The Prison of God’s Love 4

But ye shall receive power, after that the Holy Ghost is come upon you: and ye shall be witnesses unto me both in Jerusalem, and in all Judaea, and in Samaria, and unto the uttermost part of the earth. (Acts 1:8)

When we started looking at God’s love, it became clear that we imprison someone who can’t be trusted outside the constraints of prison.

As such, we said that God’s power is so great that we need to be constrained when it manifests in us.

Why must we be constrained? It is so that God can channel Himself through us for His agenda to be manifested to a needy world.

God’s love is His manifestation of His agenda for the created order. He created everything because He loved it. Creation was His statement about His purpose.

But if the Spirit of him that raised up Jesus from the dead dwell in you, he that raised up Christ from the dead shall also quicken your mortal bodies by his Spirit that dwelleth in you. (Romans 8:11)

Imagine the power that raised Christ from the dead lives in us!

What are the implications of that reality? Imagine a power infinitely more powerful than the hydrogen bomb, the nuclear bomb and all the other bombs combined lives in those who have Christ in their hearts.

Aren’t you amazed that God would entrust that kind of power in a feeble being like you?

We need to look at some destructive incidences of that power to appreciate the need for some constraint on ones possessing that power.

And immediately the angel of the Lord smote him, because he gave not God the glory: and he was eaten of worms, and gave up the ghost. (Acts 12:23)

Imagine someone being eaten by worms as he is speaking!

And said, O full of all subtilty and all mischief, thou child of the devil, thou enemy of all righteousness, wilt thou not cease to pervert the right ways of the Lord? And now, behold, the hand of the Lord is upon thee, and thou shalt be blind, not seeing the sun for a season. And immediately there fell on him a mist and a darkness; and he went about seeking some to lead him by the hand. (Acts 13:10, 11)

Someone is stricken by blindness just like that.

Remember Jesus cursing the fig tree and it dried from the roots? Or the two captains and their fifty who were burnt by fire from heaven for attempting to arrest Elijah? Remember the forty two youngsters who were mauled by bears after making fun of Elisha? Remember the land lacking rain for over three years  after Elijah’s proclamation? What about Gehazi being stricken by leprosy for his greed?

Yet all this is part of the heritage God has placed in His children by virtue of their accepting Christ as Savior and allowed Him to be their Lord.

Where do I get this? You may be asking.

Verily, verily, I say unto you, He that believeth on me, the works that I do shall he do also; and greater works than these shall he do; because I go unto my Father. (John 14:12)

In us is the power to perform miracles, even destructive ones like we have seen. It is therefore in the interests of our Savior to channel all that power to positive and creative things so that we can be witnesses of His saving grace to the world. Remember the Holy Spirit was promised to make us witnesses and not performers?

The other reason we need to be constrained is the trust God’s presence engenders. That in itself is dangerous because of its implications. And it is because it almost always perfect spiritual maturity from the outset. Yet we know that spiritual growth, like any growth is never instantaneous.

We may thus place spiritual infants in harm’s way due to that trust. There are churches that send young people on their own for a mission without mature supervision. Then they are surprised when they later find some girls pregnant, even their own children.

But this is the better occurrence because the evidence is out. I have heard church leaders defending their young people against accusations of immorality yet their excursions were unaccompanied by accountable elders.

I once attended a wedding where the pastor displayed the couple wedding as an example of holy matrimony. In other words, they had never touched each other. Incidentally, the youth group had split because there were others who were convinced that the two had gotten together that they even boycotted the wedding.

Sadly, the child came in record time, and I never heard anyone call it a miracle of accelerated pregnancy. But an even sadder part is that the leader of the team that boycotted also fell into the same trap.

On the same vein I remember a leader in church whose boss reported to the church that he had swindled or stolen some money and it was taken to a general meeting. The boss was demonized for trying to spoil the good name of the leader; until the leader himself was convicted and confessed to the church.

That is how some pastors are able to wade in sin and wickedness and their followers are swearing with their lives that they are innocent.

