Love

As you look at the country in which you live, ask yourself if the people love each other?   Is the love of God present? 

For me and likely most of you, your first experience of love from the heart was from your parents.  I can testify from personal experience my mother loved from the heart.  She sacrificed of herself daily, so that others could feel the love of God.  Love emanated from mom.  As I went to college and my wife worked full time, my mom volunteered to care for our first-born son.  On top of everything else she was doing for people, she took time to care for her grandbaby.  She would keep the sick out of the house and eat pickles with her grandbaby on her lap.  My son would say “no ‘moke g’anma.”  I do not know when that conversion happened in her heart from the love of self to the love of God and the love of others, but I know it happened because I witnessed it every day. 

Jesus gave us two commandments:   Love God and love your neighbor.  Peter tells you that the love of others shows your love of God!  If you can’t love your neighbor, how can you love God. 

1 John 4:19-21 – We love him, because he first loved us.  If a man say, I love God, and hateth his brother, he is a liar: for he that loveth not his brother whom he hath seen, how can he love God whom he hath not seen? And this commandment have we from him, That he who loveth God love his brother also.

The greatest single evidence of being converted from the love of man to the love of God that I know of in my lifetime besides my mom was Mother Teresa.  

Let’s look at the love of Mother Teresa.

After Mother Teresa founded her religious congregation, it grew to have over 4,500 nuns and was active in 133 countries as of 2012. The congregation manages homes for people who are dying of HIV/AIDS, leprosy, and tuberculosis. The congregation also runs soup kitchens, dispensaries, mobile clinics, children’s and family counselling programs, as well as orphanages and schools. Members take vows of chastity, poverty, and obedience and also profess a fourth vow: to give “wholehearted free service to the poorest of the poor.”

Here is what she said to President Clinton about abortion. 

“I feel that the greatest destroyer of peace today is abortion, because it is a war against the child, a direct killing of the innocent child, murder by the mother herself. And if we accept that a mother can kill even her own child, how can we tell other people not to kill one another? How do we persuade a woman not to have an abortion? As always, we must persuade her with love and we remind ourselves that love means to be willing to give until it hurts. Jesus gave even His life to love us. So, the mother who is thinking of abortion, should be helped to love, that is, to give until it hurts her plans, or her free time, to respect the life of her child. The father of that child, whoever he is, must also give until it hurts.

“By abortion, the mother does not learn to love, but kills even her own child to solve her problems. And, by abortion, that father is told that he does not have to take any responsibility at all for the child he has brought into the world. The father is likely to put other women into the same trouble. So abortion just leads to more abortion. Any country that accepts abortion is not teaching its people to love, but to use any violence to get what they want. This is why the greatest destroyer of love and peace is abortion.”

I can stand here and tell you that Jesus knew my mom and Mother Teresa.  

For most of us, we hold salvation in our mind as beholding it in a glass.   God wants that evidence of salvation and love of self to move or be converted to the heart, to the love of others and the love of God, by being a doer of God’s word.   Let that veil covering your heart be taken away!  Let your love shine forth!

James 1:20,22-23,25 – For the wrath of man worketh not the righteousness of God. But be ye doers of the word, and not hearers only, deceiving your own selves. For if any be a hearer of the word, and not a doer, he is like unto a man beholding his natural face in a glass: But whoso looketh into the perfect law of liberty, and continueth therein, he being not a forgetful hearer, but a doer of the work, this man shall be blessed in his deed.

2 Corinthians 3:15-18 – But even unto this day, when Moses is read, the vail is upon their heart.  Nevertheless when it shall turn to the Lord, the vail shall be taken away. Now the Lord is that Spirit: and where the Spirit of the Lord is, there is liberty. But we all, with open face beholding as in a glass the glory of the Lord, are changed into the same image from glory to glory, even as by the Spirit of the Lord.

Mother Teresa says you cannot love when you judge. Lost men judge.   Jesus tells us to judge no man.  Men walking after the flesh, prejudge their neighbor and are not capable of loving God.

Luke 6:42 – Either how canst thou say to thy brother, Brother, let me pull out the mote that is in thine eye, when thou thyself beholdest not the beam that is in thine own eye? Thou hypocrite, cast out first the beam out of thine own eye, and then shalt thou see clearly to pull out the mote that is in thy brother’s eye.

1 John 4:20 – If a man say, I love God, and hateth his brother, he is a liar: for he that loveth not his brother whom he hath seen, how can he love God whom he hath not seen?

Most people will never show, know or feel the love of people.  We are too busy judging.  Churches, homes, bars and stadiums are full of people with broken arms received from patting themselves on the back, lovers of self.  Jesus tells you to follow him, to “follow thou me.”    Don’t worry about how others are being a doer of God’s word.  Decide how you want to follow Jesus and serve him by serving others. 

John 21:17,20-22 – He saith unto him the third time, Simon, son of Jonas, lovest thou me? Peter was grieved because he said unto him the third time, Lovest thou me? And he said unto him, Lord, thou knowest all things; thou knowest that I love thee. Jesus saith unto him, Feed my sheep. Then Peter, turning about, seeth the disciple whom Jesus loved following; which also leaned on his breast at supper, and said, Lord, which is he that betrayeth thee? Peter seeing him saith to Jesus, Lord, and what shall this man do ?  Jesus saith unto him, If I will that he tarry till I come, what is that to thee? follow thou me.

God is waiting for you to follow him.  Today, decide that you want to love God from the heart.  Let the word of God open your ears, eyes and heart.

Acts 28:27-For the heart of this people is waxed gross, and their ears are dull of hearing, and their eyes have they closed; lest they should see with their eyes, and hear with their ears, and understand with their heart, and should be converted, and I should heal them.

You want to be a doer of God’s word.  Showing your faith by your works.  Show your love of God and fellow man, the best way you know of.  Share God’s word and God’s love daily! 

James 1:22-23 – But be ye doers of the word, and not hearers only, deceiving your own selves. For if any be a hearer of the word, and not a doer, he is like unto a man beholding his natural face in a glass: 

James 2:18 – Yea, a man may say, Thou hast faith, and I have works: shew me thy faith without thy works, and I will shew thee my faith by my works.

Salvation is the conversion of knowledge of God’s doctrine from your mind to your heart.   Profess your love of God daily, through the love of your fellow man.  Make sure they know God.   Let Jesus feel your love!  When he decides to take you home, he’ll receive you with open arms.  

To God be the glory in all you do. Amen.