Good morning,
Here
I am in my seventies and I am still trying to get a working handle on
the word love. I have been one of God’s kids since I trusted the Lord
Jesus to save me when I was eight years old, and yet am still struggling
to get a grip on what God has given me, and what I am supposed to give
him in return. I have also begun to understand the people that I know
and love are pretty much in the same condition I am. I think that we
all know that we live in a rebellious world and that we all have a very
well developed sin nature, but what we are all struggling with is that
God’s love is different from any other kind of love we have been exposed
to here on earth. The Bible does a wonderful job of laying out the ways
that God has shown us what his love looks like, but our flesh and our
Enemy do their best to get us to use our own understanding of how love
works and then try to show God that we love him too.
Jesus
knows how hard this is for us, so he has given us some godly direction
on what he is looking for when we tell him that we love him too. In
John 14:21 Jesus tells us that those who are willing to accept his
commandments and then willingly obey them are the ones who actually love
him. In verses 22 and 23 he tells us that only God’s genuine kids will
be able to do what he says. He tells us that false believers won’t
want to obey and won’t have the strength to obey even though there is no
way they will be willing to give up their claim that they belong to
God. Their claim to their relationship with God will be based on what
they have done or not done and they will insist that their theology is
proof that they are saved. False believers have no idea that a genuine
love relationship with our Father and Savior is the work of the Holy
Spirit. The Holy Spirit is the one giving us a growing awareness of the
nearness of our Savior and Father and the desire and joy that comes with
accepting and obeying our Father’s perfect plan for our lives. It is
this gentle loving work of God’s Holy Spirit that makes it a joy to
discover what our Lord wants to do through us and then willingly abandon
ourselves to obeying him without having any clear idea of what will
become of our obedience as we live out his will in our daily lives.
Dear Lord, please keep teaching us more and more about your eternal,
holy love, and then empower us more and more to accept and obey your
commandments with joy and a sense of adventure in following you, our
Good Shepherd.
John 14:21 Those who accept my
commandments and obey them are the ones who love me. And because they
love me, my Father will love them. And I will love them and reveal
myself to each of them.”
Roy Wisner