You see, the gift is not an indication of maturity, not by the longest of shots. Sadly, the same gift can blind us to the need to grow, especially as people treat us as mature and all-knowing of spiritual things. Or haven’t you seen a youngster being invited to teach leaders just because they are musically endowed? Or haven’t you seen people who got saved recently being made worship leaders (whatever that means) even before the smell of worldliness gets off them because they have amazing voices?

That is similar with giving a gun to a child. Yet what God has placed in us is way more powerful.

The gift needs a safe avenue to manifest without harming anybody. This is because a gift wrongly used harms everything and everyone around. It imperils the proclamation of the Gospel, and especially the understanding of the same Gospel by the same searching world.

How do you explain to unbelievers that the power packed miracle worker is the same who is their customer in brothels? How do you explain the fact that the same person who preaches the Bible so powerfully was the same one they saw gross throwing insults and curses at the trader who ‘overcharged’ him?

I will compare this to the difference between a bullet and a grenade. Both have the same explosive power in them just like every believer in Christ has God’s powerful presence in them. The difference is in the release of that power.

A bullet is constrained in the way it releases the power, making the bullet fly in only one direction. The grenade releases its power in all directions, making its destructive power effective over a small radius. The bullet can pick a target accurately from very far but the grenade destroys indiscriminately.

A bullet can kill an animal so that you get the meat but the grenade will make it impossible to pick anything due to the shrapnel.  That is why a bullet has very many uses while the grenade is only used for destruction and maiming.

It is the same way with God’s love. A believer not controlled by God’s love operates like a grenade. He destroys the devil’s kingdom but in his zeal injures the household of faith. He has no healing capacity in his dealings.

In his fight for doctrinal purity he will leave no survivors, injuring even those who are on his side.

That is where we need the constraints of God’s love.

We will be looking at those constraints in our next post, God permitting.

We have not even talked about the immense power of prayer as God has just reminded me in a dream. Most only read about the power of prayer to demolish strongholds and change the affairs of men.

Let me give you an assignment to experience the power of prayer.

Which one thing has been a pain in your neck and you feel as if there is nothing you can do about it? Start praying about it.

I feel led to challenge someone about a mosque that has deprived them of peace and quiet as they make their proclamations at the most inopportune times when you need most focus or concentration.

Ask God to do something about it.

If you have never considered a prayer closet, start. And a closet is that place where in quietness you will kneel and pour your heart to God so that no one is able to see or hear it as Jesus taught in Matthew 6. It might be by your bed when everybody is asleep if you are in a dorm.

But let the transaction be between you and God. Tell Him what you want Him to do in your situation. You might want to lift your hands toward the troubling object.

You might be having a burden about your city or neighborhood. Pray.

Then we will start hearing testimonies

The Prison of God’s Love 3

Peter said unto him, Though I should die with thee, yet will I not deny thee. Likewise also said all the disciples. (Matthew 26:35)

We saw that at the first level of accessing God’s love, there are many assumptions on what God’s love entails.

On that we assume grace covers anything we do, even willful sin.

We saw the dangers that understanding of God’s love brings, from broken relationships and marriages to unreliable believers who are always expecting to receive.

We are looking at the second level, the level of the obedient son.

Is anything wrong with being obedient? I am sure you are wondering.

Like Christ said, God judges beyond acts to motives. And He rewards using the whole package. Acts account for pretty little in that assessment as they are only products of the inner investment and input of soul and spirit. Judging actions only would be like a farmer washing the mango fruit to reward the tree for being productive.

This believer seeks to qualify for God’s love. Sadly he puts all his effort on performance.

As we saw with the son who did not waste resources, he appeared to have deprived himself to serve his father. So much that he asked why he was denied a small goat to party with his friends. He had to be reminded that everything was his as his brother had taken his part.

Like I said in the first post, at this level, one seeks to love using their resources. His gratitude flows through his acts of service. They will do everything they know the father (for a Christian, God) wants.

They will thus not walk in sin like most of the ones who stop their growth in the first level. They do not waste resources as they ‘still’ belong to the father. They are simply consistent in walking in ways they know their father agrees with.

The only problem is that they are using their resources and effort.

That creates a problem, though. Due to that, they interpret whatever the father does as approval or disapproval of what they are doing. That is why the elder son thought his father was biased for extending grace to the prodigal son.

