Together # 6
A Together of Evangelism
A Together of Evangelism
Love One Another
copyright by Dick Wulf, 2018
Deny yourself for the good of God and others, especially Christians. Remember that the love you give to others is not your own, but God’s love for you to pass on.
John 13:34-35; John 15:12, 17; 1 Cor 13; 1 Peter 1:22-23; 1 John 4:7-21
This Together to love one another is actually commanded by Jesus. It encompasses all of the other Togethers except those that have to do with our relationship together with God. All of the Togethers are much more than just good ideas for living our faith, but this one is an actual command. By being aspects of love, all of the other Togethers are thus commanded.
“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. By this all people will know that you are my disciples, if you have love for one another.”
John 13:34-35
|
“This is my commandment, that you love one another as I have loved you.”
John 15:12
John 15:12
It is difficult to find a final definition for the word “agape”, the word for “love” used most in the New Testament. The other Greek word for “love” in the New Testament is “phileo” and means “fondness, loving behavior between relatives and friends, and common concern for one another”. [See Lawrence O. Richards, Expository Dictionary of Bible Words, Zondervan, Grand Rapids, Michigan,1985, page 420] But it is “agape” that is used for God’s love for us, our love for God, our love for one another, and love for enemies. It appears to be the highest form of love and is considered divine love.
The best definition I have heard over the years from various sources is that “agape” love is self denial for another’s good. It certainly is more than that, but that definition is quite useful for considering how Christians are to love one another. All Bible references that follow refer to agape love, not phileo love.
Scripturally, biblical love for one another is inseparable from being loved by God. Like 5 X 5 = 25, the love discussed here is love for God in response to His love for us that powers love for one another.
The best definition I have heard over the years from various sources is that “agape” love is self denial for another’s good. It certainly is more than that, but that definition is quite useful for considering how Christians are to love one another. All Bible references that follow refer to agape love, not phileo love.
Scripturally, biblical love for one another is inseparable from being loved by God. Like 5 X 5 = 25, the love discussed here is love for God in response to His love for us that powers love for one another.
We love because he first loved us.
1 John 4:1
1 John 4:1
Before we were connected to God in love through faith in the sacrificial death of Jesus, we most likely loved sincerely, at least in some situations. That love was a “5" in the analogy we are using. It was good. It was valuable. It was often effective. It was what all unbelievers can do. But, it was not a “25" because it was love that did not erupt from an appreciation of having been loved so much by God that He gave His Only Son to die for us.
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
that whoever believes in him should not perish but have eternal life.
John 3:16
Unbelievers can often match our loving concern, and on the surface it seems the same. When it is the same, it is because the Christian under consideration is not truly loving in recognition of God’s prior love for him or her and that the love is given out to honor God.
Over my 45 years of marriage counseling with Christians I found few spouses who extended significant grace through love to their partner. Almost always it is, “I will change if he or she changes.” Appreciative love for God would have fostered growth in godliness no matter what the other was doing wrong. Marriages could have been saved or grown in happiness.
Scripture makes it clear that we are to love like God loves, as the word “so” communicates in 1 John 4:11.
Over my 45 years of marriage counseling with Christians I found few spouses who extended significant grace through love to their partner. Almost always it is, “I will change if he or she changes.” Appreciative love for God would have fostered growth in godliness no matter what the other was doing wrong. Marriages could have been saved or grown in happiness.
Scripture makes it clear that we are to love like God loves, as the word “so” communicates in 1 John 4:11.
Beloved, if God so loved us, we also ought to love one another.
What we should know, and is understood only by those indwelt by the Holy Spirit, is that God is love. All divine love comes from Him. If we do not inhibit it, God’s love will settle in our hearts and minds. When it flows out of us, we love others with divine love.
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
|
Note that it is God’s love that is perfected in us, pointed out to us by the Apostle John in the verse above and the one below that preceded it in his first letter. The Bible is God’s Word to us. It is this communication from God taken seriously that brings His love into us more and more.
And by this we know that we have come to know him, if we keep his commandments. Whoever says “I know him” but does not keep his commandments is a liar, and the truth is not in him, but whoever keeps his word, in him truly the love of God is perfected. By this we may know that we are in him: whoever says he abides in him ought to walk in the same way in which he walked.
1 John 2:3-6
|
If love for others is not powered by our gratefulness of God’s love for us, it is still valuable but far less powerful. Any love from us disconnected from His love is less than what God wants us to give to others. When love comes from love of God, it is much more powerful because in actuality it is His love residing in our spirits.
Let me give a personal example. Early in my marriage my wife Jean hinted of a bit of jealousy when at an employment Christmas party other women wanted to dance with me. Soon thereafter, I asked her, “Do you know why I would not cheat on you?” She did not have an answer. The answer that I loved her would have been a decent answer, a “5" in the analogy being used. However, the true answer that I told her was, “Of course, I love you, but I would not treat Jesus that way.” Love for God added to love for Jean was far more powerful, a “25". If we remember what He has done for us in Jesus, putting God in the reason multiples love.
All of us need to meditate on this kind of divine love that makes denying ourselves for the good of others so easy, so spontaneous, and so joyful because it arises out of gratefulness.
How do we show love for a friend? Is it combined with our love for God in that we bring some of the less welcomed Togethers into the relationship as needed? Is it a comfortable “5" of eating lunch together or a “25" of examining one another’s faith?
How do we show love for our children? Is it doing as little as we can get away with, or is it doing those things God would have us do that takes time and might not always be convenient and require selflessness? Do we just have fun and comfortable conversations with them, or do we take them away from their cell phones and tablets for family meetings where we implement the Scriptures in family life? Do we do the latter to behave like Christians or do we do it because God loves us?
