The Ingredient of Love
Bloody Love
Many sincere Christians around the world admit that they are disappointed in their walk of faith. They say, "This faith stuff just does not work." Even those critics outside of Christianity are quick to point out the failures.
Author
There is an obvious Great Disparity between, on the one hand, the hope for life expressed in Jesus, found real in the Bible and in many shining examples from among his followers, and, on the other hand, the actual day-to-day behavior, inner life, and social presence of most of those who now profess adherence to him.
The question must arise: Why the Great Disparity? Is it caused by something built into the very nature of Jesus and what he taught and brought to humankind? Or is it the result of inessential factors that attach themselves to Christian institutions and people as they journey through time? Are we in a period when both rank-and-file Christians and most of their leaders have, for some reason, missed the main point?
If your neighbor is having trouble with his automobile, you might think he just got a lemon [a defective automobile]. And you might be right. But if you found that he was supplementing his gasoline with a quart of water now and then, you would not blame the car or its maker for it not running, or for running in fits and starts. You would say that the car was not built to work under the conditions imposed by the owner. And you would certainly advise him to put only the appropriate kind of fuel in the tank. After some restorative work, perhaps the car would then run fine.
This book on faith is meant to address this issue and to simplify the proper ingredients so that your faith may be real, vital, and operative and show results for your life, for those in your realm of influence and for the
Peter lists many vital ingredients to faith.
We will discuss these ingredients and others in this book.
2 Peter 1:2-11:
2 Grace and peace be multiplied to you in the knowledge of God and of Jesus our Lord,
3 as His divine power has given to us all things that pertain to life and godliness, through the knowledge of Him who called us by glory and virtue,
4 by which have been given to us exceedingly great and precious promises, that through these you may be partakers of the divine nature, having escaped the corruption that is in the world through lust.
5 But also for this very reason, giving all diligence, add to your faith virtue, to virtue knowledge,
6 to knowledge self-control, to self-control perseverance, to perseverance godliness,
7 to godliness brotherly kindness, and to brotherly kindness love.
8 For if these things are yours and abound, you will be neither barren nor unfruitful in the knowledge of our Lord Jesus Christ.
9 For he who lacks these things is shortsighted, even to blindness, and has forgotten that he was cleansed from his old sins.
10 Therefore, brethren, be even more diligent to make your call and election sure, for if you do these things you will never stumble;
11 for so an entrance will be supplied to you abundantly into the everlasting kingdom of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ.
Notice in the above Scripture:
1. God gives us everything we need for life and godliness by knowing Him.
2. His exceedingly great and precious promises are the containers for everything we need. As I pointed out in Chapter 1, we receive His promises as we are intimate with Him in the form of a seed that is planted in our hearts. That is the beginning of faith.
3. Peter gives us many of the needed ingredients to add to this process of faith.
This Chapter discusses the ingredient of love.
"For in Christ Jesus neither circumcision nor uncircumcision avails anything, but faith working through love" (Galatians 5:6).
If God has spoken and you have heard His voice, then the promise of God is in your heart, the seed has been planted. However the seed will only work in a "good heart, good ground." What is good? Love is the ground that will allow the seed to grow.
1 Corinthians 13:1-9a
1 Though I speak with the tongues of men and of angels, but have not love, I have become sounding brass or a clanging cymbal.
2 And though I have the gift of prophecy, and understand all mysteries and all knowledge, and though I have all faith, so that I could remove mountains, but have not love, I am nothing.
3 And though I bestow all my goods to feed the poor, and though I give my body to be burned, but have not love, it profits me nothing.
4 Love suffers long and is kind; love does not envy; love does not parade itself, is not puffed up;
5 does not behave rudely, does not seek its own, is not provoked, thinks no evil;
6 does not rejoice in iniquity, but rejoices in the truth;
7 bears all things, believes all things, hopes all things, endures all things.
8 Love never fails…
Faith will only operate in people who allow Jesus to live His love life through them.
In Mark Chapter 4, in The Parable of The Sower, Jesus points out that Satan's main task is to steal the Word of God, the seed, that He, Jesus, has planted in your heart. Satan can only steal the seed, the Word, the promise of God, by the limited means that Jesus points out in the Parable. Those means have to do with the "ground" or the character of the person in whom the seed has been sown. Those are people whose hearts are hard, or who cannot bear up against persecution and tribulation, or who are seeking the pleasures of the world. On the positive side, I submit that the "good ground," or the ground in which the seed will bear fruit, is that person who is living out the character of love, or the character of Jesus. Actually, all the other ingredients that we have and will discuss can fall under the category of love because they are attributes of Jesus, Whose name is love.
Obviously none of us are as perfect as Jesus; however, when we allow the Word of God to convict us of our sin, an amazing thing happens as we repent and confess. We are cleansed and put into the same condition of Jesus, just as if we never sinned.
Satan can find nothing in such a person.
From The Joyful Heart, Daily Meditations by Watchman Nee. March 4 [4]
"The prince of the world cometh: and he hath nothing in me." John 14:30.
When man was tempted and fell, God cursed the tempter. "Upon thy belly shalt thou go," he said, "and dust shalt thou eat." The sphere thus allocated to Satan was the earth, and his food was to be the very substance of which man had been made. Satan had gained a clear title to all that man had become by turning from God. He has acquired "squatter's rights" in the old creation.
Praise be to God that, through Christ, Satan has now no rights in us. God the Redeemer met the situation by taking the old creation out of the way at
Good news! Love is a fruit. If love is a fruit inserted inside of us, then that is grace.
"But the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, longsuffering, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, self-control. Against such there is no law" (Galatians 5:22, 23).
Caution! We have a choice. What is our responsibility?
