His Love in Reality

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His Love In Reality

"You have heard that it was said, 'You shall love your neighbor and hate your enemy.' But I say to you, love your enemies, bless those who curse you, do good to those who hate you, and pray for those who spitefully use you and persecute you, that you may be sons of your Father in heaven; for He makes His sun rise on the evil and on the good, and sends rain on the just and on the unjust.

"For if you love those who love you, what reward have you? Do not even the tax collectors do the same? And if you greet your brethren only, what do you do more than others? Do not even the tax collectors do so? Therefore you shall be perfect, just as your Father in heaven is perfect" (Matthew 5:44-48).

After reading the above passage, ask yourself how this attitude of love can become a reality in your life. If you are like me, you will find this concept hard to understand. The love that Christ speaks of in these verses goes beyond what we are capable of expressing as carnal humans. So how can we grasp this attitude—this ability to love as God does?

Most realize that this selfless love only comes from God. Yet it can become a reality in our lives if we understand the process in being filled with this kind of love. If we do not understand the process, we may struggle for years and make little or no progress in our desire to love as God does.

Let's look at a verse that can help us understand how Godly love can become a reality in our daily lives. 1 John 4:16 says that God is love; he who abides in love abides in God and God in him. This verse tells us that we know that we are children of God if we abide in love.

Let's put it another way to make it clearer. God is love, and, as He manifests himself to us, we must willingly choose to yield to His presence. By yielding to Him, we become a conduit through which God becomes visible to others. The agape love that emanates from God cannot be produced on our own. It is not something mankind can add to or diminish because it is the very power of God. It is something that comes from Him alone.

In order to abide in God, we must understand that our capacity for Godly love results from God’s presence flowing through us. When this understanding becomes a reality in our lives, we are loosed from the slavery imposed by Satan through his perverted quest for love. This freedom then allows us to find oneness with God, who is love. Quite simply, by abiding in love, we are able to abide in God.

Think about the fruits of God’s spirit listed in Galatians 5:22-23. Are they fruits that you produce or are they a result of God’s spirit? As you read these two verses, you will surely recognize fruits as a result of God manifesting Himself in you and not something you produce of your human will.

"But the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, longsuffering, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, self-control. Against such, there is no law." Are you beginning to get the picture?

Read 1 Corinthians 13:4-8: "Love suffers long and is kind; love does not envy; love does not parade itself, is not puffed up; does not behave rudely, does not seek its own, is not provoked, thinks no evil; does not rejoice in iniquity, but rejoices in the truth; bears all things, believes all things, hopes all things, endures all things. Love never fails."

Since agape love comes from God, not from our human capacity, then how does it become a reality in our lives? The answer is by faith in Christ. Jesus Christ was the manifestation of God’s love in the flesh. He willingly yielded to the power of God in His daily life, becoming the embodiment of God’s love. He secured the way through which we can experience that love. The process for us is coming to accept His life as the way, the truth, and the light. It comes from accepting His willingness to give up His life with its human desires and accepting the power of His resurrection as the power of our life. This acceptance is the way that we are able to experience agape love.

The apostle Paul discusses his transformation in Galatians 2:20: "I have been crucified with Christ; it is no longer I who lives, but Christ lives in me; and the life which I now live in the flesh I live by faith in the Son of God, who loved me and gave Himself for me."

Paul realized the futility of human efforts to walk in God’s love. Paul accepted Christ as the one who fulfilled the requirements of love and he submitted himself to the will of Christ in his daily life.

Christ depicted how the love of God is distributed in John 15. In verse 1, Jesus Christ said, "I am the true vine, and My Father is the vinedresser. He is the vine through which the love of God flows to us." Verses 4-5 expand on this concept: "Abide in Me, and I in you. As the branch cannot bear fruit of itself, unless it abides in the vine, neither can you, unless you abide in Me, I am the vine, you are the branches. He who abides in Me, and I in him, bears much fruit; for without Me you can do nothing."

Verse 9 tells us: "As the Father loved Me, I also have loved you; abide in My love." If we are to love as God loves, then we must realize that the power of God that flows through Christ to us manifests itself in our actions. No, we cannot produce or diminish this Godly love—we are a conduit for it.

At the beginning of this article, I quoted from Matthew 5:43- 48. We are to love our enemies and to bless those who curse us, do good to those who hate us, and pray for those who spitefully use and persecute us. In so doing, we show that we are sons of our Father in heaven, for He makes His sun rise on the evil and on the good, and sends rain on the just and on the unjust. The ability to love as God loves alluded to in these Scriptures will become a reality as we yield to its transforming power in our lives. The perfection that characterizes the life of our great God will be manifested in those who submit themselves to the power of His love. ***