We see that in our churches all the time.

How many preachers draw a simple graph comparing your giving with God’s blessing? Haven’t you heard preachers challenging people to even give their rent and fare monies to be able to access blessings as it shows how much they love God? Yet that is never challenged anywhere as it is assumed as Biblical.

Job’s three friends argued using that theology. They used scripture to justify the fact that what Job was going through was clear evidence that he was utterly sinful. And we see that many times.

As a minister called outside the confines of convention, I have encountered that argument more times that I care to remember. I remember once being challenged by a person I had discipled and raised until he became a pastor to go to him to be taught to pray rightly as it was impossible to him that I was seemingly at the same point materially he found me when he was down and he had completely overtaken me. To him, my faithfulness to God did not make sense. I was too unrewarded to make any sense to him.

That theology finds it difficult to understand Christ’s teachings, especially as they operate in a different realm to the logical.

The last shall be first. It will be impossible to understand a reject, probably a basket case gaining, even bearing much more fruit than we have done over the ages. It appears as if God has neglected our faithful service and poured all His attention on the new kid on the block. Remember the elder brother doing the same thing? Remember Peter wondering how Jesus would deal with John when He revealed how Peter will glorify Him in his old age?

It becomes difficult to concentrate on our assignment when we are always looking to see how God is dealing with others to assess our favor quotient because we assume God responds to us according to our effort.

But it gets even worse. We interpret everything that happens to us and others as an indication of our works. Good things are a product of things that please God and unpleasant things are an indication of God’s displeasure.

Sadly that is the preaching in vogue these days. That is the argument you get when you challenge singers about their ungodly and spurious lyrics and dress, leave alone lifestyle and heresy in their songs. God can’t surely be blessing me this much if what I am doing is wrong. Album sales and media glitz is the indicator of God’s favor! It is sad that even pastors use that argument to explain their heresy forgetting that in the days we live in heresy is a magnet to a populace focused on self-seeking and glorification as prophesied. Or you haven’t read about itching years?

Another thing it promotes is selfishness. Due to the tendency to use our effort to demonstrate our love to God and gauge His response for the same, we will tend to look over the shoulder to see who else loves God as we do so that we can compete over that.

It also breeds partiality in ministry. A minister so inclined will prefer to minister to ‘blessed’ people than needy (unblessed) ones. If things are indicative of blessedness, is it not more sensible to minister to blessed people? Does it not make more sense to work with blessed people? All this time the minister is using mammon as the yardstick that says that a rich thief is more blessed than a missionary who has nothing because he left everything to pursue God’s call.

Again as a minister whose call is unconventional I am talking of things I see all the time. A person will look for ministers like me to pray for their business or project when it is starting. Yet they may not even invite us for the dedication of the same when it is now a mammoth. They will invite more ‘successful’ ministers for the dedication.

This doctrine explains why the only time the church ministers to actual needs and reaches out to the actual poor is when cameras are rolling as PR; because success requires some publicity as it will invite more blessing. Pastors refer basket cases to the likes of me because they know we do not use their yardstick to minister.

But it also affects our giving. Why do churches that have more money than they can use get all the offerings while those that are really ministering struggle to make ends meet? If blessing is material, would I risk giving to a church or ministry that does not demonstrate ‘blessedness’ (probably because all their giving goes to ministry)? Would not I be safer if I gave a ‘blessed’ church as that can easily open my doors of the same ‘blessing’?

They forget that Christ’s anointing was for ministering to the poor and disadvantaged. Also that in Matthew 25 He will be using that as the yardstick to measure our lives as believers.

The saddest part, however, is that it affects our preaching. We end up filling hell instead of depopulating it as our commission demands. We keep people comfortable in sin by showing them a different yardstick for going to heaven.

We give out spiritual positions based on mammon instead of scripture. We hire bastards and whores because they are bringing others like them to bring offerings. We make swindlers treasurers and corporate thieves trustees even when we know about their scandals because we really need their money to remain ‘blessed’. We even invite idol worshippers and even idols to ‘minister’ in our churches because of their huge influence that can invite offerers to our offertories.

Loving God using our strength does this and more.