Ephesians 3:16-19 says if we are rooted in love, then we can experience His real love, beyond mere knowledge. We can only give love to God and others after we have experienced His love. It is a continuous process. As we experience God's love and respond to Him and others with that same love, we become grounded.
"…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" (Ephesians 3:17-19).
Richard Wurmbrand, founder of The Voice of The Martyrs, said that love is spelled, s-a-c-r-i-f-i-c-e.
If love, Jesus, lives in us, and it is Him in us that lives the love life, then our only task is to take up our cross. It is called sacrifice. I call it "bloody love."
Fear and love are connected.
1 John 4:18 says that perfect love casts out all fear. How do we get the love that casts out all fear and causes faith to operate? Sacrifice. Love somebody that you find impossible to love. That will "ground" you in love.
Read 1 John 4:7-18 from the Amplified Bible.
7 Beloved, let us love one another, for love is (springs) from God; and he who loves [his fellowmen] is begotten (born) of God and is coming [progressively] to know and understand God [to perceive and recognize and get a better and clearer knowledge of Him].
8 He who does not love has not become acquainted with God [does not and never did know Him], for God is love.
9 In this the love of God was made manifest (displayed) where we are concerned: in that God sent His Son, the only begotten or unique [Son], into the world so that we might live through Him.
[Verses 9 and 10 say He loved us through His cross.]
10 In this is love: not that we loved God, but that He loved us and sent His Son to be the propitiation (the atoning sacrifice) for our sins.
11 Beloved, if God loved us so [very much], we also ought to love one another.
12 No man has at any time [yet] seen God. But if we love one another, God abides (lives and remains) in us and His love (that love which is essentially His) is brought to completion (to its full maturity, runs its full course, is perfected) in us!
Verse 12 says that His love in us is perfected by our acts of loving others. The only way we can love others is by taking up our cross. That may simply mean becoming unselfish, or it may mean forgiving others who have hurt us, even our enemies.
When we take up our cross, the remnant of our old nature is put away, including fear. When all that is left remaining in us is Jesus' nature, fear no longer can haunt you.
13 By this we come to know (perceive, recognize, and understand) that we abide (live and remain) in Him and He in us: because He has given (imparted) to us of His [Holy] Spirit.
14 And [besides] we ourselves have seen (have deliberately and steadfastly contemplated) and bear witness that the Father has sent the Son [as the] Savior of the world.
15 Anyone who confesses (acknowledges, owns) that Jesus is the Son of God, God abides (lives, makes His home) in him and he [abides, lives, makes his home] in God.
16 And we know (understand, recognize, are conscious of, by observation and by experience) and believe (adhere to and put faith in and rely on) the love God cherishes for us. God is love, and he who dwells and continues in love dwells and continues in God, and God dwells and continues in him.
17 In this [union and communion with Him] love is brought to completion and attains perfection with us, that we may have confidence for the day of judgment [with assurance and boldness to face Him], because as He is, so are we in this world.
18 There is no fear in love [dread does not exist], but full-grown (complete, perfect) love turns fear out of doors and expels every trace of terror! For fear brings with it the thought of punishment, and [so] he who is afraid has not reached the full maturity of love [is not yet grown into love's complete perfection].
Do you want your love perfected? Find someone unlovely to love, and watch fear evacuate your life and faith rise.
Love and fear cannot co-exist. Fear and faith cannot co-exist. My remedy for fear has always been to press into God's presence and allow Him to cause my faith to rise. When this happens, fear cannot torment you. You cannot love others, or yourself when fear is tormenting you.
God's Passion For Oneness by Jon Walker. [5]
"If you love me, you will keep my commandments." (John 14:15 HCSB)
When Jesus speaks of love, he allows no room for sentimental fantasy or momentary emotion. He sees love through the eyes of the Father, and from this point of view he deeply understands that true, eternal, godly love is bold and strong, but also painful, messy, and sacrificial.
A love of this strength and magnitude can only take root in the soil of abandonment. We abandon our rights, our thoughts, and our schemes. It was this total and uncompromising abandonment to God that led Jesus to say and do only what the Father told him to do. (John 14:10) It was this uncompromising abandonment that led him to the cross.
If we are to become just like Christ, then we also must be abandoned to the Father. We must line up with the thoughts and plans of God so closely that we appear to be "at one" with him, just as a married couple, deeply abandoned to each other, appear to live as one. Through abandonment, we walk so closely with God that, when people see us, they see the Father at work.
Jesus is teaching this abandonment when he says, "If you love me, you will keep my commandments." In other words, he's not demanding that you be obedient; rather, he's telling you that love for him should compel you to embrace his purposes.
The Jesus way is that you obey God's commands because you love God, not because you must obey God. By actively pursuing the purposes of God, you worship your Creator.
This also gives you a Christ-like perspective on the daily details of your life, turning every decision into a moment of adoration for God. When you let someone else take the parking space, when you stand behind a promise that proves more costly than you imagined, when you extend hospitality to the cranky neighbor next door – these are moments of worship to God because you are choosing to be obedient to his purposes, rather than doing things your own way. Even choosing not to sin becomes an act of worship, as it brings you into closer alignment with God's commands.
What does this mean?
As you face decisions today, ask God to show you which path will be an act of worship to him. Then (I know this is easier said than done), move where he tells you to move.
As you take this step, keep your eyes sensitive to God's grace and presence in the moment. Do this throughout the day, keeping a log so you can track your movement toward oneness with God and his purposes.
Live this way and watch the fruit spring up in you and all around you as abundant life!
"Jesus said to him, 'You shall love the LORD your God with all your heart, with all your soul, and with all your mind.' This is the first and great commandment. And the second is like it: 'You shall love your neighbor as yourself'" (Matthew 22:37-39).
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