The first, and perhaps clearest time I heard God's voice (I don't know how I knew it was Him, I just did) He asked me “Why are you running away from me Phil, all I want you to do is to love for me.” I cringe when I think about it now, but I told Him “I don't need you for that.” With 20/20 hindsight I should have solved the problems of the World while I still knew everything (I was sixteen).
There was a song “chip, chip” I heard on steam radio when I was boy. The song compared our love to a mansion and how the negative things in life chip away at it. One stanza stands out “One little wrong brings on the gloom, puts a chill in-a every room.” It's easy to love when things are going well, but what is your response (mine) to pain, disappointment, to being manipulated, used, betrayed, despised, marginalized, hated? Life can be (is) tough, and the school of hard knocks knocks the stuffing out of you. It wasn't that long after this, before my mansion of love looked like a war zone! I came to realize how shallow my love was, how much of it was selfish, and dependent on getting it back from others. I will only love you if ....... God's love is unconditional and broken and wounded I needed to come to Him to fill up my “love deficit” as councilors are fond of saying when love runs out on us.
So I want to look briefly at the two aspects of the description of love in the title of this post. Firstly then the colour of our love towards others starting with “Love bears all things.” Jesus is our example here. The Message paraphrase of 1 Peter 2:23 reads “They called him every name in the book and he said nothing back. He suffered in silence, content to let God set things right.” Please do not misunderstand this, Jesus is no wimp! He was quick to take up the cause of injustice to others. He makes a whip of chords, overturns the tables of the money changes in the Temple. They were cheating the people, and He drove them out (John 2:15). On the other hand personal insults He bears without retaliation, putting His trust God because He knows that God works all things together for good to those who love Him (Romans 8:8). What is important to realize here is that our love is diminished when we hold grudges. Bitterness poisons not only us, but those we want to love. “Love is patient, love is kind. It does not envy, it does not boast, it is not proud. It is not rude, it is not self-seeking, it is not easily angered, it keeps no record of wrongs (1 Corinthians 13:4,5). Love bears all things.
Next, love believes all things. Love is not quick to jump to conclusions about others, about their motives, about what they do and why they do them. Love is not quick to condemn, but will seek to understand where the other person is coming from. Love is quick to believe in others, knowing that believing in them can be the very hand up that they need to enable them to get out of the pit that they themselves or others have dug for them. Love is quick to forgive.
Love hopes all things. While love is not quick to believe the wrong about others, there does come a time when we need to face reality. To trust someone when they continue on an ongoing basis to prove conclusively by their actions and attitudes that they are not trustworthy, then we can no longer believe. But we can still hope. To continue to trust when the evidence points to an unwillingness on the part of the other person to change, to see where they are wrong, is not helpful to them. Love needs to say “no” at times. Sometimes love needs to oppose. But love does it for the right reasons, for their sake not for ours. But we can still hope, and we can still pray and we can still love. We need to be as wise as serpents and as harmless as doves.
Love endures all things. Love starts with bearing all things and ends with enduring all things. Well what is the difference? When we can no longer believe, when we can no longer hope, we can still bear all things, we can still endure. The difference is that love goes through the process and remains constant through it all. We can endure through gritted teeth because we have no choice. But to continue to love in spite of it all is a choice (at least it starts with a choice). We do have the choice to choose not to be quick to jump to conclusions, we do have the choice to give the benefit of the doubt and we do have the choice to hope and pray and trust God. And when we do this, when we submit to the character polishing that God intends though our obedience to His command to love our neighbour as ourselves, then we bring in the Kingdom. When we do this we please the only one who in the end counts, we please the Lord. But all this raises a huge questions. How on earth can we do this? Who can love their enemies, who ever did? Well Jesus did! As they drove cruel spikes through His hands and feet He prayed “Father forgive them, they do not know what they are doing (Luke 23:34). I want to be like Him, I am not, but I want to be.
There is a heresy that I hear Christians saying all the time. “Jesus could do this or that because He is God.” To say this is to deny that Jesus came in the flesh (1 John 4:2). Jesus did what He did on earth, as a man filled with the Spirit of God. If this was not so, then He could not be an example to imitate. We could admire Him, but we could not be expected to be like Him. On the other hand we cannot be expected to be like Him without the same Spirit that empowered Him as a man. This is why my saying that I did not need Him in order to love for Him was so very, very foolish. I need Him, and I need Him desperately, for this and many other things! With man it is impossible, with God all things are possible (Luke 18:27).
So how does it work, how do we tap into His love? This is the second aspect of what we see in the phrase “We love because He first loved us.” When we turn to the Lord we are included in the “we” of this verse. It has to start there, but it does not stop there. There is a principle behind all this, and it is that we are intended to draw the strength, the desire and the wherewithal to love, from our ongoing connection (relationship) with Him. When we are in right relationship with Him we are positioned to receive His love and to become a channel of it to this wicked and hurting world. And the more we allow His love to pour out through us, the more of it we get it ourselves. How else can we love our enemies? It is not natural. It is not intended to be, it is supernatural and powerful. He does all of the first part mentioned above, supremely. He bears, believes, hopes and endures and continues to pour out His love into our hearts (Romans 5:5). He forgives when we blow it, over and over and over. He endures and continues to believe in us. He hopes and instills hope in us, He bears all things, hopes all things endures and believes and hopes and endures. He believes in us when He tells us that we can do all things through Him (Philippians 4:13). When you do your part (and I mine) He “is all the while effectually at work in you energizing and creating in you the power and desire, both to will and to work for His good pleasure and satisfaction and delight (Philippians 2:13 AMP).
So do any of us do this perfectly? Of course not, for “in many things we all fail,” (James 3:2), and no more so than in our oh so finite love. What we need to do, what I need to do, is to cooperate with Him in giving Him place, a platform in our lives to experience His “Love poured out into our hearts (Romans 5:5 again).” There is so much in the World that chips away at our love, that we need (I need) that love to be daily replenished. God's love is a practical love, God's love is an enabling love, God's love is an empowering love. It is not an abstract thing, and it is not an automatic thing. We need (I need) to take time in His presence. The first commandment is to love Him with all that we are and have, and it is as we seek to obey Him that we open up ourselves for Him to pour His love into our hearts. I want more, I need more to continue to love in this wicked and hurting World that by and large only looks out for number one. I cannot love my enemies in my own strength, I cannot. I cannot do it without Him, but I can do all things through Christ who strengthens me.
If you want to pray: Father I know deep down that love is the answer, but without You I cannot love as You intend me to love. Even with You it is a struggle many times. It is only when I love You with all that I am and have, that I even begin to fully receive Your love. Please show me my part in getting rid of the things in my life that hinder Your love flowing in and through me. With You all things are possible. With Your help and strength I can do all things. With Your help I can get up when I fall. With Your help I can bring Glory to Your name, and I want to. I want to be like You. In Jesus name.
