Post by Cindy on Oct 21, 2016 10:14:49 GMT -5
We're all familiar with what Jesus said about Satan and Himself: “The thief comes only to steal and kill and destroy; I have come that they may have life, and have it to the full.” (John 10:10) but we don't often reflect on it to determine how it plays out in our lives today. Most of us thankfully haven't had anyone we love murdered, and most of us haven't been robbed, so how does this pertain to us now? We have to realize just what Satan is after. Yes, ultimately, he wants to kill us and have us all wind up in hell. He wants to steal us away from God - first keeping us from being saved, and then if we do get saved anyway, he wants to prevent us from fully believing in God's ability to keep us saved and thereby make us ineffective in our witness to others, and cause us to have constant doubts, worry and fear, which keeps us from having the life Jesus has for us. Satan wants to destroy not just our physical lives, but everything and everyone we care about. He especially wants to destroy our family, break up friendships, and especially church families and fellowship. He wants to kill our dreams and hopes and those of our loved ones. When we're saved, God pours His love into our hearts, so we can love Him and love others the way He loves us. Satan wants to stop that at all costs. Satan hates love and everything to do with it, and does all he can to cause it to die. From the very beginning he's tried to get us to focus our love on ourselves instead of on God and others, and has been very successful in doing so. But then he's a master at self love, as that was a big part of his sin. By doing, or attempting to do all these things, he wants to cause us to doubt God, doubt our salvation, feel alone and left out, and make us give up. He loves it when we feel we need help and we turn to man, philosophy, self help books, and anything other than God and His Word, for he knows all those things are corrupted and can't give us the kind of help we really need; only God can.
Another verse I think we're all familiar with is again something Jesus says concerning the end times, “Because of the increase of wickedness, the love of most will grow cold,” (Matthew 24:12) We've discussed this before, and we often contribute it to the unsaved, but Jesus was speaking of the saved here. If you recall, Jesus constantly tells us that the most important commandments are to love God and love others, and that the one way that people would know that we belong to Him is by our love for others. This was very true of the early Christians. Most of the first Christians were Jews, and Jew's hated the Romans with a passion and also hated Gentiles. But not those who realized that Jesus was their Messiah! Instead, they not only said they loved the Romans and Gentiles, they showed that love by their actions. This was simply unheard of in those days. the people around them wondered if they'd lost their minds, but at the same time, they were drawn to them because their love for others was undeniable. And once a person had experienced it themselves, they couldn't get it out of their minds. They had to know more. They had to find out if these folks could be pushed to hate someone the way other people did. And people did try to get these early Christians to feel and show hate for others! They would push them and push them and encourage them to hate, and sure, some of the Christians fell into sin. But amazingly (to the unsaved anyway) when they did, they immediately realized it and repented in great sorrow for the pain they'd caused their Savior and Lord! Saying they immediately realized it is a generalization of course. Some did realize it right away. Others had to be told by a brother or sister in Christ before they realized it. Back then it was normal for believers to let fellow believers know when they were slipping, just as it was normal for them to encourage each other as well. But back then, believers were constantly around each other all the time, they didn't just see each other on Sundays or at "church". It's hard for me to even imagine someone purposely trying to get me to hate someone, but then, these days, we don't love the way the early Christians did, so there's no reason for someone to try and do that anymore, is there? Yes, our love has grown cold. How sad is that? It makes me want to weep for my own sin and the sins of my brothers and sisters in Christ, and mostly for our Lord and the sorrow we cause Him by it. The realization of that hit me hard the other day and I began to think of all the ways that Satan has been able to cause yet further strife and division because our love has grown cold.
