“Neither natural love nor Divine love will remain unless it is cultivated.”
Oswald Chamber’s words sank deep into my heart, how true they rang!
When our youngest son was about 15, he announced to me that when he got married, it would be to someone whom he did not have to “work” at staying in love, it would “just happen” because they were so much in love! Ah, the wisdom of those teen years! I’m sure he’s discovered the truth of Oswald Chamber’s writings and the reality that “Love IS spontaneous, but it has be maintained by discipline.”
“Love” really is “the sovereign preference of one person for another.” Spiritually, Jesus demands that that preference be for Himself. When God’s love is in our hearts by the Holy Spirit, Jesus Christ is first, THEN we must put into practice the working out of the “discipline” of “adding” to our faith that Peter spoke of in 2 Peter, chapter 1.
The Holy Spirit helps us understand that God loved me not because I was lovable, but because love is God’s nature. And He says to you and me, “Love others as I have loved you.” THEN he brings into our lives any number of people whom we find it hard to like, much less love or respect and yet, we are to love them as He has shown His love to us! Oh for those who are EASY to love to be in my life, but alas, it is not to be! No, I am “stuck” with someone so incompatible!
Chambers goes on to say: “You won’t reach it (loving them) on tiptoe. Some of us have tried to but we were soon tired.” So HOW can I love as He loves? How can I “add love”? Evidently there is something I must do! When I understand that the Lord God loved me to the uttermost, to the end of all my sin and meanness and selfishness and wrong, it propels me, it compels me, to love in the same way. Just as God’s love to me is without end, I must love others from that solid rock of God’s love to me. Sound daunting?!
“Growth in grace stops” when the focus turns back on me and the wrongs I suffer from someone in my life. Should I not pause and remember how disagreeable, unlovable, I have been and am to God, yet He continues to love me?
“Am I prepared to be so identified with the Lord Jesus that His life and His sweetness are being poured out all the time?”
Yes, love IS spontaneous, and yes, it DOES have to be maintained by discipline! Love is not easy, it is not something you can “add” or “attain” or even “maintain” in the flesh alone. The Holy Spirit filling and over-flowing in our hearts is the answer. There is no substitute for spending time with the Master, sitting at His feet, reading His Word, listening for His Voice, writing thoughts and prayers that come to you as He fills you with His Spirit.
I’m so thankful that the Lord continues to help us search for His ways and then follow them through the power of the Holy Spirit. How I thank the Lord for His Word, for the great writings of Oswald Chambers and others that stimulate my mind and my heart to God and His ways! As my friend Vida, says, “Make today a great day!” And I’m adding, “In the Lord!”
Be blessed as you “add love” to your faith!
No comments:
Post a Comment