The Love Challenge Part Six

Good day.

We are busy looking at what John had to say about love from the first Epistle of John, chapter four.

Last time we asked how we know what good works of love we should do? God went to the trouble of preparing your life's good works for you in advance.

How would you know what to do? He will present them to you as opportunities. Colossians 4:5-6: "Be wise in the way you act toward outsiders; make the most of every opportunity. Let your conversation be always full of grace, seasoned with salt, so that you may know how to answer everyone."

Many years ago, when I was still a young believer, I asked a more mature believer how one knows it's God speaking. He told me that humans cannot be good or do good things by themselves. Humans, in their core, are selfish. So, when a good thought comes to mind, it's from the Lord. Then we ought to respond to it. The opportunities God presents to us are thoughts to love and to do good, or an opportunity you identify to love and do good. Natural man will not like to do it and will try to get out of it. The choices are always yours. You can choose to be comfortable and selfish and let the opportunity pass without responding to it, or you can obey and count among those born of God.

Jesus told this parable of the two sons in Matthew 21:28-32: “What do you think? There was a man who had two sons. He went to the first and said, ‘Son, go and work today in the vineyard.’

‘I will not,’ he answered, but later he changed his mind and went.

Then the father went to the other son and said the same thing. He answered, ‘I will, sir,’ but he did not go.

Which of the two did what his father wanted?”

“The first,” they answered. Jesus said to them, “Truly I tell you, the tax collectors and the prostitutes are entering the kingdom of God ahead of you. For John came to you to show you the way of righteousness, and you did not believe him, but the tax collectors and the prostitutes did. And even after you saw this, you did not repent and believe him.

I often think of this parable. Jesus came to show us the way of obedience. It has all been written down, and we have access to it all. How many times do we say in church or whenever the Lord speaks to us through the Word, "I will, Lord," and then do nothing about it? There's no need to have said it verbally, because a thought to do it is to the Lord the same as saying it.

It's actually quite easy to be obedient to the Word of God and to love. Just respond to promptings wherever you are. The good works or love-actions that God prepared for all believers individually (see Ephesians 2:10) are presented to you and me all the time as opportunities, but, unless you look out for those opportunities, expecting them, you will miss them. Rather be the reluctant doer of love than the maker of empty promises of good intentions. Have you heard the saying: "The road to hell is paved with good intentions"?

Believe me, Satan knows these requirements of the Lord and does his utmost to distract you, which is why the Lord Jesus so adamantly said in Matthew 6:24: No one can serve two masters. Either you will hate the one and love the other, or you will be devoted to the one and despise the other. You cannot serve both God and Mammon.

Mammon is the god of materialism. Anything to do with material goods and the concerns connected to it is mastered by Mammon. That is why the world is filled with all the glitter we know. It's meant to distract from the simple, loving relationship with the Lord we're called to have - to love and serve as Jesus did. Satan uses material distractions and other concerns to keep us so busy that we do not get to the love works the Lord prepared for us. IF we see the opportunity to love, we often postpone because we first need to do these materialistic things, which distract us.

Therefore, we need to be very focused and need to have set obedience to the Lord as a priority.

Note that Matthew 6:24 above is followed by verses 25 to 34, which is the comfort given to us that the Lord will look after us and our material needs IF we give first priority to our service in His Kingdom in obedience and self-sacrifice and ensure we are in right standing with Him (Matthew 6:33).

In conclusion, you can read Luke 9:57-62.

To be continued

The Love Challenge Part Five

Good morning

We are discussing love from the perspective of 1 John 4. If you haven't read the previous parts, please do so.

Last time, we ended by saying that the Lord inconvenienced Himself and disrupted His glorious comfort to help man because of love. For the same reason (the love that lives in us through the Holy Spirit), should we be inconvenienced by loving and helping others, which is the topic of verse 11.

1 John 4:11: Dear friends, since God so loved us, we also ought to love one another.

Love is not only saying: "My dear brother/sister, I love you with the love
of the Lord." Those are empty words, a clanging cymbal. Until love costs us and we inconvenience ourselves to serve others, we have not loved like Jesus did. (John 15:12-14: My command is this: Love each other as I have loved you. Greater love has no one than this: to lay down one’s life for one’s friends. You are my friends if you do what I command.)

1 John 4:12: No one has ever seen God; but if we love one another, God lives in us and his love is made complete in and through us.

I thought it was said that if you believe in God's existence, He lives in you. The more charismatic ones believe that if you accept Jesus as your saviour and, through that, become born again, God lives in you. But 1 John 4 sets the standard of salvation higher. Only when you love, through giving of yourself, does God live in you. People cannot see God, but if you love like Jesus loved, people will see God in and through you. Should that not be our aim? When we do certain things in marketing, people will see the value of the product and buy it. When people see the Lord in the way we love, they would want to serve Him.

Jesus said an interesting thing in John 5:28-29: "Do not be amazed at this, for a time is coming when all who are in their graves will hear his voice and come out—those who have done what is good will rise to live, and those who have done what is evil will rise to be condemned." Does it say “those who accepted Jesus as saviour will rise to live"? No, it doesn’t. Does it say "those who believe in Jesus will rise to live"? No, it doesn’t. Does it say "those who went to church will rise to live"? No, it doesn’t. Then, who will rise to live? Those who did what is good. Salvation is in the action of love. It’s part of the covenant. Father God did His part through love by giving His Son. Now we need to do our part through love to serve those whom Father God puts in our way.

Have you noticed how Satan makes an effort to prevent you from obeying the Lord? When you want to do something good, an action of love, to the glory of God, all kinds of things happen to discourage and prevent you from being obedient. However, to say the sinner's prayer comes easily. Why would that be? Why doesn't Satan try and stop people from saying the sinner’s prayer? It's putting people on a false foundation. Satan knows God's standards, and if he could get you to believe you're okay, why should he be concerned?

Speaking of which, how many messages do you hear on the requirement of obedience in love and works to be saved? Not many, isn't it? We are told that we are saved by grace and that we can do nothing to earn salvation. All we need to do is be grateful and praise the Lord for His grace. The idea of being saved by grace is preached from Ephesians 2:8-9: "For it is by grace you have been saved, through faith—and this is not from yourselves, it is the gift of God—not by works, so that no one can boast." There is a difference between doing good works as a way to earn salvation and doing them in obedience to the Lord. The doing of good works as per Ephesians 2:9 above refers to man's attempt to deserve or earn salvation.

Verse 10, however, spells love and good works, in obedience to the Lord, out very clearly: Ephesians 2:10 "For we are God’s handiwork, created in Christ Jesus to do good works, which God prepared in advance for us to do."

What is the purpose of being born again or being created in Christ Jesus? To do good works or to love.

How do we know what good works of love we should do? God went to the trouble of preparing your life's good works for you in advance.

How would you know what to do? He will present them to you as opportunities. Colossians 4:5-6: "Be wise in the way you act toward outsiders; make the most of every opportunity. Let your conversation be always full of grace, seasoned with salt, so that you may know how to answer everyone."

To be continued