In our marriages, do we grant grace and mercy when our husband or wife doesn’t treat us well or makes a costly mistake? If God’s love lives in us and flows to our spouses, much undeserved love will be extended in grace.
Do we husbands love our wives as Christ loved the church (Eph 5:25-27)? Do we die to ourselves when our wives make mistakes? Do we withhold judgment and offer help? Do we love as Jesus loves His church? Is it love for God plus love for our wives? Or is it just a Christian rule? There is a world of difference!
If we love God in even small proportion to how He has loved us, we will love others with divine, self-sacrificing love. And this love will be extended to all believers.
Let me give a personal example. Early in my marriage my wife Jean hinted of a bit of jealousy when at an employment Christmas party other women wanted to dance with me. Soon thereafter, I asked her, “Do you know why I would not cheat on you?” She did not have an answer. The answer that I loved her would have been a decent answer, a “5" in the analogy being used. However, the true answer that I told her was, “Of course, I love you, but I would not treat Jesus that way.” Love for God added to love for Jean was far more powerful, a “25". If we remember what He has done for us in Jesus, putting God in the reason multiples love.
All of us need to meditate on this kind of divine love that makes denying ourselves for the good of others so easy, so spontaneous, and so joyful because it arises out of gratefulness.
How do we show love for a friend? Is it combined with our love for God in that we bring some of the less welcomed Togethers into the relationship as needed? Is it a comfortable “5" of eating lunch together or a “25" of examining one another’s faith?
How do we show love for our children? Is it doing as little as we can get away with, or is it doing those things God would have us do that takes time and might not always be convenient and require selflessness? Do we just have fun and comfortable conversations with them, or do we take them away from their cell phones and tablets for family meetings where we implement the Scriptures in family life? Do we do the latter to behave like Christians or do we do it because God loves us?
In our marriages, do we grant grace and mercy when our husband or wife doesn’t treat us well or makes a costly mistake? If God’s love lives in us and flows to our spouses, much undeserved love will be extended in grace.
Do we husbands love our wives as Christ loved the church (Eph 5:25-27)? Do we die to ourselves when our wives make mistakes? Do we withhold judgment and offer help? Do we love as Jesus loves His church? Is it love for God plus love for our wives? Or is it just a Christian rule? There is a world of difference!
If we love God in even small proportion to how He has loved us, we will love others with divine, self-sacrificing love. And this love will be extended to all believers.
Everyone who believes that Jesus is the Christ has been born of God, and everyone who loves the Father loves whoever has been born of him.
1 John 5:1
|
What a privilege not to just be saved from eternal separation from God because of sin, but to actually have God’s love available to live in and through us! The command to love one another, especially with those in our Christian Inner Circles is no burden. It is a very special gift. Like being given a billion dollars to give out to thousands in financial need, we have God’s infinite love with which to bless others. God often loves us through His love coming to us from one another.
Opportunity to Become More and More Like Jesus Christ
Opportunity to Become More and More Like Jesus Christ
The Guzman Family attended church regularly. Family members were each involved in their own separate church programs. Sermons taught that they were to love one another, but gave little instruction on how that was to be done. The Guzman Family had to learn on their own that the Christian life was one of faith together.
The family began to study the words of Jesus, and when they came to John 13 in their Bibles, they realized that love for one another was a commandment and to be top priority. They began to search for Bible verses and passages that spelled out how Christians were to treat one another and found quite a list to keep them busy for a long while. They began to see how love for one another needed to be encouraged by them all. Little by little they became more like Jesus in caring for one another. They began to evaluate all that happened in their family in light of the command to love one another as Jesus must have loved his disciples. It was not long in their Bible study that helpful love was all of a sudden erupting out of each of them individually and also as a family. It surprised them. Up to that point they felt good about loving one another, but slowly they were all experiencing more and more joy. They wondered what had changed. Without conscious discovery, they had opened themselves up to God’s love flowing through them just from studying First John in their Bibles. Once they realized that it was God’s love flowing out of them and not just their own, and that they were entrusted with distribution of that love, this family of one single parent and three teenagers could not be stopped in reaching out to help others. At school and in Mom’s employment they sacrificed time, energy and reputation to love others with God’s love. When they realized that they had not gone to a movie together in six months for having the joy of loving and helping others, they took a break and saw one together. However, loving God more and spreading God’s love had changed them to be more like Jesus and they found emptiness in the film they saw. They concluded that life in heaven was going to be far superior when everything was seen through God’‘s eyes and all loving through others came from His heart. The next time they wanted to have fun, they passed on the movie and threw a party at their home for struggling single parents and their families. All the kids donated their allowances to pay the expenses. |
Loving one another will make us more like Jesus. Since every one of the Togethers makes us more like Jesus, implementing those 60 of the Togethers having to do with loving one another through obedience to their originating Scriptures will make us more like our Savior. But only if we obey those Bible directives sacrificially. The only kind of love like the love of Jesus is sacrificial.
Add electrical power to the analogy we have been using. There is 5-amp love from a Together obeyed merely through human love. In putting up with someone who sins against us by gritting our teeth to live the Together of Bear With One Another is love of 5-amp power. To realize that hurtful person is loved by God and harassed by the unseen evil forces we are told about in Ephesians 6 and then be able to extend God’s love to bear with that person’s behavior through understanding and sadness is love of 25 amps.
Every Together can be obeyed half-heartedly, whole-heartedly, or God-heartedly [my term]. Half-hearted love might be to just go along with what is expected from Christians, but certainly not overdoing it. Whole-hearted love would be to go the extra mile in loving others with the right goals, but not connected to the heart of God. God-hearted obedience to a Together would be to love whole-heartedly out of gratitude for God, recognizing that it is His love being extended, and done to glorify Him.
