Borrowed Truths

A Study on Love (Part 4)

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A Study on Love (Part 4)

“Thou shalt.” This phrase is used over and over in the Scriptures by God, by some accounts there are well over a thousand times that our Lord makes quite clear that when He says this, it is not a suggestion or a request, it means that what He says we are to do or not to do is not an option, it is a commandment. In our time we might say ‘You will’ or even better, ‘You are ordered to do this’, it is not God pleading with us to please obey what He has said, and furthermore, it is not an option to those who desire to be obedient, and in love our response should always be in the affirmative.

It is not possible to make someone ‘feel’ a certain way, or better yet, to command them to express an emotion, for it is quite easy to make, as it were, an individual feel sad, happy, or any other number of emotions simply by our actions or reactions towards them. One cannot be ordered or forced to like someone, to grieve upon command, to rejoice or to love, yet to love one another is a direct commandment from our Lord. So, we must understand that He is not speaking of an emotion that stems from within us, not religious words that can too often come out as insincere, but a love that truly expresses through us by the power of the Holy Spirit how God loves each of us.

John 3:16 is quite clear, “For God so loved the world…”, not just those that call on His name, not only those who have accepted the wonderful grace that He has offered through His Son, but everyone. The Love that has been offered on the Cross of Christ was shed for all even though many will reject Him, for all He offered Himself. All that Jesus did, He did in response to the Fathers desires, He did as God commanded, and this love of sacrifice was commanded, and willingly He laid down His life in love.

The emotion of love comes after the obedience of love.

Love is an action, whether it be in words or deeds, and does not require the acceptance by the receiver for it to be a fulfillment of the commandment. “Thou shalt love thy neighbor as thyself” (Gal.5:14) sounds very easy, and normally is, if we are speaking only about our actual neighbor, the nice couple that lives next door, but Jesus made it quite clear when the lawyer who was trying to tempt Him asked who his neighbor was. (Luke 10:29) Our neighbor is everyone, the people next door, the folks in the next town over, or across the other side of the world, all are our neighbor, and all are we commanded to love. It is not a “If you do this, then …, we have been charged to love.

Read Psalm 35:11-14 and notice the warrior, poet King of Israel, David, the one God called “a man after mine own heart” (Acts 13:22) and see the fulfillment of Matthew 5:44 long before our Lord spoke the words that we are to love our enemies. One of the best examples I can think of when it comes to perfect fulfillment of the commandment of God that we are to “Love the Lord thy God with all thy heart, with all thy soul, and with all thy might” (Deut. 6:5) is when the solders of Joshua were told to go into the land and destroy and kill all, men, women and beast. Do not think that these men came back to their tents with joy and happiness  on their faces, they did not sit in their tents relating the days deeds to their wives and children, there was no jubilation many of these evenings, they had been ordered to kill, and kill they did. Because of their love for the lord their God and His commandments, they did as they were ordered to do. Love is not always easy.

“For sinners also love those that love them” (Luke 6:32) We are to love those who ridicule us at work for our faith in our Lord, those that may mock us and make fun of us for openly giving thanks in the restaurant for the food He so graciously provides, the ones that make us the subject of jokes behind our backs, these are the ones we are commanded to love. “Love suffers long, and is kind…” (1st Cor. 13:4) This is how we love, we suffer, and when we are rebuked, we are kind. There is no other way, for if we are commanded to love, then love we must, and in our own strength we cannot do it, we must completely rely on the Holy Spirit to work this type of love in us, it is not in us, nor can it be without Him.

It is quite one thing to be chided and mocked, it is quite another to be spit on, beaten, whipped, chained and imprisoned, all of these things and worse are happening to many of our brothers and sisters around the globe. Yet they love. I have read stories of men who knew that the God who created all of us loved the man who was beating them just as much as the one being beaten, of families torn apart by war who prayed for those they were running from. Those who will live in glory forever with the Father will love here, no matter the circumstances, for they know that many that are persecuting them now will not enter the Kingdom of God, and yet these are the ones we are told to love.

Perhaps one of the greatest spiritual battles of our souls is to love, to love those that hate us, whether to our faces or behind our backs. It is the love of Christ that is to shine thru us, a love that knows no boundaries, a pure love that defies all that man can perceive, a love that turns the other cheek. I am ashamed to say that I cannot do this, but I know that the Spirit of God can, and as long as I am willing to lift up His name to all, to be a willing and obedient servant, I will trust in Him to show this type of love to others through me, so that His name will be glorified. My prayer is that this would be the desire of all of His children.

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