Tuesday, February 28, 2017

How To Live A Life Of Love



"By this we believe…." Jesus answered them, "Do you now believe?" —John 16:30-31

{CHAMBERS} “Now we believe….” But Jesus asks, “Do you…? Indeed the hour is coming…that you…will leave Me alone” (John 16:31-32). Many Christian workers have left Jesus Christ alone and yet tried to serve Him out of a sense of duty, or because they sense a need as a result of their own discernment. […] Our soul has gotten out of intimate contact with God by leaning on our own religious understanding (see Proverbs 3:5-6). […] But once a person realizes how he has hindered his understanding of Jesus Christ, and caused uncertainties, sorrows, and difficulties for himself, it is with shame and remorse that he has to return. […] We should get in the habit of continually seeking His counsel on everything, instead of making our own commonsense decisions and then asking Him to bless them. […] We become a prideful, arrogant person, thinking we know what to do in every situation. We have put our sense of duty on the throne of our life, instead of enthroning the resurrection life of Jesus. We are not told to “walk in the light” of our conscience or in the light of a sense of duty, but to “walk in the light as He is in the light…” (1 John 1:7).

{ELGIN}  Being born again means that we are born into a new, spiritual reality.  Our lives are not our own.  We belong to God.  (1 John 4:4) Yet, we often behave as though we are not God’s own possession but are gods ourselves.  Making decisions about how we will live, how we will treat others.  Some deserve our grace and mercy, others do not.  We reserve the right to treat people poorly, we are easily provoked or maybe we are just in a bad mood.  We say unkind things to people we say we love. We have been called to a life of love.  (1 Corinthians 13: 4-8) “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.”

The only way we will be consistent with the way we live and love is by having a deep and abiding relationship with the Lord.  That takes work.  Deliberate effort.  There is a person I know who has a spiritual interest. They love attending church for worship, fellowship, and discipleship.  They share the Word with their friends. Yet, at the same time, they see nothing wrong with getting angry with family members, saying unkind things, treating themselves as being first and others last.  It’s a strange paradox, but actually all too common.  We all have spiritual blinders.  We see nothing wrong with the exceptions that we exercise.  In fact we feel justified.  Why do you have this problem?  Because we are lacking in the way we have yielded our lives to the Lord.  We have held something back in our relationship with God and yet think ourselves as being right in our walk.  The thing is, the closer we get to Jesus, the clearer our sinful condition is contrasted to His holiness.  We should stop trying to be holy on our own and embrace Him.  (Galatians 2:20) “This life I now live in the flesh, I live by faith in the Son of God who loved me and gave Himself up for me.”  It’s time to live the life.

No comments: