GODLY LOVE
This message is hardly preached in our age and time. Many preachers have diverted this message to preach on what they can get. One of the things Jesus was confronted with in the wilderness was food after fasting. Satan confronted Jesus with food concept and asked Him to turn stone into bread. But that brought forth a new message: Man shall not live by food alone but by every word of God. When the tank is empty you do not have enough fuel to carry on your journey. When a person says to me ‘I love you’ I string back because the person may not understand what he or she is saying.
There are different types of love:
[i] Erotic love: flesh love; physical love or romantic love that may end up in bed. You are loved for what you’ve or what you can give. [ii] Phillo love: [mother/ child] Can a mother forsake her child? A mother’s tender care never ceases towards the child she bears. This type of love can be brought into marriage but it cannot sustain you. [iii] Agape love: The unconditional love. This is the Jesus type of love. If agape love did not come into your life when you became born again, then you will go back to the world. It’s sacrificial love. You give rather than receive. This love made Jesus give his life and died the death of shame on the cross for us.The Epistle of John says God is Love. If you are of God you must have love in your heart [1 John 4:7ff]. This is why a lot of believers are not genuinely born again. How do you know one who is born again? Nicodemus went on a fact-finding trip to Jesus by night and ask what he could do to be saved? When we say we are born of God, our inner minds are renewed and the old things are passed away. Verse 7 says He that loves knows God. Verse 10: God loves us and send his son [John 3:16]. Love gives; you cannot claim to love God and do not give to Him. That is microwave love – heat it and when you bring it out, it gets cold. Verse 11 says if God loves us then we should share his love with one another. If we could love God that we do not see then we must love one another that we see.
Verse 17 says: Herein is our love made perfect that we may have boldness in the Day of Judgment. As Jesus is in heaven, so we are here on earth. Little wonder Peter said we are chosen generation, a royal priesthood……..peculiar people….. [1 Peter 2:9ff]. Verse 18: There’s no fear in love. If the Church is a community of love in action, where is the love among believers? There are so much in fighting, grudges, bitterness and hate in the Church today. There is so much division, separation and barriers as well as warring in the body of Christ that those outsiders are no longer attracted to her. You can hear people say if this is what the Church is about I don’t wish to belong. We no longer visit one another; we only meet in the Church. Are we still brothers and our brother’s keeper? Surprisingly we don’t care anymore what happens to one another; some don’t even call on phone to check on one another since they could not visit.
We should realize that people come to Church because of the way we extend our love to them. We must show concern and love. It’s our compassion that attracts them to Christ. This is the message we have heard from the beginning: love one another [1 John 3:11]; not the Cain type of love. It should be the love between King David and Jonathan, Jesus and Mary Magdalene and Jesus and His church. It’s the Love that counts no wrongs. It says despite your wrongs I still love you. It’s the love that harbors no fears; it’s naked and transparent. It’s the love that shows compassion, full of mercies. It says I will give a another chance and bear you in my heart even when you fail me, fall out of union agreement and behave weird, I shall forgive you because Christ forgives me. It still asks what I can do to help you out of the present predicament. What will it take to bring you back to the dance of love?
When a brother stumbles or fall we should help to restore him than help the enemy to kill him. Some are glad when a brother or sister stumbles. They castigate, gossip and say funny thing against him/her. ‘Gossip is being carried out by ignorance and receives by fools.’ When the love of God is in the house of God, the people move forward. We should let our hearts be circumcised; renew our minds. 1 John 3:14ff says we know that we have passed from death unto life, because we love the brethren. He that loves not his brother abides in death [Matthew 12:50]. Whosoever hates his brother is a murderer and you know that no murderer has eternal life abiding in him. No murderer shall enter God’s kingdom. We need to have the mind of Christ and love unconditionally.
Love means accepting a person as you are. If you do not forgive your fellow human being you do not love God because God created the person you hate. An open rebuke is better than secret love. As the Mind thinks, so is he/she. In Matthew 22:36-40, Jesus was asked which of the commandment is the greatest. Jesus answered: love your God and love your neighbor as you love yourself. When we love we give. God loved the world that He gave His only begotten son. When we do not love God, we do not give God: we do not give offerings or pay tithe and we do not give to God’s creation. Jesus says I was in prison, I was hungry…………etc. If you do it to one of these brethren, you do it to me.
Apostle Paul advised the Corinthian saints: if you speak in tongues of men and angel but have no love, its noise. If you have gifts of prophesy and understands all the mysteries of knowledge and have faith that move the mountain but have no love it’s folly and nothing. Love suffers long …not self seeking…….. [1 Corinthians 13:1ff]. The God of love is the God of justice. In the last day, God shall opens the book of the law and if your name is not there, He will open the book of life [the book of love] to see how far you have love in your heart. If God would weigh us by law or count our iniquities, no one would pass His measure or stand before Him. God will therefore weigh us by the measure of our love to Him and brethren. Make sure you are not wanting there. Love one another for love covers all.
Text of Message by Prophet John Chinedu at Hour of Liberation Church on August 12, 2007. Recorded and transcribed by Evangelist Godswill Ogbonnaya: gkapin53@yahoo.com