Jesus’ love was His nature and it was pure, without any dilution. Our love is impaired by the infection of sin. That is why we need God’s love to enter us and flow through us. What we have without Him is tainted. For those we love most, we sure do not want to give tainted love. And for those not so important to us, God does not want us to give tainted love.
Add electrical power to the analogy we have been using. There is 5-amp love from a Together obeyed merely through human love. In putting up with someone who sins against us by gritting our teeth to live the Together of Bear With One Another is love of 5-amp power. To realize that hurtful person is loved by God and harassed by the unseen evil forces we are told about in Ephesians 6 and then be able to extend God’s love to bear with that person’s behavior through understanding and sadness is love of 25 amps.
Every Together can be obeyed half-heartedly, whole-heartedly, or God-heartedly [my term]. Half-hearted love might be to just go along with what is expected from Christians, but certainly not overdoing it. Whole-hearted love would be to go the extra mile in loving others with the right goals, but not connected to the heart of God. God-hearted obedience to a Together would be to love whole-heartedly out of gratitude for God, recognizing that it is His love being extended, and done to glorify Him.
Jesus’ love was His nature and it was pure, without any dilution. Our love is impaired by the infection of sin. That is why we need God’s love to enter us and flow through us. What we have without Him is tainted. For those we love most, we sure do not want to give tainted love. And for those not so important to us, God does not want us to give tainted love.
If anyone says, “I love God,” and hates his brother, he is a liar; for he who does not love his brother whom he has seen cannot love God whom he has not seen. And this commandment we have from him: whoever loves God must also love his brother.
|
1 John 4:20-21
God’s love inside of us is a gift to share with others. If it feels like a burden, then we have not sufficiently meditated on Christ’s death for us. If is felt as a gift, we will cherish it and seek opportunities to give it to others. We will want to be an avenue of God’s love without self-serving motivation.
For this reason I remind you to fan into flame the gift of God, which is in you through the laying on of my hands, for God gave us a spirit not of fear but of power and love and self-control.
2 Tim 1:6-8
|
Note that the new spirit we have been given as new creatures in Christ (2 Cor 5:17) is infused with God’s love, along with power and self-control. That new spirit is like the spirit of our Savior. He loved from morning until night, and primarily with healing, not with preaching.
Little children, let us not love in word or talk
but in deed and in truth.
1 John 3:18
but in deed and in truth.
1 John 3:18
If we unleash our spirits, God’s love will overflow in loving words followed by actions. We will transform into the image of Jesus. The actions will usually be those of the Togethers. To become a great lover like Jesus requires us to study the Bible verses and passages that give rise to the Togethers. This will purify us and remove the dam holding back the flood of God’s love.
Having purified your souls by your obedience to the truth for a sincere brotherly love, love one another earnestly from a pure heart, since you have been born again, not of perishable seed but of imperishable, through the living and abiding word of God; . . .
1 Peter 1:22-23
|
Let’s grow in our willingness to have joy in being vehicles of God’s love, not for our own reputation, but for God’s glory. Let’s be aware of what God wants for others and make those our own desires
Delight yourself in the Lord,
and he will give you the desires of your heart.
Ps 37:4
and he will give you the desires of your heart.
Ps 37:4
Let’s love like Jesus. For this we were redeemed!
Opportunity to Worship God
Opportunity to Worship God
When Albert’s friend Angus’s mother-in-law ended up in the hospital for emergency surgery, there was no one to take care of her house and yard.
They went over to see what was needed. Albert and Angus did not even wonder if they should do something, because they knew God had helped them all of their lives and even filled them with love for others. What they found was a yard overrun by weeds and a house that needed to be painted. That night they spoke with their wives, one of whom was the daughter of the woman in the hospital. In the end, the four of them worshiped God by reflecting His ability to love those in need. They all took a week’s vacation and weeded the yard and painted the house. |
The nature of God is pure love.
God is love.
1 John 4:8
1 John 4:8
Therefore, the more we live in God and His way of selfless love, the more divine love develops in us. This becomes worship as it reflects back to God his character.
God is love, and whoever abides in love abides in God, and God abides in him. By this is love perfected with us, . . .
1 John 4:16b-17a
|
We should recognize God’s kind of love because it will cost and reflect Jesus’ self-denying sacrifice for us. When we sense it, let us remember that it smells as sweet worship to our God.
Therefore be imitators of God, as beloved children. And walk in love, as Christ loved us and gave himself up for us, a fragrant offering and sacrifice to God.
Eph 5:1-2
|
To know this love of God’s that we want to have flow through us, we can start with what is written in First Corinthians.
First of all, love is not just talking and singing, knowing the Bible and producing miracles, or giving to the poor. All of those things must be infused with love to amount to anything.
First of all, love is not just talking and singing, knowing the Bible and producing miracles, or giving to the poor. All of those things must be infused with love to amount to anything.
If I speak in the tongues of men or of angels, but do not have love, I am only a resounding gong or a clanging cymbal. If I have the gift of prophecy and can fathom all mysteries and all knowledge, and if I have a faith that can move mountains, but do not have love, I am nothing. If I give all I possess to the poor and give over my body to hardship that I may boast, but do not have love, I gain nothing.
1 Cor 13:1-3
|
In continually reviewing what love is from First Corinthians 13 and conforming our lives thereby, we will give much worship to God.
Love is patient, love is kind. It does not envy, it does not boast, it is not proud. It does not dishonor others, it is not self-seeking, it is not easily angered, it keeps no record of wrongs. Love does not delight in evil but rejoices with the truth. It always protects, always trusts, always hopes, always perseveres. Love never fails.
1 Cor 13:4-8a
|
There are other things to keep in mind about love, but the Bible issues a strong warning of what will eliminate God’s love in our spirits and curtail worship.
Do not love the world or the things in the world.
