God’s Love
by
David Redmond
 
 
 
As we prepare to apply the word of God in our daily activities, we must do so with the love of God in our heart. The Bible says we cannot manifest the love of God unless we are submitted and obedient to his authority. Also, without the love of God within us, it is impossible to successfully represent the character and life of Jesus Christ. 1 John 5:3 says "This is the love of God, that we obey his commandments." Again, it says in 2 John verse 6 "And this is love, that we walk after his commandments." Can you think of any more appropriate gesture you can do here on earth, or in heaven for that matter, to show God that you love him than by obeying his word? The Lord Jesus himself said in John 14:21 "He that hath my commandments, and keepeth them, he it is that loveth me."
Let's look at the two views of love, one being the way God looks at it, and then how religion looks at it. The love of God is full of contrasts, being very hard and unyielding in some aspects but always caring and full of compassion. At one end of the scale God's love is hard, demanding that we submit and obey, as a son to a father. It is a love that disciplines, corrects, and chastises to ensure that we walk in obedience to his word. At the other end of the scale, God's love is submissive and serving, ensuring that the hurts and needs of his children are ministered unto. The Bible says in Ro.5:8 that God introduced (commendeth) his love toward us, in that, while we were yet sinners, Christ died for us. Again, in Jn.3:16, "God so loved the world, that he gave his only begotten Son, that whosoever believeth in him should not perish, but have everlasting life". This shows us the compassionate love God has for us all, in that he was willing to give up the life of his precious son Jesus, to deliver us all from the pain and consequence of Sin. In our spiritual walk, we must always maintain the proper balance concerning love. We should never allow pity and compassion for others to compromise our submission and obedience to God's authority.
A common occurrence in the Church today is to use love as an excuse to overlook disobedience to God's word. Because we fear being branded as heartless or one who lacks feeling for others, we tend to use love as the mechanism to escape taking a stand on what God's word tells us. Instead of exposing sin, it is covered up and tolerated in the name of love. We have a tendency to worry more about hurting someone's feelings than we do about obeying the word of God. Thank God we have Jesus as our example. He never considered anyone's feelings to be more important than the word. We see in Matthew 16:21-23, that the Lord shared how he must go to Jerusalem, suffer, be killed, and on the third day be raised. The disciples completely missed that Jesus said he would be raised. But it says that Peter rebuked him, saying that those things should not be. Peter cared for Jesus and loved him. He did not realize that it was God's will that those things should happen, but not wanting to see him hurt, he told the Lord that he should care for himself, in other words, be selfish and look to his own well being. Not considering that he would hurt Peter's feelings, Jesus immediately rebuked Peter because he was allowing the thought processes of Satan to influence him and not those of God. Jesus was applying the principle Paul wrote about in Galatians 1:10 when he said if you seek to please men, you cannot be a servant of God. The Lord always served the Father, speaking the word, not caring if it pleased men.
When you see something that is contrary to the word and you compromise because you're afraid to hurt someone's feelings, you are in danger of bringing judgement upon yourself. Ezekiel 3:20-21 says "When a righteous man doth turn from his righteousness, and commit iniquity, and I lay a stumblingblock before him, he shall die: because thou hast not given him warning, he shall die in his sin, and his righteousness which he hath done shall not be remembered; but his blood will I require at thine hand. Nevertheless if thou warn the righteous man, that the righteous sin not, and he doth not sin, he shall surely live, because he is warned; also thou hast delivered thy soul." Do you see how simple it is for us to enter into sin ourselves when we use love as an excuse for not exposing disobedience? We must not allow reasoning of any kind to cause us to compromise our walk with the Lord, otherwise we cannot be his servant and we risk condemnation to ourselves.
