It has been sometime since the last blog but I will try to make it more regular next year when more work is organized and delegated out. The heart of Christianity is to know God and most people, especially religious ones, who claim to know God do not actually manifest the attributes of the God whom they know. God is love, light and life. The Bible is explicitly clear that those who know God will walk in love:
1. It is the COMMANDMENT of Jesus to love one another as He loved us (John 12:34)
2. Love is the ONLY way by which we manifest ourselves as disciples of Jesus (John 12:35)
3. Those who TRULY are born of God will walk in love (1 John 4:7)
4. Only those who ABIDE in love abide in God (1 John 4:16)
5. Only those who love TRULY know God, those who do not love DO NOT know God (1 John 4:7-8).
6. Our ability to love is not limited by our own ability but rather in our own experience of God’s love for us (1 John 4:21)
7. Those who walk in hate DO NOT KNOW God (1 John 4:20)
8. Those who DO NOT LOVE abide in death (1 John 3:14)
9. Those who DO NOT LOVE do not have eternal life abiding in them (1 John 3:14-15)
10. The true sign of eternal life in us is the ABILITY to love like God and Jesus does (1 John 3:14)
Those who crucified Jesus were not sinners and publicans, they were the religious folks who claimed to know God but who did not walk in love nor know the mercy of God. If they had truly known God, they would have manifested the attributes and the love of God and of Jesus. We are also commanded to walk one step higher in Jesus, Jesus commands that we respond with love even to our enemies (Matthew 5:44). This is the essence of true New Testament Christianity. If we love only those who love us, what difference are we from the Old Covenant or from those of the world? The love of God is unconditional, unmerited and based upon God’s love for us and not on our own perceptions, our own ability or limitation. That is why the ability to love is not dependent on us but on the fact that we have been born again with eternal life within us. This eternal life is the same life of God our Father and of our Lord Jesus and the Holy Spirit and it beats daily with the heartbeat of God’s love for all His creation.
Let our every heart beat be a heart beat of unconditional love to each and every one around us. Love one another, love those who love you and love those who hate you and love those who are indifferent. It is the greatest and only commandment that Jesus has given us to prove that we are truly His disciples. Amen.
My prayer is that the body of Christ Agape with the heart of our Father God. Since listening to your teachings over the past few months, I have been able to ‘feel’ God’s love more & more so that it is easier to love people, even those who spitefully try to hurt us.
Nothing is impossible to those who believe but I also truly believe that nothing is impossible to those where the love of God is shed abroad in their hearts by the Holy Spirit which brilliantly shines out into a dark & fallen world! 🙂
Thank you Pastor Peter,
I know you are super busy and I appreciate very much your blog because it enables us, more hungry ones, to delve on what else is in your mind, it’s an interesting side and a more personal one as well.
Ya, thanks for reminding us about the only Commandment that Jesus our Lord left to us, so true.
martin