If anyone loves the world, the love of the Father is not in him.
1 John 2:15
If anyone loves the world, the love of the Father is not in him.
1 John 2:15
So often time is the issue. Loving the world and the things it offers uses valuable time needed to build the church into a most loving bride for Jesus. Critical time is needed for the Togethers that conform each of us into the image of God’s Son. The devil will dangle in front of us a great many things we would like to do or have. We need to see all advertising as possible temptations from the evil one to abort letting God’s love flow through us in worship of Him.
We need to heed many warnings about the devil’s interference with our understanding of love, but one is a popular deception we must keep in mind. Some want to picture God’s love as only warm and wonderful. However, God is concerned for righteousness and justice and His love cannot be defined as always being understanding, accepting, and comfortable. At times God withdraws from His people, as evidenced often in the history of the Old Testament. God even spoke through the Apostle Paul to cut off an unrepentant man destroying the community of believers in Corinth and hand him over to Satan. That was an act of love for the community, and was love for the man that his spirit be saved.
We need to heed many warnings about the devil’s interference with our understanding of love, but one is a popular deception we must keep in mind. Some want to picture God’s love as only warm and wonderful. However, God is concerned for righteousness and justice and His love cannot be defined as always being understanding, accepting, and comfortable. At times God withdraws from His people, as evidenced often in the history of the Old Testament. God even spoke through the Apostle Paul to cut off an unrepentant man destroying the community of believers in Corinth and hand him over to Satan. That was an act of love for the community, and was love for the man that his spirit be saved.
“They did not remain faithful to that covenant , so,” the Eternal One says, “I turned away from them.”
Hebrews 8:9b-10 (quoting Jeremiah 31)
|
God’s love cannot be seen only as gentle and kind because He disciplines those He loves. In so doing, what we call “tough love” is administered.
For the Lord disciplines the one he loves,
and chastises every son whom he receives.”
Heb 12:6
and chastises every son whom he receives.”
Heb 12:6
Withholding discipline from us would be unloving because the end game is to prepare us for the best heaven has to offer. God is so concerned for us that He loves us through discipline as well as bringing difficult things into our lives. This is unavoidable because God loves us. We usually leave Him no other choice because we collect our salvation and are only minimally interested in being conformed to the image of His Son. Accepting the trials God sends our way usually means activating one or more of the Togethers. When what is required seems more difficult love than we are used to, we enter the zone where our spirits can be transformed for increased worship of God. God shines in our weakness.
But he said to me, “My grace is sufficient for you, for my power is made perfect in weakness.” Therefore I will boast all the more gladly about my weaknesses, so that Christ’s power may rest on me. That is why, for Christ’s sake, I delight in weaknesses, in insults, in hardships, in persecutions, in difficulties. For when I am weak, then I am strong.
|
2 Cor 12:9-10
Let’s desire to love with God’s love within us. Let’s make ourselves available to the Holy Spirit for God’s love to take over our lives. Let’s face situations asking in prayer that God’s love come out of us. Let’s be totally willing to worship Him by giving Him the credit for the divine love we make available to others as well as by reflecting His own love nature back to Him.
How Used in Battle to Defeat Evil and Satan
How Used in Battle to Defeat Evil and Satan
Dylan was very active before his work accident that left him wheelchair bound for the rest of his life. He really loved fishing. He was a happy man who never passed up a chance to help someone and talk to them about Jesus. It was tragic when an industrial accident took his active life away.
Dylan is married to Judy who was very involved in her own activities at the time of Dylan’s accident. While Dylan was depressed and growing more listless by the month, Judy was bound and determined to not have her life changed in any way. As a result, she did nothing out of the ordinary to help Dylan recover any of his zest for life. Marital problems arose. Judy felt resentful of Dylan’s special needs. Dylan felt guilty for any extra burden he placed on his wife. Judy’s friend Valerie noticed Judy’s irritation in having to roll Dylan into the sanctuary in his wheelchair every Sunday. She decided that she needed to get involved in the situation. Valerie knew herself filled with God’s love and became determined to use it to defeat Satan’s destruction of Judy’s marriage. Valerie also remembered how effective Dylan had been before the accident in reaching out to elderly people in the church who needed something fixed around their home. Valerie knew that it would take time to help Judy appreciate God’s love at a deeper level. Judy was one of those Christians who related to the church, not to the Lord. Valerie started by helping Judy see how fortunate she was to be saved by Jesus’ voluntary death. Judy’s love for others began to grow ever so slowly. It took some time, but eventually she allowed God to fill her with His love. One sign that Judy was being released from selfishness was when she decided to take Dylan in his wheelchair to a nearby lake every fourth Saturday of each month to fish all day. She still hated fishing, especially in the cold of winter and the heat of summer, but she found ways to amuse herself in a comfortable chair by the water. Satan was defeated in his scheme to make and keep Judy self-centered and out of the work of love in God’s kingdom. Valerie’s selfless intervention of love was the devil’s undoing there. Satan was also defeated by Judy’s growing ability to love her husband, because the fishing overcame Dylan’s depression. He took up a phone ministry in the church and is back to his helpful self, only in a different way. Now he recruits other men to make home repairs for the elderly and single parents. |
Satan wants to undermine God’s love. Satan’s scheme is to tempt others to think mainly of themselves, the opposite of agape love which is self-denial for the good of others. Thus, every time we put others before ourselves and extend to them God’s love, we defeat the devil.
We must be on guard against the evil Satan is doing, especially to draw our love for God to something else, especially the love of money.
We must be on guard against the evil Satan is doing, especially to draw our love for God to something else, especially the love of money.
For the love of money is a root of all kinds of evil. Some people, eager for money, have wandered from the faith and pierced themselves with many griefs.