But the worst thing is that it has a shelf life. A time will come when we will not be able to show that love as it will be impossible.

Remember the disciples running away when Jesus was arrested yet a few hours earlier were swearing that they will die for Him? Remember Peter, who had even wielded a sword to defend Jesus would deny Him three times shortly after?

We can never be able to love God using our effort and resources as there will come a time when they will come to an end. In fact they will easily deceive us that we have all that God requires of us, thus leaving out the real essentials. They could even lead us to hell like the ministers I am always quoting in Matthew 7: 21 – 23.

We need to know God’s word to know whether we love Him as He wills, or as we will. This is because it is the only valid source of God’s will.

If truth be told, this love is all focused on self. In fact it is a worship of self. I am seeking God’s applause as I please myself.

Ask anyone what makes a worship experience rich. The unanimous response will be that it makes the worshippers feel very good. That is why they will pay all that money to attend it.

Contrast it with Biblical worship.

Moses was told to remove his shoes. Then he was sent to confront the people he had run from as he was wanted for murder.

Look at other examples of worship in the Bible and tell me where feeling good ever features.

Have you ever asked yourself why God’s altar had to be built using natural and uncut stones; ones that using a tool on would defile the altar?

Nothing I can ever do can meet God’s standard. I can never improve on anything God has made or done.

The only way for me to be acceptable to Him is doing things according to His revelation. I can only love using the love He deposits in me if I will allow Him. Anything else is trash for the fire.

Let us use God’s word to know how He expects us to love; even better, know how we can access His love.

The Prison of God’s Love 2

Now I say, That the heir, as long as he is a child, differeth nothing from a servant, though he be lord of all; But is under tutors and governors until the time appointed of the father. (Galatians 4: 1, 2)

I want us to look at our last topic so that we can continue past where we left, though I will do it differently today.

The main purpose is to help us to grow into God’s likeness as that is how we will be able to possess His love.

Let us take the first level as the infantile level of accessing God’s love.

Why does an infant cry? What does it take for them to stop crying?

An infant is focused on its interests and comforts. Nothing else will draw their attention. If a child is hungry and wet, there will be no peace in the house until the needs are met.

Interesting enough you will find that children being raised by harsh minders or careless parents do not cry much as they rarely have their needs met from their protests. Their cries will therefore be mostly noise and meaningless, sometimes even attracting a thrashing. And children learn very fast.

A child is selfish. That is a given. They take the love being given or showed to them as a right. But they learn to recognize when it is absent and behave otherwise. Gratitude is as foreign to an infant as consideration.

That is the point at which we understand the first level of God’s love. It is all about acceptance and assurance and possession of that love.

Sadly, many believers stop at the point of accessing that love. They remain at the infantile level all their lives.

But it gets even worse. Shepherds thrive at keeping believers at that level. They are only expecting and receiving and possessing.

That is what motivational teaching and preaching feeds on. We feed on the promises and the miracles and breakthroughs with not a care in the world. But like the loved infant we are doing nothing than crying for our needs to be met. We are not even caring whether others can access that same love we are accessing. We preach as a favor to the source of the love we are possessing. It is no wonder that we are overly focused on the promises God has given, sadly (but naturally for that stage) overlooking the conditions in those promises we claim.

A spiritual infant exists for the single purpose of having all their needs met by God because God loves them and nothing else.

Another trait a child has is an impossibility to share. Give a child ten sweets (candies) and require him to share with his elder siblings and you will see how difficult it can be. They only share when they are full. They only give what they can eat no more. The closest they come to sharing is swapping, in other words trading.

How many times have you heard preachers teaching that you only give where you are feeding from? In other words, only your pastor, preacher, church is entitled to your offerings. Then the infant church can in the same nature give to causes their childish nature agrees with. Or haven’t you seen rich churches giving to other rich churches instead of struggling churches?

A child grosses over their mistakes instead of owning them. Again they take love as the excuse for the same. Where they are unable to make you overlook their mistake (even swimming in mud with their sparkling white outfit you had warned them against), they will divert attention, and offense, to someone or something else.