I think it's interesting that after talking about the End times, and the Tribulation in Luke 16, with His last words speaking of judgment, the Lord next speaks about praying persistently, telling them a parable about a mean judge who didn't care about God or man, (he had no love) and a widow, and ends that with: “I tell you, he will see that they get justice, and quickly. However, when the Son of Man comes, will he find faith on the earth?”” (Luke 18:8) I think that the lack of love shows a lack of faith as well. Remember the parable Jesus told after the sinful woman had covered his feet with her tears and wiped them with her hair? He told of a moneylender who cancelled two debts. One was a huge debt and the other was a minor one. He then asked which person would love the moneylender more. The pharisee replied that it would be the one with the larger debt. Jesus told him he was correct and went on to say: “Therefore, I tell you, her many sins have been forgiven—for she loved much. But he who has been forgiven little loves little.”” (Luke 7:47) Today we are being told that many sins are supposedly diseases, and not our fault and that's how many people see them, including Christians. There's much false teaching today as well, that doesn't teach people that they are sinners, but instead tells them that they're great, good and wonderful and that God loves them and will give them what they want. Also mainly due to the worldview everyone grows up with, most people have no idea what sin is or at most think of it as breaking one of the ten commandments. Therefore, if by some miracle they do get saved, in their minds, they've been forgiven little. They don't see themselves as a depraved sinner that can't help themselves, but instead as someone that God recognized as good. A lot like the pharisees saw themselves in our Lord's time. If they can by yet another miracle escape the false teaching and discover eventually just how depraved they are without Christ, they will begin to love the Lord more and more. But as we can see, that's an uphill battle, and there's not a lot of that around today. Therefore, there is little love or faith to be found today.
That leaves us with a pretty bleak picture I know. The good news is that if God could cause the love in the hearts of the early Christians to grow and love their very real national - political, and moral - spiritual, enemies (as in the Roman's and Gentiles) then He can do the same for us. However, just as the early Christians did, we will have to cooperate with Him and work to show that love to others, regardless of how they respond to it. Loving others isn't easy. I remember when I first began studying the bible, I was sure that Jesus meant we only had to love family and other Christians, and "loving our enemies" simply meant praying for them. Boy was I deceived! The problem was that I didn't want to believe that He wanted us to love everyone. But eventually, the more I studied, the more obvious it became, and since I truly did want to obey Him and please Him, He softened my heart and I was able to accept His Word.
The next problem was that I didn't know "how" to love everyone. It sounds strange when you admit it, doesn't it? It's never the less true because God doesn't love the way the world does. The Lord has had to teach me how to love His way instead of the worlds way. The first thing He taught me was that love was a choice and a commitment, and not a feeling. That alone was a big relief in one way, and hard in another, for it meant I had to commit to doing this. Then He began teaching me to guide how I loved by His description of it in His word. (like in passages such as 1 Cor 13:4-8, 1 Peter 3:9–11, 1 Peter 4:8, Col 3:12-17 especially Col 3:13! Ephesians 4:2, Ephesians 4:29–32, Philippians 2:3–5, Luke 6:37, Matthew 5:21–26, Matthew 5:39–48, Matthew 6:14–15, Matthew 18:15–20, 1 Thessalonians 5:12–15, Hebrews 12:14, and Rom 12:10, Romans 12:18) Obviously, it's something I'm still working on and will be for the rest of my life. It's not something we can be passive about though. We must actively work toward loving more, loving harder, and showing that love in any and every way we possibly can, no matter how others react to us. Even if no one else returns my love, I desperately want to love others the way Jesus did. The one scripture I try to hold in my mind is the following.... it's seemingly simple until you catch the words, "As I have loved you". Those few words make all the difference in the world!
““A new command I give you: Love one another. As I have loved you, so you must love one another. By this all men will know that you are my disciples, if you love one another.”” (John 13:34–35)
Another verse I think we're all familiar with is again something Jesus says concerning the end times, “Because of the increase of wickedness, the love of most will grow cold,” (Matthew 24:12) We've discussed this before, and we often contribute it to the unsaved, but Jesus was speaking of the saved here. If you recall, Jesus constantly tells us that the most important commandments are to love God and love others, and that the one way that people would know that we belong to Him is by our love for others. This was very true of the early Christians. Most of the first Christians were Jews, and Jew's hated the Romans with a passion and also hated Gentiles. But not those who realized that Jesus was their Messiah! Instead, they not only said they loved the Romans and Gentiles, they showed that love by their actions. This was simply unheard of in those days. the people around them wondered if they'd lost their minds, but at the same time, they were drawn to them because their love for others was undeniable. And once a person had experienced it themselves, they couldn't get it out of their minds. They had to know more. They had to find out if these folks could be pushed to hate someone the way other people did. And people did try to get these early Christians to feel and show hate for others! They would push them and push them and encourage them to hate, and sure, some of the Christians fell into sin. But amazingly (to the unsaved anyway) when they did, they immediately realized it and repented in great sorrow for the pain they'd caused their Savior and Lord! Saying they immediately realized it is a generalization of course. Some did realize it right away. Others had to be told by a brother or sister in Christ before they realized it. Back then it was normal for believers to let fellow believers know when they were slipping, just as it was normal for them to encourage each other as well. But back then, believers were constantly around each other all the time, they didn't just see each other on Sundays or at "church". It's hard for me to even imagine someone purposely trying to get me to hate someone, but then, these days, we don't love the way the early Christians did, so there's no reason for someone to try and do that anymore, is there? Yes, our love has grown cold. How sad is that? It makes me want to weep for my own sin and the sins of my brothers and sisters in Christ, and mostly for our Lord and the sorrow we cause Him by it. The realization of that hit me hard the other day and I began to think of all the ways that Satan has been able to cause yet further strife and division because our love has grown cold.
