All of us not only want to receive or experience
real love, but deep down we also want to give to others real love, especially
to those of the household of faith. Often our finite mind tends to make love
mostly, if not all, about what we feel. Feeling loved is a part of true love
for certain, but we human beings can be loved by God and never feel His love.
John
3:16 For God so loved the world that He gave His only begotten Son, that
whoever believes in Him should not perish but have everlasting life. (NKJV)
Does God love all people of the world? This verse of
scripture answers with an affirmative yes. Does every person of the world
receive and experience God’s love for them? The sad answer is no. God’s love is
like the sunshine, it is always there, but many people stay outside of His
great love for them by keeping up the barrier or wall that separates humanity
from His love and that is sin. Every family
has some form of dysfunction; therefore, all of us are products of the level of
dysfunction we were raised in, however, through receiving Jesus Christ into our
hearts can we experience God’s great love that is beyond our ability to
understand.
Colossians
2:11-14 In Him you were also circumcised with the circumcision made without
hands, by putting off the body of the sins of the flesh, by the circumcision of
Christ, buried with Him in baptism, in which you also were raised with Him
through faith in the working of God, who raised Him from the dead. And you,
being dead in your trespasses and the uncircumcision of your flesh, He has made
alive together with Him, having forgiven you all trespasses, having wiped out
the handwriting of requirements that was against us, which was contrary to us.
And He has taken it out of the way, having nailed it to the cross. (NKJV)
This is not an easy subject to speak about because
we will never love fully as we should, but we must be willing to discover the
true meaning of love as God defines it in His Word. When we hear someone say to
another person, “I love you,” what
are they really saying? When a person says it, do they mean they would
willingly run in front of a truck about to run over that person and push them
out of the way getting hit and dying in their place? Well, this is the love God
has shown to the whole world.
Romans
5:8 God demonstrates His own love toward us that while we were still sinners
Christ died for us. (NKJV)
The Apostle Paul wrote in 1 Corinthians 13:6 “Love
(God’s Love) takes no pleasure in wrongdoing, but takes pleasure in the truth.”
(BBE) The same Apostle Paul also wrote this, Romans 1:32 Who, though they have knowledge of the law of God,
that the fate of those who do these things is death, not only go on doing these
things themselves, but give approval to those who do them. (BBE) The Love that God the Father pours into the
hearts of His regenerated, born-again, adopted sons and daughters through the
Holy Spirit enables them to not take delight in others doing that which is in
opposition to the Word of God and certainly they won’t approve of it. The love
of God is so endless that I could write infinite pages and still it would be as
if I dropped one drop of water into the Pacific Ocean. The Apostle John wrote
that we (those who are born-again) should not love in just words, i.e., “I love you”, but
in what we do for our brothers and sisters in Christ Body who are in need. It is wonderful and a blessing to the poor
unsaved man or woman when we help them, but our first desire should be to give
spiritual and physical aid to our family members in Christ Body.
Listen to what Pastor Albert Barnes (1798-1870) had
to say about God’s love, “Love does not rejoice over the “vices” of other
people; love does not take delight when they are guilty of crime, or when, in
any manner, they fall into sin. Love does not find pleasure in hearing others
accused of sin, and in having it proved that they committed it. Love does not
find a malicious pleasure in the “report” that they have done wrong; or in
following up that report, and finding it established. Wicked people often find
pleasure in this, and rejoice when others have fallen into sin, and have
disgraced and ruined themselves. People of the world often find a malignant
pleasure in the report, and in the evidence that a member of the Church has
brought dishonor on his profession. A man often rejoices when an enemy, a
persecutor, or a slanderer has committed some crime, and when he has shown an
improper spirit, uttered a rash expression, or taken some step which shall
involve him in ignominy. But love does none of these things. Love does not
desire that an enemy, a persecutor, or a slanderer should do evil, or should
disgrace and ruin him. Love does not rejoice, but grieves, when a professor of
religion, or an enemy of religion - when a personal friend or foe has done
anything wrong. It neither loves the wrong, nor the fact that it has been done.
