add to your…brotherly
kindness love. —2 Peter 1:5, 7
“Love is an indefinite thing
to most of us; we don’t know what we mean when we talk about love. Love is the
loftiest preference of one person for another, and spiritually Jesus demands
that this sovereign preference be for Himself (see Luke 14:26). […] … the Holy
Spirit reveals to me that God loved me
not because I was lovable, but because it was His nature to do so. Now He
commands me to show the same love to others by saying, “…love one another as I
have loved you” (John 15:12). He is saying, “I will bring a number of people
around you whom you cannot respect, but you must exhibit My love to them, just
as I have exhibited it to you.” This kind of love is not a patronizing love for
the unlovable— it is His love, and it will not be evidenced in us overnight.
Some of us may have tried to force it, but we were soon tired and frustrated. […]
The knowledge that God has loved me
beyond all limits will compel me to go into the world to love others in the
same way. I may get irritated because I have to live with an unusually
difficult person. But just think how disagreeable I have been with God! Am I
prepared to be identified so closely with the Lord Jesus that His life and His
sweetness will be continually poured out through Me? Neither natural love nor
God’s divine love will remain and grow in me unless it is nurtured. Love is
spontaneous, but it has to be maintained through discipline.” CHAMBERS
In our new life in Christ, part
of our new nature is to love others. We
love because God first loved us. (1 John
4:19) It’s our old nature that presents
the problem. My struggle with loving others
is with my old nature which says I should love me first and then others so long
as they bring some benefit to me. That is
why Chambers says love requires discipline.
Not in the sense that you make yourself love others, but love others as
a result of your love for God and the pursuit of your faith. (2 Peter 1:5-9) “giving all diligence, add to your faith virtue, to virtue knowledge, to knowledge self-control,
to self-control perseverance, to
perseverance godliness, to godliness brotherly kindness, and to brotherly kindness love. For if these things are yours and abound, you
will be neither barren nor unfruitful in the knowledge of our Lord Jesus
Christ. For he who lacks these things is shortsighted, even to blindness, and has forgotten that he was cleansed from his
old sins.” Be careful not to
interpret this to mean that we are to be accepting of the sins of others. But, God loved us while we were yet sinners.
(Romans 5:8) And because of that love, Jesus died for us. And so, in the same way, we show love to others in spite of their
sin. The measure of love that we show
toward others is directly proportional to the measure of love and devotion we
have for God. (Matthew 22:37-39) The Christian trait of love for others should
be the greatest attribute in our lives and proves to the world that we are His
disciples. (John 13:35). So come on
Christian .. show me the love! Charley
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