I think it's interesting that after talking about the End times, and the Tribulation in Luke 16, with His last words speaking of judgment, the Lord next speaks about praying persistently, telling them a parable about a mean judge who didn't care about God or man, (he had no love) and a widow, and ends that with: “I tell you, he will see that they get justice, and quickly. However, when the Son of Man comes, will he find faith on the earth?”” (Luke 18:8) I think that the lack of love shows a lack of faith as well. Remember the parable Jesus told after the sinful woman had covered his feet with her tears and wiped them with her hair? He told of a moneylender who cancelled two debts. One was a huge debt and the other was a minor one. He then asked which person would love the moneylender more. The pharisee replied that it would be the one with the larger debt. Jesus told him he was correct and went on to say: “Therefore, I tell you, her many sins have been forgiven—for she loved much. But he who has been forgiven little loves little.”” (Luke 7:47) Today we are being told that many sins are supposedly diseases, and not our fault and that's how many people see them, including Christians. There's much false teaching today as well, that doesn't teach people that they are sinners, but instead tells them that they're great, good and wonderful and that God loves them and will give them what they want. Also mainly due to the worldview everyone grows up with, most people have no idea what sin is or at most think of it as breaking one of the ten commandments. Therefore, if by some miracle they do get saved, in their minds, they've been forgiven little. They don't see themselves as a depraved sinner that can't help themselves, but instead as someone that God recognized as good. A lot like the pharisees saw themselves in our Lord's time. If they can by yet another miracle escape the false teaching and discover eventually just how depraved they are without Christ, they will begin to love the Lord more and more. But as we can see, that's an uphill battle, and there's not a lot of that around today. Therefore, there is little love or faith to be found today.
That leaves us with a pretty bleak picture I know. The good news is that if God could cause the love in the hearts of the early Christians to grow and love their very real national - political, and moral - spiritual, enemies (as in the Roman's and Gentiles) then He can do the same for us. However, just as the early Christians did, we will have to cooperate with Him and work to show that love to others, regardless of how they respond to it. Loving others isn't easy. I remember when I first began studying the bible, I was sure that Jesus meant we only had to love family and other Christians, and "loving our enemies" simply meant praying for them. Boy was I deceived! The problem was that I didn't want to believe that He wanted us to love everyone. But eventually, the more I studied, the more obvious it became, and since I truly did want to obey Him and please Him, He softened my heart and I was able to accept His Word.
The next problem was that I didn't know "how" to love everyone. It sounds strange when you admit it, doesn't it? It's never the less true because God doesn't love the way the world does. The Lord has had to teach me how to love His way instead of the worlds way. The first thing He taught me was that love was a choice and a commitment, and not a feeling. That alone was a big relief in one way, and hard in another, for it meant I had to commit to doing this. Then He began teaching me to guide how I loved by His description of it in His word. (like in passages such as 1 Cor 13:4-8, 1 Peter 3:9–11, 1 Peter 4:8, Col 3:12-17 especially Col 3:13! Ephesians 4:2, Ephesians 4:29–32, Philippians 2:3–5, Luke 6:37, Matthew 5:21–26, Matthew 5:39–48, Matthew 6:14–15, Matthew 18:15–20, 1 Thessalonians 5:12–15, Hebrews 12:14, and Rom 12:10, Romans 12:18) Obviously, it's something I'm still working on and will be for the rest of my life. It's not something we can be passive about though. We must actively work toward loving more, loving harder, and showing that love in any and every way we possibly can, no matter how others react to us. Even if no one else returns my love, I desperately want to love others the way Jesus did. The one scripture I try to hold in my mind is the following.... it's seemingly simple until you catch the words, "As I have loved you". Those few words make all the difference in the world!
““A new command I give you: Love one another. As I have loved you, so you must love one another. By this all men will know that you are my disciples, if you love one another.”” (John 13:34–35)