There is something I make fun of with my children. A child rushes into the house and knocks the table or something else and injures themselves. They then start crying that the table has knocked them (meza imenigonga). Kiswahili says is better.

I will then ask them who hit the other and who should be apologizing to the other. Of course we will have a laugh and the pain will be forgotten in a short while.

Yet that is the mindset of many believers concerning sin. They will blame everybody but themselves for their sin. Of course they will not grow.

With a childish perspective on God’s love, we will many times disqualify ourselves from spiritual resources. Like the verse I quoted, it is impossible to be handed spiritual victory if you are a spiritual infant. We will inherit victory and breakthrough not from our proclamations but by our growth into maturity.

That infantile outlook in the spiritual has devastating impact on all of life. You see, if I do not relate well with God, it means I relate worse with others.

That explains why Christian relationships and marriages are a disaster in many places. Divorce is being accepted as normal yet God says that He hates divorce. Single parent families are on the increase mainly due to that factor. Widowhood is normally not included in that statistic.

Let us look at a few scenarios.

A woman takes her husband’s love the same we are taking God’s. She therefore makes no effort to carry her weight in the marriage. She even becomes an expert at nagging. His spirituality becomes a liability as he can’t batter her into submission or sleep outside for her to know that he is a man like others. She throws all sort of mud to him showing him that he does not qualify to be a man. And she does this because she is assured of his love and commitment to the marriage.

One of three things can happen.

The lady might get frustrated by this womanish man and leave him. And this happens a lot, especially for ministers as their commitment does not bring as much bread on the table as the mammon worshippers. She might go to her parents, start living alone or even get a better man.

She then realizes that the fool she left had a spiritual cover and that she became exposed when she left him. Her pride does not allow her to confess her folly and repent, coming back as a result. But many years down the line she may attempt a comeback and realize that he moved on.

Or the man may snap, choosing to be a man like the others to relieve the pressure of all that nagging. He joins mammon like them and starts bringing as much bread on the table like the rest. Initially this makes the wife very happy. But mammon has different standards. In a short while the sweet man starts becoming unavailable. He starts having extra affairs to be like the other men you had challenged him to be. He stops being the spiritual leader as you had become tired of that. When you ask why he is unfaithful, he asks you what it is you are lacking.

Others are simply tortured (nagged) to death. God rescues them from that torture. Then the woman realizes the kind of giant she had leading her. But her regrets have no way of correcting her initial error.

Christian ministers go through a lot of this. I know of quite a few who have been left just because they decided that God was the one whose orders they will follow. Yet I know many Christians suffer in silence when their love is taken for granted and as a right with no corresponding responsibility. Many a marriage may fail because a spouse could insist on the romantics they see on soap operas on a spouse who has been toiling all day.

It also happens to women. A man may take his wife’s love as a right and start mistreating her as if she has nowhere else to go. Battery, verbal abuse, unfaithfulness, etc., it is when the snap occurs that this man will realize the kind of treasure God had entrusted to him. But then it could be too late.

Now take two believers who have the same infantile theology. They are fed with the same theology by their infantile leading pastor. They read the portions of scripture advocating the same theology. What are the chances of these believers making it in life socially or spiritually? It would be worse than marrying two modern TV raised teenagers who think that sex is the only ingredient in marriage.

I write unto you, little children, because your sins are forgiven you for his name's sake. I write unto you, fathers, because ye have known him that is from the beginning. I write unto you, young men, because ye have overcome the wicked one. I write unto you, little children, because ye have known the Father. I have written unto you, fathers, because ye have known him that is from the beginning. I have written unto you, young men, because ye are strong, and the word of God abideth in you, and ye have overcome the wicked one. Love not the world, neither the things that are in the world. If any man love the world, the love of the Father is not in him. (1John 2: 12 – 15)

God expects us to grow beyond assurances. A child needs assurance. As they grow they will need to put that assurance to work.

A normal child will be toilet trained so that they stop crying after wetting themselves. They will be taught to feed and eventually dress. Then they will take over some responsibilities at home as they grow. And that growth will be smooth because that love will be assured. They are not loved less when they are washing dishes or cooking for the parents. They are just growing normally. Again we have a problem parent who takes their love too far that a child becomes an adult without knowing how to take care of themself. Woe to them if they marry lower than their strata (especially the woman)! She doesn’t know how to cook. She can’t wash clothes. And they cannot afford to pay for the services!