1 Tim 6:10 (NIV)
|
In his second letter, Timothy warns us of other loves and behaviors that snuff out God’s love in us. Here the love mentioned is “phileo love”, or fondness.
But understand this, that in the last days there will come times of difficulty. For people will be lovers of self, lovers of money, proud, arrogant, abusive, disobedient to their parents, ungrateful, unholy, heartless, unappeasable, slanderous, without self-control, brutal, not loving good, treacherous, reckless, swollen with conceit, lovers of pleasure rather than lovers of God, having the appearance of godliness, but denying its power. Avoid such people.
2 Tim 3:1-5
|
Loving one another will keep us from these things, especially if we put our time into the Togethers. But, if we do not love one another, we must be concerned that we do not really belong to God. The very best way to reassure ourselves that we are truly adopted as children by God is to make certain that we love other Christians with God’s love.
By this it is evident who are the children of God, and who are the children of the devil: whoever does not practice righteousness is not of God, nor is the one who does not love his brother. . . . Whoever does not love abides in death.
1 John 3:10,14
|
God’s love sends rain on the just and the unjust, so our love is to be even for our enemies and those who do horrible things that we in no way condone. Satan would have us take on his character and withhold love. That way we dishonor God, since that would prevent worship of the one and only God through reflecting His love. We hate sin and all that the devil stands for, but we do not hate people. In this way, we are free to love everyone, no matter what nationality or religion. So, if we have God’s love, we make progress in loving people and hating the evil they do. And, if we can do that, surely we can love other Christians.
We must remember when challenged to love people who do detestable things, that God loved us when we were no angels!
We must remember when challenged to love people who do detestable things, that God loved us when we were no angels!
. . , but God shows his love for us in that while we were still sinners,
Christ died for us.
Rom 5:8
Christ died for us.
Rom 5:8
Every unbeliever, no matter how evil, is made in the image of God. As hard as it is, we can love, for example, the human trafficker and hate the human trafficking he does. Not easy to be sure, and a challenge for us. But, isn’t becoming like Jesus supposed to be a challenge?
Everything our Lord did was in love, even if we do not understand some of His actions. So, the challenge for us is the same one Paul gave to the believers in Corinth almost 2,000 years ago.
Everything our Lord did was in love, even if we do not understand some of His actions. So, the challenge for us is the same one Paul gave to the believers in Corinth almost 2,000 years ago.
Let all that you do be done in love.
1 Cor 16:14
1 Cor 16:14
Every Together, as an expression of love for other believers, defeats Satan. We have the privilege of 64 additional ways to overthrow the devil. And, since the Togethers are most likely not exhaustive, there are even more ways to love and humiliate the evil one. With this is mind, we should make more time to study the Togethers, identify who in our Christian Inner Circles could benefit from them, and put time into loving them in those ways.
For you were called to freedom, brothers. Only do not use your freedom as an opportunity for the flesh, but through love serve one another. For the whole law is fulfilled in one word: “You shall love your neighbor as yourself.” But if you bite and devour one another, watch out that you are not consumed by one another.
Gal 5:13-15
|
The devil is constantly wanting to divide us. His strategy can be defined as dividing us from one another by offering to us things God does not want for us, often individual pursuits that take up our time. This detours us from worshiping God through loving one another . Since our strength is as teams of at least two, we can keep Satan from separating us by ministry to one another in love through the Togethers.
This is why the church is described as the body of Christ. When we serve one another through God’s love in our spirits, which have been developed by obedience to Scripture, we are acting like one body made up of different helpful parts. Serving one another’s needs puts love to work in making a beautiful bride for our Savior.
This is why the church is described as the body of Christ. When we serve one another through God’s love in our spirits, which have been developed by obedience to Scripture, we are acting like one body made up of different helpful parts. Serving one another’s needs puts love to work in making a beautiful bride for our Savior.
, . . when each part is working properly, makes the body grow so that it builds itself up in love.
Eph 4:16b
Eph 4:16b
Every Christian is a new creation in Christ being molded by God into the image of Jesus from whatever dishonorable state he or she was in at the time of conversion. We can abhor the evil that still controls such a person, and yet love the new, blossoming creation. We must remember that some flowers bloom overnight while others take considerable time to flower.
Let love be genuine. Abhor what is evil; hold fast to what is good.
Rom 12:9
Rom 12:9
When it comes right down to it, love is the work of faith and is what we are to be about doing.
For in Christ Jesus neither circumcision nor uncircumcision counts for anything, but only faith working through love.
Gal 5:6
|
Let’s work together to defeat Satan in our lives, our fellowships, and in the world. Let’s do this with the many ways God’s love will flow through us when we minister the Togethers to one another.
How in the Sinful Environment this Together Prepares Us for Heaven
How in the Sinful Environment this Together Prepares Us for Heaven
I look back before death and marvel at my transformation at the hands of God. Even before I accepted Jesus Christ as my Savior and became a Christian, there was greater appreciation of a bracelet from my favorite cousin. When I wore it, my experience was far more joyful than when I put on other, more attractive bracelets I picked up at this art show or the next. That bracelet was a gift from my cousin, and that made it much more special to wear.