And perhaps there is no greater triumph of the gospel than in its enabling a
man to rejoice that even his enemy and persecutor in any respect does well; or
to rejoice that he is in any way honored and respected among people. Human
nature, without the gospel, manifests a different feeling; and it is only as
the heart is subdued by the gospel, and filled with universal benevolence, that
it is brought to rejoice when all people do well.”
Scenario: You have a 42 year old brother addicted to
crack-cocaine; he lies to you regularly, steals from you, and always wants
money from you. Question: If you refuse to give him any money (knowing he will
use it to smoke more crack and thus continue to kill himself) are you
demonstrating to him real love or
is real love to
give him what he wants? The Apostle John wrote in 3 John to Gaius and said to
him, “Gaius, whom I love in truth.”
Jesus Christ is love manifested in a human body. How
did He demonstrate His love for people while He was on earth in the flesh? Our
Lord was truly compassionate, but He was never enabling. Christ came to show
compassion and love to all humanity by dying for our sins. However, His love is
not enabling. Take the woman at the well, the Lord Jesus already knew about her
status with other people in her community, especially being lowly regarded by
the women. He knew what people thought of her as a woman. He knew about all the
men she had slept with. He knew what she was seeking in all of her bed hopping.
He brought her to a point where she was willing to confess her sin to Him. Once
she felt brokenness and became contrite about her sin, our Lord immediately
forgave her and gave her what she had been looking and longing for all her life
and that was real love.
For the first time in her life she knew real love,
which all of her sexual encounters never brought her. Do you believe that she
ran from the presence of our Lord (receiving His love in her heart) into the
city announcing her encounter with our Lord to the men of that Samaritan city
wanting to run back into the bed of the man she lived with?
I have never conducted this poll I am about to speak
about, but I am not ashamed to say that I believe if you asked 100 people that
were praying for someone with an addiction to heroin if they wanted that person
forgiven by God and still bound by heroin or forgiven by God and delivered from
the addiction, I believe with zero doubt in my heart that 100 people (that’s
100%) would answer delivered from the addiction by God and forgiven. This is
what Christ salvation brings to every soul. Our Lord said, “I have come that
you might have life that is superior in quality.”
Matthew
9:2-7 Then behold, they brought to Him a paralytic lying on a bed. When Jesus
saw their faith, He said to the paralytic, "Son, be of good cheer; your
sins are forgiven you." And at once some of the scribes said within
themselves, "This Man blasphemes!" But Jesus, knowing their thoughts,
said, "Why do you think evil in your hearts? For which is easier, to say, 'Your
sins are forgiven you,' or to say, 'Arise and walk'? But that you may know that
the Son of Man has power on earth to forgive sins" --- then He said to the
paralytic, "Arise, take up your bed, and go to your house." And he
arose and departed to his house. (NKJV)
What would that prove? It proves that if you really
desire to love (as God does) you want the people you love to be whole, healed,
and you would want the absolute best for them. The Bible says the wages of sin
(not some sin; all sin) is death (not life). Humanity has an enemy, and from
the beginning he has and still is waging war against the Word of God. In the
garden, he asked Eve, “Did God really say not to eat of every tree of the
garden?” The desire of the enemy is to distort the true love of God found in
Jesus Christ and repenting of sin and believing the gospel is the only way to
receive real love.
Romans
13:8-10 Owe no one anything except to love one another, for he who loves
another has fulfilled the law. For the commandments, "You shall not commit adultery," "You shall not
murder," "You shall not steal," "You shall not bear false
witness," "You
shall not covet," and if there is any other commandment,
are all summed up in this saying, namely, "You shall love your neighbor as yourself." Love
does no harm to a neighbor; therefore love is the fulfillment of the
law. (NKJV)
Author of “Silent Assassins of the Soul”, coming
soon for the Glory of God
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