We must grow beyond the assurance of our salvation just like a normal child must grow past having everything done for them.

Our parent and instructor is the Bible. We must be consistent in our Bible intake to have our concept of God’s love grow beyond meeting our every need and covering our every sin.

When I was a child, I spake as a child, I understood as a child, I thought as a child: but when I became a man, I put away childish things. (1Corinthians 13:11)

We will look at the next growth level next time, God willing.

Are you willing to grow past the infantile level of accessing God’s love?

The Prison of God’s Love

For whether we be beside ourselves, it is to God: or whether we be sober, it is for your cause. For the love of Christ constraineth us; because we thus judge, that if one died for all, then were all dead: And that he died for all, that they which live should not henceforth live unto themselves, but unto him which died for them, and rose again. (2Corinthians 5: 13 – 15)

I want us to look at God’s love as a prison. But we first must qualify the kind of love we are talking about. Not all love that we think of will result in that imprisonment.

But there is another thing we need to talk about that prison; it is dynamite. It is powerful beyond anything the world has ever seen.

That is why Paul says that the love of God constrains him. We imprison those who are unmanageable outside it. We are therefore talking about power and the need for its limitation. And that is God’s love.

That God is love is irrefutable. In fact that is the only strand atheists and other enemies of the cross grasp at. We must be able to disqualify God’s love to be able to dismantle His being.

Before we need to be imprisoned by God’s love, we must of necessity grow in that love to the extent that the love can produce the kind of power that will require it being constrained. You see, you do not dam a trickle of water or a stream. We do not even dam a seasonal river, however huge it is at its biggest. We only dam a river that big enough at its lowest because then we are sure of a consistent flow for whichever purpose, be it irrigation or electricity.

The love we are talking about is therefore the kind of love that has grown to the point that it is dependable and consistent. It has also transformed the person bearing it and can never be drained.

Let us look at the levels leading to that love.

At the first level is the reception of God’s love. At this point we are able to see God for the love He has released to mankind. We are able to acknowledge John 3:16, and accept it. We therefore choose to receive that love.

You have heard of drunks who in their drunken stupor are captured by the realization of that truth that they will weep and confess their sins as they receive that love. And they change completely though at that time there was no evangelist anywhere near. Others encounter that love as they are planning, even executing an evil device. Yet others are ministers who may have ministered for years without coming to that realization. And the results are the same.

Receiving God’s love leads to salvation. That is the entry point to eternal life.

Sadly, many people will stop at that level. God loves me and that is all that matters. Many forget that there are responsibilities after receiving that love. Many pastors nowadays do not preach beyond this level. That is why there is little mention of growth and victory over sin as at this level all that matters is acceptance. We are accepted whatever we do however we live. God’s love covers it.

I will compare it to the prodigal son. At his lowest, he was content just to be received to eat from the provision meant for the servants. But you also realize that it was at the same point that he asked for his inheritance. He knew that his father loved him and that was all that mattered to him.

God receives us as we are. Just as I am is a favorite hymn. But the doctrine gets twisted beyond here because it assumes that God does not care what we do after receiving that love. We can swim in sin for all we care and God won’t mind because He loves us. We forget that when Jesus received people He always told them to go and sin no more.

But there is another level, a growth level.

At this level we respond to Gods love by loving Him in return. But it is our love. We seek to love Him our way.

It is an effort kind of love. We will fight for Him. We will defend Him in arguments. We are even ready to die for Him.

We see that with the disciples. We see it with the men of God of old.

At this point anything that we feel is opposed to God becomes our enemy. I suspect it is at this level the crusades happened. We will fight for God with all we have because of our love for Him.

Remember in Psalm 139 David saying he hated some people with a perfect hatred and counted them his enemies? That is the epitome of this kind of love.

Again that is where other believers stop.

Their giving, their ministry, in fact their whole lives revolve around what they can do for God because they love Him.

Of course at this point there is a revulsion against sin since we know God hates sin. We are obedient because we love God.

