NOTE: I know lots of people are on vacation this week to celebrate Independence Day in the United States. This is my last message for the week. If you celebrate the 4th of July, I pray you have a blessed celebration. If not, as Americans celebrate our freedoms, please celebrate the freedom you have in Christ Jesus.
This morning we continue our series entitled, “Power of Fellowship.” Yesterday I introduced you to two passages from the Gospel according to St. John. I used the passages to teach a message about the love of God. I wants us to go back to these two passages again today. I feel led to flow in the same vein.
(John 15:9-12 New Living Translation)
“I have loved you even as the Father has loved me. Remain in my love. When you obey my commandments, you remain in my love, just as I obey my Father’s commandments and remain in his love. I have told you these things so that you will be filled with my joy. Yes, your joy will overflow! This is my commandment: Love each other in the same way I have loved you.”
(John 1:14&16 NKJV)
And the Word became flesh and dwelt among us, and we beheld His glory, the glory as of the only begotten of the Father, full of grace and truth… And of His fullness we have all received, and grace for grace.
So what does this mean to you today? A few things.
1. Jesus commanded us, as His followers, to love others THE SAME WAY He loves us. Humanly speaking, this is an impossible task. I do not believe humans are capable of loving THE WAY God loves, unless God Himself empowers us to do it. Mere humans are too flawed. But filled with the Holy Spirit and enabled by God’s grace, we can do all things. This includes the love of God. God gave you His Spirit and His grace so you can love others THE SAME WAY He loves you.
2. The day you are Born-Again and filled with God’s Spirit you are a new man. Your Spirit is made new instantly. However, your “new man” is still living in an old body and you need a new mind. Your Spirit may have been made new instantaneously, but your soul (your mind, emotions and will; the way you think, the way you feel and the way you make decisions), is being made new progressively, and your body will be made new eventually (someday you will get a new body and you will live with God forever). You are a tripartite being, just like God. God is Father, Son, and Spirit. You are Spirit, Soul and Body. If you are Born-Again, your Spirit WAS made new, your Soul IS BEING made new, and your BODY WILL BE made new someday. Your focus everyday should be to renew your soul. Everyday your goal should be to get incrementally closer in your journey to thinking, feeling and making decisions that line up with God and His Word. Love is a major part of that. To become more and more like God each day, you must learn to love THE WAY He loves. Remember, love is not something God has. Love is WHO God is. So to be like God, which is what we are called to be, we must love THE WAY God loves and we cannot make any excuses for behavior that resists the love of God. The more you make excuses for that behavior, by saying things like, “I am not Jesus,” the more you fool yourself into thinking that you have the “right” to live in a way that is beneath God’s best. While you may not be Jesus, you are certainly called to live like Him in this world (1 John 4:17).
3. When you are first filled with the Holy Spirit and you start your supernatural journey towards becoming the man/woman you are called to be, you get divine impulses from the Holy Spirit to do things that were not natural to you in the past. Before you were Born-Again you were natural to this world. So you saw nothing wrong with harboring bitterness, malice, envy or unforgiveness in your heart. If someone did you wrong, you saw nothing wrong with cutting them off and writing them out of your life’s story. But once you are Born-Again the supernatural is now natural to you. The Holy Spirit starts to give you impulses to love the way God loves. He tells you to forgive. He tells you to release the root of bitterness in your heart. He tells you to love and even honor those who have hurt you in the past. At first this is hard. At first, since your soul is not renewed yet, you fight the process. But my message to you this morning is to open your heart to what the Holy Spirit is leading you to do. Without God you cannot do it. If you have been through very painful experiences, the scars on your soul can impact you for years, even decades. But God can wash the pain and hurt away. He can heal you from the inside-out. Stop resisting the urge to love. As a mere human you will not be able to do it. But God gave you His Spirit and His grace so you can do all things. By His Spirit you can love THE SAME WAY He loves. You can treat others THE SAME WAY He treats you. This is the will of God. Stop fighting it.
4. God has given you the grace to operate in His love. At first, when the Holy Spirit gives you divine impulses to love THE WAY God loves, we all resist it. That’s understandable. While the grace to love God’s way is there, at first it seems like an impossible task. And from strictly a human point of view, it is. But even when you can’t see yourself operating in the grace to love THE WAY God loves, you run across scriptures like John 1:16, where Jesus taught us that we have grace for grace. If the grace to love THE WAY God loves seems out of reach for you, open heart to the fact that God gave you grace to reach it. You have been given a grace to lay hold of the grace Jesus provided for us. You have grace to reach God’s grace. You have grace to lay hold of God’s best. You have grace to get to the point where the grace of God is flowing in your life freely. So while it is true that you cannot love THE WAY God loves unless God equips, enables and empowers you to do it, it is also true that God has already given you everything you need to operate in His love. You have no excuses. Stop fighting it. It is time to love others THE WAY God loves you!
Declaration of Faith:
Father, I am Born-Again. I was filled with Your Spirit when I made Your Son, Jesus the Christ, my Lord. My Spirit WAS made new. Someday I will get a new body and I will be with Your forever. So while my Spirit WAS made new, and my body WILL BE made new, my focus today is my soul. My soul IS BEING made new day by day. My mind is renewed by Your Word. By Your Word and Your Spirit I change the way I think, feel and make decisions to line up with You. Your Spirit leads me to love THE WAY You love. I get divine impulses to forgive and treat others THE WAY You treat them. I used to fight those impulses, but those days are over. Not only did you give me the grace to love THE SAME WAY You love, but you gave me the grace to lay hold of Your love, even when it seems out of reach for me. I have grace to walk in love. I have the grace to love my neighbor as myself. I see people the way You see them and I love them with a supernatural love. No more excuses. Love is my commandment and I will walk in Your love for the rest of my life! I declare this by faith. In Jesus’ name, Amen!
This is Today’s Word. Apply it and prosper!
