WHAT LOVE HAS GOT TO DO WITH IT

Hear, Obey and Serve Your Generation 

INTRODUCTION Obeying God is how we prove our love for Him, and it is through this that God works out our full potential from His seed in us. Although God’s seed is in us and we must grow in His image, that cannot happen unless we put our faith into action. This action is motivated and guided by our love for God, expressing itself also through our love for others, both the saved and the unsaved

A.                  Hear and Obey what? The Voice of God, of course. And what is He saying? (Our main readings)

1.       Hear, O Israel: The Lord our God, the Lord is one.  5 Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your strength. Deut 6:4-5 NIV

2.       If you love me, you will obey what I command. John 4:15 NIV

3.       And we know that in all things God works for the good of those who love him, who have been called according to his purpose. Rom 8:28 NIV

B.                  Some Preliminary Maxims?

1.       Faith without works is dead

2.       Faith without love is impotent

3.       Love without faith is fake

4.       Faith works only through love

C.                  Like Grows from Seed

It is very difficult to see how a tree grows out of seed, but that is how God designed it. Now, we take it for granted that when you plant a seed, it will germinate, grow and reproduce its kind. However, taking a seed, planting it and giving it the right environment to grow, for the first time, in is an act of FAITH. The first person ever to do that might have acted solely on the word of God that says, “Let the earth produce vegetation; seed bearing plants and fruit trees on the earth bearing fruit with their seed in it, according to their kind.” (Gen 1:11).

Now God’s seed is in us, according to 1 John 3:9: “Everyone who has been born of God does not sin, because His seed remains in him; he is not able to sin, because he has been born of God”. God has sown in us the ultimate, when we came to believe in Him. He has taken His step of faith, and planted His image in the best possible soil for it – in mankind, whom He created after His own image. Why will this seed, when growing into the fullness of what it truly is turn against God (in sin)?

D.                  When was this seed planted?

The seed of God was planted when we believed in and received Jesus Christ: “To all who did receive Him, He gave the right to be children of God, to those who believe in His name, who were born … of God” (John 1:12-13 cf Rom 8:15, Gal 4:6). It was grace, which we RECEIVED BY FAITH. So God planted in faith, and we opened up and received by faith, and that is the salvation offered to us.

E.                   How will this seed grow?

By faith working through love (See Gal 5:6)

We received this seed by faith, yet when a seed exists without “dying”, its potential will never be realized (see John 12:24). It must interact with the soil, soak up its water and nutrients and by them unleash itself. So, by faith we know we are the seed of God, but just as it is impossible to distinguish a dead seed from a living one by merely looking at them, so are we as good as dead unless our faith produces fitting action. This fitting action is the acts of love prompted by the Spirit in us, which we must duly respond to.

F.                   Loving Others – Where understanding this starts from

God’s Spirit in us prompts us to put into action the new capacity to love: to be patient, kind, rejoice with the truth, bear, believe, hope and endure all things. The same Spirit constrains us from being envious, boastful, proud, disorderly, selfish, temperamental, and unforgiving (see 1 Cor 13: 4-7) Now, any time we respond to the Spirit’s nature in us, we unleash our growth and anytime we go contrary to it for one reason or another, we limit our growth. Without love, faith is does not work.

G.                  Loving God – Why We Love

We have just described how we ought to express the God’s love which has been “poured out in our hearts through the Holy Spirit given to us (Rom 5:5).Beyond that is our expression of love for God; We love others because we love God. We love God because He first loved us, so the love we have is the love of sparked, motivated and sustained by God’s love for us. Therefore, until His love for us is exhausted we should not run out of capacity and reason to love Him and others (1John 4:19)

H.                 The 10 commandments give us an inkling of how loving God is expressed:

1.       You worship and adore Him alone with your heart (You make no other gods beside Him), i.e., no one and nothing holds greater value for you than God Himself. If you must lose all things just to Keep Him, you are more than willing to do so.

2.       You honor (hallow) His name – Anything that will cast a slur on His reputation and glory is a big deal with you. Especially, since you are called by His name, you keep yourself pure for Him, for any disgrace to you by way of character failure injures Him.

3.       You spend time with Him – The whole bit about the Sabbath was to give the Jews a good reason to organize one day for fellowshipping with their God who loves them. In our cases it is the time we spend:

a.       God’s people in fellowship meetings (church service)

b.      In private study of the Scriptures, prayers, fasting and vigils

I.                    What will be the impact of its growth?

a.       Our Character is improved as we shed (the earth with which we were formed) become more and more like Him (spiritual in life, just as He is)

b.      God’s work on earth gets done through our impressive character and obedience to pursue a dedicated life and the Great Commission

                                                               i.      Dedicated life

                                                             ii.      The Great Commission

J.                    Conclusions

a.                   God’s message to His children for all time is “Love the Lord and Love Your Neighbor – In this is faith expressed, and in this is life (for the ancients as well as for us) – Heb 11:39-40

b.                  Make it your life’s objective to draw close to God and do His work – It is the only way to unleash your full potential:

                                                   i.                  Pursue the better way (1 Cor. 12:31 and 1 Cor. 13: 1-13)

                                                 ii.                  Pursue self-sacrifice, rather than selfishness (Mt. 6: 19, 33, John 6:27, Php 3:10-11)

c.                   To practice just external righteousness is to quench your potential. Rather, you must pay attention to the promptings of the Spirit from within and grow in righteousness

d.                  Watch out for and avoid any teaching that encourages the old nature’s enslavement in:

                                                   i.                  Developing fresh passion for earthly things

                                                 ii.                  Developing hatred for the unsaved and suspicion for  even other believers

                                                iii.                  Inactivity in the things of God (as if you are an alien in God’s house, waiting to be told what to do) – See 1 John 2:27