Here is how the change began. I planted a flower garden in my front yard. It was not big, but once in a while I half-heartedly glanced at the flowers with appreciation of their beauty. They were perennials, so the flowers came back the next year as beautiful as ever. This time I really took in their beauty, sometimes sitting in a lawn chair and just staring at them. It was the third year that the most wonderful transformation took place. I was out there again in my lawn chair whole-heartedly appreciating the flowers’ beauty when suddenly I realized deep in my spirit that they were a gift – from God. Now, I saw them not as my flowers, but as His. And, now I realized they were far more beautiful as belonging to God and flowering to glorify Him. As a gift, they were far more special, far more beautiful, far more meaningful. Just like the gift bracelet from my cousin. As wonderful as that change in my spirit, it was just the first step toward a much more wonderful transformation. The same path on which the Holy Spirit took me regarding my flower garden led me to recognize a gift from God that exploded my spirit with life. Actually, I should say that the gift was God Himself. For most of my life I had been a kind, loving person. I felt whole-hearted love for people and delighted in putting my own needs aside to do good things for others, especially the Christians in my life. After the flower garden transformation of my spirit took hold, I began to see that the love that I took great satisfaction in sharing was also a gift from God. It was God’s love given to me with the wonderful privilege of spreading it out to whoever needed God’s tender touch. Satisfaction turned into the joy of heaven. I remember reading that the Apostle Paul told Timothy to take hold of eternal life. Now, in heaven, I see how I was transformed by God to take hold of real life. There on earth I had a taste of God’s love in heaven where it is fused into every aspect of eternal life. |
The society of heaven will be pure love. All of us will enter heaven with our individual ability to love with God’s love, letting it flow through us to one another in complete harmony with God’s desires. Different situations in heaven will call for different degrees of self-denying love.
Driving a car at higher speeds during a gusty windstorm makes a person more skillful in handling the car. Afterward, driving under ideal conditions is much easier and automatic. Likewise in heaven, having loved selflessly within a sinful culture will make loving in heaven more skillful.
Take, for an example, someone in heaven with limited musical talent who wants to learn to read music. Just passing through the gates of heaven after death will not change God’s creation of this individual who is naturally talented in other areas, but not in music. It will take higher levels of some of love’s qualities to teach him than to teach someone with more musical aptitude.
God will use a citizen of heaven with greater patience. Now, before heaven, we will become impatient and some of our kindness may leak away for a period. Usually after a break, our patience will rebound and we can go on teaching the reading of music. What will be different in heaven will be that when the threshold of patience in teaching music is reached, impatience will not kick in. There will be no impatience in heaven. Each of us will be able to be patient in loving to a certain point and then just shut down, not become impatient.
However, in heaven love will need to be seamless, so God will assign this task of teaching someone ungifted musically to someone who before death learned to be a vehicle for God’s seamless love at a high level. Not all of us will be able to meet this challenge; not all of us will have developed our spirits far enough in agape, self-denying love with its unshakable patience.
The Christian with this assignment in heaven will need the superior abilities of love mentioned in First Corinthians.
Driving a car at higher speeds during a gusty windstorm makes a person more skillful in handling the car. Afterward, driving under ideal conditions is much easier and automatic. Likewise in heaven, having loved selflessly within a sinful culture will make loving in heaven more skillful.
Take, for an example, someone in heaven with limited musical talent who wants to learn to read music. Just passing through the gates of heaven after death will not change God’s creation of this individual who is naturally talented in other areas, but not in music. It will take higher levels of some of love’s qualities to teach him than to teach someone with more musical aptitude.
God will use a citizen of heaven with greater patience. Now, before heaven, we will become impatient and some of our kindness may leak away for a period. Usually after a break, our patience will rebound and we can go on teaching the reading of music. What will be different in heaven will be that when the threshold of patience in teaching music is reached, impatience will not kick in. There will be no impatience in heaven. Each of us will be able to be patient in loving to a certain point and then just shut down, not become impatient.
However, in heaven love will need to be seamless, so God will assign this task of teaching someone ungifted musically to someone who before death learned to be a vehicle for God’s seamless love at a high level. Not all of us will be able to meet this challenge; not all of us will have developed our spirits far enough in agape, self-denying love with its unshakable patience.
The Christian with this assignment in heaven will need the superior abilities of love mentioned in First Corinthians.
Love is patient and kind; . .
bears all things, believes all things,
hopes all things, endures all things.
from 1 Cor 13:4-7
bears all things, believes all things,
hopes all things, endures all things.
from 1 Cor 13:4-7
He or she will need to bear the person’s slowness in learning to read music. Greater ability to believe that the person can eventually learn to read music will be needed. There will be a need for greater hope for that person’s success. And strength of love to be able to endure a long process will be required.
In addition, this servant of the Lord in heaven will need various strengths produced prior to death through obedience to the Scriptures that make up many of the Togethers. To name only a few of them, he or she will need exceptional strengths in encouraging others, belonging to (owning) the success of the one being taught, being devoted to the slow learner, accepting the limitations of the student, caring for the person’s struggle (which will be normal growth, not sin), and preserving the person’s hope. All of these Togethers are love fleshed out that will be needed. They all develop one’s spirit for faith together at the level of heaven’s standard.
To make this transformation to God-hearted love and prepare for heaven requires letting the Holy Spirit do two main things: (1) make us aware that it is not our love we are giving, but God’s love, and (2) that we are loving for the primary purpose of bringing glory and honor to God.
Most of us are aware of loving others, so it should be a short step of faith to continually remember that the love we share is God’s love of which we are stewards. If we worked for a Christian relief agency providing food to refugees and had the responsibility of procuring the food to be shipped and distributed, we would be careful to use donors’ money wisely. We would not consider the funds at our disposal as our money. It would be the relief agency’s money. We would easily remember that we were just the stewards of another’s money.
What would come so naturally in the physical world of money is what we all should work at doing with God’s love. Through the ministry of the Holy Spirit, the task is getting our spirits to recognize God’s love in ourselves is superior to our own whole-hearted love.
Perhaps we can start by realizing that all of our money and resources belong to God and have been given to us as a trust to use for His glory. We develop this beyond mere intellectual acknowledgment by thinking differently. When we loan something to someone, we can remember that we are loaning something that really belongs to God in case it comes back damaged. The issue will have been glorifying God by loaning. When we give money to a struggling individual or family, we can learn to recognize that it is God’s money we are giving. It is not coming our of our own pockets, but from God through our pockets.
