“Love suffers long
and is kind…” —1 Corinthians 13:4
“We cannot predetermine our thoughts and actions by saying,
“Now I will never think any evil thoughts, and I will believe everything that
Jesus would have me to believe.” […] We don’t deliberately set the statements
of Jesus before us as our standard, but when His Spirit is having His way with
us, we live according to His standard without even realizing it. […] The fountains from which love flows are in
God, not in us. It is absurd to think that the love of God is naturally in
our hearts, as a result of our own nature. His love is there only because it
“has been poured out in our hearts by the Holy Spirit…” (Romans 5:5). The evidence of
our love for Him is the absolute spontaneity of our love, which flows naturally
from His nature within us. And when we look back, we will not be able to
determine why we did certain things, but we can know that we did them according
to the spontaneous nature of His love in us. The life of God exhibits itself in
this spontaneous way because the fountains of His love are in the Holy Spirit.”
CHAMBERS
Have you ever thought about the commands we are given in the
Bible. I am not just referring to the 10 commandments in Exodus 20, but the
commands Jesus gave throughout the four
Gospels. 2 Timothy 3:16 says that all scripture is “God Breathed”, inspired
by God through His Spirit. You need the
Spirit of God in you not only to understand the Truth, but also to obey the
Truth.
(2 Corinthians 2: 12-16)
“What we have received is not the spirit of the world, but the Spirit who is
from God, so that we may understand what God has freely given us. This is what
we speak, not in words taught us by human wisdom but in words taught by the
Spirit, explaining spiritual realities with Spirit-taught words. The person without the Spirit does not
accept the things that come from the Spirit of God but considers them
foolishness, and cannot understand them because they are discerned only through
the Spirit. The person with the Spirit makes judgments about all things,
but such a person is not subject to merely human judgments.. ‘Who has known the
mind of the Lord so as to instruct him?’ But we have the mind of Christ.”
So when we are commanded to love God and love our neighbor, (Matthew 22:37-39) it is a spiritual command
which must be done with the power of the Spirit in us. We decide if we will obey the Spirit or
quench the Spirit. While the Spirit was
given to us for a number of reasons … we still have choice. If we try to do something spiritual in the
power of our flesh .. we will fail … If you say, I just can’t forgive or I just
can’t love someone .. you are right … but you can do all things in Christ who
gives you strength. (Philippians 4:13)
So your success in loving others .. in obeying the Word ..is found in the
strength of the Holy Spirit in you and weakness of your flesh. That is a daily endeavor. ELGIN
Bondye Beni Ou (God Bless You)
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