It is very easy to confuse love with indecision and lack of commitment. You cannot manifest God's love without making a conscious decision to commit yourself to submit to him and obey. We can see this in 1 Samuel starting in chapter 18 with Jonathan, the son of Saul. I have heard it taught before that Jonathan was a man of love because his soul was knit to the soul of David. In reality, though he was a man who loved, Jonathan was a man who was indecisive and lacked commitment. He was a double minded man of the pattern described in James 1:8. Jonathan was a soul that ran back and forth from spirit to flesh. One day he yearned to be with David, a man annointed by the Spirit of God, and the next he was back with his father, a man who had separated himself from God and gone the way of the flesh. Jonathan's soul was trying to serve and appease two opposing masters, which is impossible. Ecclesiastes 3:1 says "there is a season and a time to every purpose under the heaven". There are times appointed when we must choose whom we will serve. Romans 8:6-7 says "that to be carnally minded is death and to be spiritually minded is life. Because the carnal mind is enmity against God, not being subject to the law of God". Jonathan did love David and defended him often before his father, King Saul. But you cannot defend the spirit before the flesh. The flesh is enmity against God and therefore to the spirit also. The thing Jonathan needed to do was separate himself from the flesh and commit himself totally to the spirit. He had to choose whom he would serve.
 In 1Samuel 23:17, Jonathan acknowledges that David would be king over Israel. They make a covenant that when David is King, Jonathan would be second in the kingdom. He knew the will of God that David should be king, yet instead of breaking away from his father (representing the flesh) and totally committing to David (representing the spirit) he continued going back and forth. Eventually, Jonathan perished in battle along with his father and brothers. The covenant was never fulfilled because Jonathan never made a total commitment to David. Instead, on the day of decision, he went the way of the carnal mind which is death. Many Christians are like Jonathan, they love Jesus and acknowledge him as Lord and King but never make a total commitment to him, either because they love someone who is in the world or they love the things of the flesh. I pray that on the day of decision you choose to follow after the spirit. You cannot separate love from submission and obedience to God's will. If you try to separate love from obedience, you'll end up going the same road as Jonathan.
There are so many who use love as an excuse not to obey the Lord. The problem in the body of Christ today is that the multitudes are living a milktoast Christianity. There's no commitment or substance to it. Have you ever seen what happens to toast when it's soaked in milk. It becomes soggy and falls apart. As it is in the natural, so also in the spiritual. 1 Peter 2:2 says that as newborn babes, we are to desire the sincere milk of the word, that you may grow. When we are newborn Christians we need the milk of the word to grow, but many are content to wallow in it for the rest of their lives, never growing in the knowledge of God. They become like the toast. Isaiah 28:9 says "to whom shall the Lord teach knowledge and to whom shall he make to understand doctrine?  Them that are weaned from the milk and drawn from the breasts." Even as a babe in the natural must be weaned from the milk and begin to eat solid food in order to grow up healthy, you reach a point in spiritual growth, when you must expand your diet of the word in order to grow. When you start eating the meat, God will begin teaching you knowledge and giving you understanding of his doctrine. When you continually subsist on the meat of the word, you will begin to learn that God's love manifests through obedience and submission to his will. Jesus said in John 14:24, "He that loveth me not keepeth not my sayings: and the word which ye hear is not mine, but the Father's which sent me." In other words the Father is saying that if you disobey his word, you don't love him. Isn't the Father awesome? He leaves us no room for confusion or compromise. It's cut and dried: no obedience, no love. In John 14:31, the Lord says "But that the world may know that I love the Father; and as the Father gave me commandment, even so I do."
Jesus was able to manifest the love of God because he was totally committed to submit and be obedient to the Father. When we submit and obey God, the world will know that we love him because they will see that same commitment in us that they saw in Jesus. We do not manifest the love of God through compromise, but through unwavering obedience to the word. As it is written, "Eye hath not seen nor ear heard, neither have entered into the heart of man, the things which God hath prepared for them that love him." If you love the Lord, obey him. As you obey him, he will pour blessings upon you that you can’t even comprehend.
 
 
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