Eventually, we will be led by the Spirit to give agape love (God-hearted love) to someone we do not particularly like. It might require one of the more difficult Togethers, perhaps joining a group of Christians to carry that person’s burden of sin-caused debt (rather than disaster-caused debt). Giving money to such a person from love rather than duty would require realizing that we are just giving God’s money from our bank account because God desires to help that individual. The more we would do this kind of thing, the more we would be preparing ourselves for more significant loving in heaven’s daily life with others.
Let’s be open to more opportunities to pass God’s love inside of us along to others. This will happen if we get to know the Togethers more thoroughly and practice them consistently. Let’s pray for such opportunities, knowing that they will take us out of our comfort zone and into heaven’s ways.
How this Together Can Make It Really Good in Heaven
In addition, this servant of the Lord in heaven will need various strengths produced prior to death through obedience to the Scriptures that make up many of the Togethers. To name only a few of them, he or she will need exceptional strengths in encouraging others, belonging to (owning) the success of the one being taught, being devoted to the slow learner, accepting the limitations of the student, caring for the person’s struggle (which will be normal growth, not sin), and preserving the person’s hope. All of these Togethers are love fleshed out that will be needed. They all develop one’s spirit for faith together at the level of heaven’s standard.
To make this transformation to God-hearted love and prepare for heaven requires letting the Holy Spirit do two main things: (1) make us aware that it is not our love we are giving, but God’s love, and (2) that we are loving for the primary purpose of bringing glory and honor to God.
Most of us are aware of loving others, so it should be a short step of faith to continually remember that the love we share is God’s love of which we are stewards. If we worked for a Christian relief agency providing food to refugees and had the responsibility of procuring the food to be shipped and distributed, we would be careful to use donors’ money wisely. We would not consider the funds at our disposal as our money. It would be the relief agency’s money. We would easily remember that we were just the stewards of another’s money.
What would come so naturally in the physical world of money is what we all should work at doing with God’s love. Through the ministry of the Holy Spirit, the task is getting our spirits to recognize God’s love in ourselves is superior to our own whole-hearted love.
Perhaps we can start by realizing that all of our money and resources belong to God and have been given to us as a trust to use for His glory. We develop this beyond mere intellectual acknowledgment by thinking differently. When we loan something to someone, we can remember that we are loaning something that really belongs to God in case it comes back damaged. The issue will have been glorifying God by loaning. When we give money to a struggling individual or family, we can learn to recognize that it is God’s money we are giving. It is not coming our of our own pockets, but from God through our pockets.
Eventually, we will be led by the Spirit to give agape love (God-hearted love) to someone we do not particularly like. It might require one of the more difficult Togethers, perhaps joining a group of Christians to carry that person’s burden of sin-caused debt (rather than disaster-caused debt). Giving money to such a person from love rather than duty would require realizing that we are just giving God’s money from our bank account because God desires to help that individual. The more we would do this kind of thing, the more we would be preparing ourselves for more significant loving in heaven’s daily life with others.
Let’s be open to more opportunities to pass God’s love inside of us along to others. This will happen if we get to know the Togethers more thoroughly and practice them consistently. Let’s pray for such opportunities, knowing that they will take us out of our comfort zone and into heaven’s ways.
How this Together Can Make It Really Good in Heaven
Back before death I had to think to realize that the love I was showing others was really God’s love inside of me. Here in heaven I do not have to think. Without sin getting in the way, I am always aware that God and I are one and the love I show is ours together with God as the source and myself as the vessel. I can’t adequately tell you how wonderful it is.
|
To know every day in heaven that we are spreading only God’s love will be wonderful. No preoccupation with our own agendas, we will be free to think of others and ourselves at the same time. And no sin will sneak in like it does now. No sizing ourselves up to others and feeling inferior or superior. No wondering if our love is good enough because it is God’s love. Full knowledge that others will step in with their portion of God’s love when a greater amount of some form of love is needed.
Any of the Togethers of Scripture that exist in heaven because they are not totally tied to sin will be an aspect of love required from time to time. We will have the good feeling every day of making someone’s life better for being eternally alive. If we sleep there, when we close our eyes for the night we can thank God that He gave us the privilege of loving and positively impacting the lives of others. Perhaps we were helping someone identify an area of faith in which to grow by showing the love of examining another’s faith. Hooray for the opportunity!
Let’s look forward to the joy in heaven of loving with God’s love in many different ways that will glorify Him.
Opportunity for a Closer Relationship with God through Empathy
Any of the Togethers of Scripture that exist in heaven because they are not totally tied to sin will be an aspect of love required from time to time. We will have the good feeling every day of making someone’s life better for being eternally alive. If we sleep there, when we close our eyes for the night we can thank God that He gave us the privilege of loving and positively impacting the lives of others. Perhaps we were helping someone identify an area of faith in which to grow by showing the love of examining another’s faith. Hooray for the opportunity!
Let’s look forward to the joy in heaven of loving with God’s love in many different ways that will glorify Him.
Opportunity for a Closer Relationship with God through Empathy
Although I loved both of my parents equally, I have more of my mother in me. Sure, my dad and I were both men, but Mom and I shared the same way of thinking and feeling and view of the world. Thus, while I loved both of them the same, I was closer to my mother.
After my parents both died, it was like my mother was still alive in me. Again, that likeness with her brought closeness like a joining of spirits that transcended death. I knew she was in heaven and more alive than ever. Now I am here myself. But, here in heaven there is a closeness with God that I am even more aware of than I am with my mother whom I see all the time. We all feel God inside us in different strengths it seems. With some it barely overshadows the closeness with mother or father, wife or husband. With others of us it is quite a bit stronger. In thinking how I was possibly most like my heavenly Father before death, it may have been that I grew to be very conscious that His love inhabited me. I was usually conscious that the love I was extending to others was not my own, but His. |
Whenever we have been at a special event with someone with whom we are close, we should have been able to feel one with them, especially if all others present are strangers. This sense of fusion is usually quite special.
