our old selves as Satan continues his attempt to reinsert it into our daily lives. Are we able to resist the old person, and hold firm to our new transformed self as we should?
“And because you are sons, God has sent the Spirit of his Son into our hearts, crying, “Abba! Father!””
Galatians 4:6 ESV
Recognizing God as Abba, Father, and listening to His Holy Spirit within us gives us the strength we need to love just as Jesus loved, and even more, to love as our Heavenly Father loves. You see, the Holy Spirit is a powerful force within us and leads us to love as we never dreamed possible. I was reading a devotional message this morning that was written by Andrew Murray, and he wrote a thought that I invite you to join me in meditating on today...
“The Spirit will enable me to overcome the world and its entanglements, and bear witness to the wonder and possibilities of Christ’s life in me. He will fill me with love for God’s people; with love for those who dislike or ignore me; and with love for those who do not yet know Christ, so that I shall pray for them and be ready to help them. He will give me love for the whole world and fill me with enthusiasm for those activities that bring the gospel to all humankind.” - Andrew Murray
As I read Murray’s words they convicted me, not because I had never loved, but because I had not consistently loved to this degree. They further challenged me because I had not exhibited enthusiasm for the gospel to all humankind each and every moment of every day as I should. Oh, I love, and yes I show enthusiasm, but not with my every breath, or even in every instance that I have been offered the opportunity to do so... are you finding yourself similarly convicted?
“A new commandment I give to you, that you love one another: just as I have loved you, you also are to love one another.”
John 13:34 ESV
It is easy for us to love our parents and our siblings because we are of one blood, but to love all of mankind is a challenge that we can’t face alone. To love the torturer who punishes us, even as we hear his whip cutting through the air, or to love the executioner at the instant we feel his nail piercing our flesh... to love men such as these we need more strength than we can muster on our own; we need the love of Christ; a love for which we desperately long, but find hard to perfect. To achieve such love we must turn to the Holy Spirit.
“and hope does not put us to shame, because God’s love has been poured into our hearts through the Holy Spirit who has been given to us.”
Romans 5:5 ESV
So why don’t we consistently love as God and Jesus do? It is because we turn back towards the world in unguarded moments when we should faithfully be looking towards our Father through His Holy Spirit. We do this so often that we consider it innocent, but is it? We are writing a proposal at work, or concentrating on a sport we are playing, and in instances such as these, where is God in our thoughts? Do we lose sight of Jesus in moments when we are chiding a child, or correcting a coworker? All of these moments should include the Holy Spirit, and in this way we should find the love of God directing them.
So are we feeling God’s love in every aspect of our life? Are we conducting our business dealings in love? Are we competing with others in love? Are we correcting our children in love, and are we administering discipline to our employees in love? Andrew Murray convicted me today, and I hope he did the same to you... not because we don’t love, but because we don’t love as we should... always, in everything, with determination, and perfectly as Christ did. So today let’s turn towards the Holy Spirit as we go through our day; loving as God loves, and as men... loving as Jesus taught us to do.
“Be watchful, stand firm in the faith, act like men, be strong. Let all that you do be done in love.”
1 Corinthians 16:13-14 ESV
Prayer:
Father thank you for loving us as you do, and for sending your Holy Spirit to guide us as we strive to love in our lives like Jesus loved in His... perfectly. Help us Lord to keep our focus on you in every aspect of our lives, and in even the most trivial things we do today. Let your love be the underpinning of our dealings with Saints, and sinners alike. Holy, Holy, Holy, are you who loves perfectly, and without faltering. Praised be your name for the love with which you teach us, correct us, and discipline us. You are merciful Father and yet your love doesn’t limit itself to mercy, but extends to grace. Give us wisdom Lord so that we can grasp the importance of loving, and strength so that we can exercise it as we should. Wash us lovingly in the blood of Jesus, and in this way make us pure, and acceptable to you. Find us worthy as we love one another, and you Father. Call us with living voice to eternity with you, and hold us close forevermore.
“Beloved, let us love one another, for love is from God, and whoever loves has been born of God and knows God. Anyone who does not love does not know God, because God is love. In this the love of God was made manifest among us, that God sent his only Son into the world, so that we might live through him. In this is love, not that we have loved God but that he loved us and sent his Son to be the propitiation for our sins. Beloved, if God so loved us, we also ought to love one another. No one has ever seen God; if we love one another, God abides in us and his love is perfected in us.”
1 John 4:7-12 ESV
Rich Forbes