But a lot of that is our effort. We are the ones doing it. And of course we enjoy it and are pleased with all that effort. And it bears fruit.

But it sometimes leads to frustration especially because God does not operate in a straight line. We think we should access more from God because we love God more. We may therefore get frustrated when someone comes later and seems to get better rewards for their little labor than we get for our gigantic one.

The obedient son represents this kind of love.

He had done everything right and protected his father well. It therefore did not make sense that the father could pour his best on the brother who had wasted his wealth. He felt that his father was rewarding wastefulness.

We see the same when we see the Zebedee brothers wanting to call fire from heaven upon Samaritans for rejecting their Master. It was the same when Peter cut someone’s ear for daring to arrest Christ.

Of course you remember when some disciples sought to stop someone casting demons in Christ’s name because he was not one of them.

At this level performance is king.

But it can lead someone to overshoot the target completely.

Remember these ministers who are sent to hell yet they were super effective in their ministering (Matthew 7: 21 – 23)? I suspect they stopped their growth at this point. They believed that doing things out of our love for God was the only requirement in God’s eyes. They did not see the need to grow beyond performance. But whichever way they lost it.

But God wants to take us deeper into His love. He actually wants to pour His love into our lives. By this He wants to start living His life through us. He recreates us to be like Him.

That is what we see the father reasoning with His obedient son.

Everything I have is yours. You do not need rewards because it all belongs to you. You just need to own more than things. You need to own my heart. And I am willing for you to do it. Look at your brother through my eyes.

It was the same thing God dealt with Jonah concerning the losers that were Assyrians. You see that even prophets have issues with a performance type obedience and love!

God pours His love in our hearts, and this changes everything!

His love in us reproduces it in our interactions with the world. That love makes us like Him in all our ways.

As an example, God sends His rain even on those who hate Him, even those who deny His existence. He reaches out even to those who will have nothing to do with Him and His revelation or standards. Romans 5:18 is a clear demonstration of that love.

How is that possible? And where in the scriptures do we see that?

Stephen was stoned to death. Did he feel pain? Of course He did. Did he curse those stoning him? He blessed them and prayed for their forgiveness even amidst all that pain.

I believe it was that love in action that drew young Saul of Tarsus to reconsider his Judaistic and Pharisaical heritage. How does one love those who hated him enough to stone him to death? That must have been God’s love flowing from him.

That explains the reason through the ages persecution, instead of making bitter believers makes excellent witnesses. This is because they are pouring all that love to their killers. And that love is irresistible whatever weapon the enemy uses.

Next time we will look at the dynamics of how we access that love.

As an aside allow me to ask this question. As we have interacted with the enemy, and especially witchcraft, we hear a lot of ‘return to sender’ as concerns attempts to bring us down, whether through witchcraft, temptations, persecution, etc. Many spiritual superstars are experts at sending misfortunes ‘back to sender’ to the point that everybody with issues is advised to go for the ‘deliverance’ or whatever.

Is that consistent with God’s love as we have been discussing? Are there verses teaching us to do such?

Let me close with these verses for our meditation.

Ye have heard that it hath been said, An eye for an eye, and a tooth for a tooth:  But I say unto you, That ye resist not evil: but whosoever shall smite thee on thy right cheek, turn to him the other also. And if any man will sue thee at the law, and take away thy coat, let him have thy cloke also. And whosoever shall compel thee to go a mile, go with him twain. Give to him that asketh thee, and from him that would borrow of thee turn not thou away. Ye have heard that it hath been said, Thou shalt love thy neighbour, and hate thine enemy. But I say unto you, Love your enemies, bless them that curse you, do good to them that hate you, and pray for them which despitefully use you, and persecute you; That ye may be the children of your Father which is in heaven: for He maketh his sun to rise on the evil and on the good, and sendeth rain on the just and on the unjust. For if ye love them which love you, what reward have ye? do not even the publicans the same? And if ye salute your brethren only, what do ye more than others? do not even the publicans so? Be ye therefore perfect, even as Your Father which is in heaven is perfect. (Matthew 5: 38 – 48)

How possibly can we do this without an overflow of God’s kind of love?