We can be in the woods hiking around a lake with no one in sight, as Jean and I were last summer, when an osprey dives down and snatches a fish for lunch. It was something special we shared. Hopefully, most all of us have had “together moments” when hearts and minds are joined without distraction while viewing wildlife or scenery. But, it can be especially thrilling to two people at once.
In heaven, we will feel interlaced with God to the degree that we let His love flow through us before death with recognition both that it was His love and that it was to glorify Him. It is likely in heaven that it will never be able to flow so strongly and so entwined with God as when it needed to confront sin and embrace sinners. If so, the chance for greatest growth in love is now, and that greater love will have tremendous effect in heaven for eternity.
To think this through, contrast loving someone with God’s love through a personal tragedy now versus in heaven loving someone with God’s love because they are going to learn some new sport. The first takes far more difficult love than the second. And it will develop one’s spirit for greater ability to be the vehicle for love from God.
God sees and analyzes the love we show others.
We can be in the woods hiking around a lake with no one in sight, as Jean and I were last summer, when an osprey dives down and snatches a fish for lunch. It was something special we shared. Hopefully, most all of us have had “together moments” when hearts and minds are joined without distraction while viewing wildlife or scenery. But, it can be especially thrilling to two people at once.
In heaven, we will feel interlaced with God to the degree that we let His love flow through us before death with recognition both that it was His love and that it was to glorify Him. It is likely in heaven that it will never be able to flow so strongly and so entwined with God as when it needed to confront sin and embrace sinners. If so, the chance for greatest growth in love is now, and that greater love will have tremendous effect in heaven for eternity.
To think this through, contrast loving someone with God’s love through a personal tragedy now versus in heaven loving someone with God’s love because they are going to learn some new sport. The first takes far more difficult love than the second. And it will develop one’s spirit for greater ability to be the vehicle for love from God.
God sees and analyzes the love we show others.
For God is not unjust so as to overlook your work and the love that you have shown for his name in serving the saints, as you still do.
Heb 6:10
|
Surely God will be connected to everyone in heaven, but not all the same. Using our electricity allegory, different power will flow from God to each citizen of heaven. If that current is love, then the capacity will be first established by how much love was able to flow from God to others through the saint back before death against sinful impedance.
Let’s desire the highest connection with God we can attain by letting more and more of God’s love flow through us to one another. Let’s always credit God as the source of that love and give Him the glory.
Praise and Prayer Regarding this Together
I and those in my Christian Inner Circle will need Your help to grow our spirits to love one another biblically, especially through the Togethers. Help us to yield to the work of the Holy Spirit for all of us to give You more glory in the way we live.
Please help us all to become more like Jesus and His ability to love naturally, spontaneously, and sacrificially. Like Jesus does, help all of us to let Your love enter us and flow through us to whomever You decide needs it.
May our lives worship You more because we are loving as You are loving. Fill us with Your divine love so that it bursts out of us toward those in our Christian Inner Circles and others with whom we each come in contact.
Make us strong in Your power to defeat the devil by such love that in our spheres of life we each as well as together prevent Satan from undermining Your love in the world.
Help us all to prepare for heaven by growing more completely in our ability to love selflessly and unconditionally. We need to allow You through the Holy Spirit to stretch our ability to love in the divine way of heaven.
Ever increasing practice of the Togethers of Scripture will (1) create in you the loving essence of Jesus, (2) give Jesus the kind of love He requested, (3) provide you with the most significant spiritual lifestyle which is attainable only through Christian community, (4) offer significant worship to God by reflecting his own character back to him through your behavior, and (5) bring God’s kingdom to earth as asked for in the Lord’s Prayer. And for heaven, such growing obedience to Scripture now will later (6) qualify you for a more responsible place of service as reward in heaven, and, (7) most important of all, give you greater empathy with God for a closer relationship with Him for all of eternity.
Let’s desire the highest connection with God we can attain by letting more and more of God’s love flow through us to one another. Let’s always credit God as the source of that love and give Him the glory.
Praise and Prayer Regarding this Together
I and those in my Christian Inner Circle will need Your help to grow our spirits to love one another biblically, especially through the Togethers. Help us to yield to the work of the Holy Spirit for all of us to give You more glory in the way we live.
Please help us all to become more like Jesus and His ability to love naturally, spontaneously, and sacrificially. Like Jesus does, help all of us to let Your love enter us and flow through us to whomever You decide needs it.
May our lives worship You more because we are loving as You are loving. Fill us with Your divine love so that it bursts out of us toward those in our Christian Inner Circles and others with whom we each come in contact.
Make us strong in Your power to defeat the devil by such love that in our spheres of life we each as well as together prevent Satan from undermining Your love in the world.
Help us all to prepare for heaven by growing more completely in our ability to love selflessly and unconditionally. We need to allow You through the Holy Spirit to stretch our ability to love in the divine way of heaven.
Ever increasing practice of the Togethers of Scripture will (1) create in you the loving essence of Jesus, (2) give Jesus the kind of love He requested, (3) provide you with the most significant spiritual lifestyle which is attainable only through Christian community, (4) offer significant worship to God by reflecting his own character back to him through your behavior, and (5) bring God’s kingdom to earth as asked for in the Lord’s Prayer. And for heaven, such growing obedience to Scripture now will later (6) qualify you for a more responsible place of service as reward in heaven, and, (7) most important of all, give you greater empathy with God for a closer relationship with Him for all of eternity.