Walk

332. Remain in My Love

Galatians 5:6 says, “For in Christ Jesus neither circumcision nor uncircumcision avails anything, but faith working through love.” We cannot even exercise faith for living if we are not living the love life. We need to be walking in love just as Jesus did, in order to be safe from our enemy, and to be pleasing to God.

John 3:16 says, “For God so loved the world that He gave His only begotten Son, that whoever believes in Him should not perish but have everlasting life.” Love is unselfish and giving; the opposite is selfish and is not love. That is the quickest description I can think of.

John 15:9 says, “As the Father loved Me, I also have loved you; abide in My love.” Jesus states that disciples must remain in His love. He is not speaking of love produced by human effort, but the actual divine love of Christ produced through the Holy Spirit. When Christ comes into a believer’s life, He brings His love with Him; the same love He enjoys with God the Father. Obedient disciples abide in Christ, and love is essential fruit that they bear.

Love has become such a distorted idea.

Among unbelievers, it is almost always a selfish idea. They feel because they have this warm fuzzy feeling that makes them feel good, it is love. Its definition is most often not accurate, even in Christian circles. Love cannot be described at all without a Biblical view, but even many Bible believers still keep an inaccurate view of love.

Some people think that love is how one feels. Some feel that love is unconditional; therefore, no matter what a person does, it is ok. We are just to forgive and get back into the relationship. So often God wants us out of relationships that are harmful. People often manipulate us with the demand for “love.” Certainly we are to forgive everyone and everything, but forgiveness does not mean permissiveness; it does not mean that we should get back into relationship with someone that is harmful. Sometimes God asks us to have “tough love”. We need to allow God to define boundaries in our lives, otherwise, others will control us.

John 15:10 reveals the way to remain or continue in Christ’s love. What condition must we meet to remain or continue in His love? (Note, remember that John 15 has nothing to do with salvation, but Jesus is teaching about spiritual fruit bearing in the believer’s life). John 15:10 says, “If you keep My commandments, you will abide in My love, just as I have kept My Father’s commandments and abide in His love.”

John 15:12 says, “This is My commandment, that you love one another as I have loved you.”

Many people in the church have tried, out of good intentions, to imitate God’s love. That is impossible! The only way to have God’s love is to have God. Thankfully, we do have God. God lives in us; therefore love lives in us.

Why then do we so often act contrary to love if God lives in us? It is because our old nature is trying to come back to life and take over. As we mature in the Lord over the years, love becomes more apparent in our life.

I believe that love comes forth from us as we abide in Him and spend time with Him in fellowship with His Word, His Spirit and in prayer. I believe that as His presence envelops your life, that you will become more like Him, and love will just happen. If you truly love someone you will want to be around him or her and share your heart with them. This is the way it is with God. When you listen to Him speak His Word to you, when you feel His forgiveness, His peace in the times of storm, His compassion in your weakness, you fall in love with Him more and more. You want to be around Him more and you just start becoming like Him because that is your real nature.

John 15:5 says, “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.” We cannot love as God loves without abiding in Him.

We need to continue to look into the Word to find those areas that are not like Him so that we may repent.

1 Corinthians 13:1-8a says, “Though I speak with the tongues of men and of angels, but have not love, I have become sounding brass or a clanging cymbal. And though I have the gift of prophecy, and understand all mysteries and all knowledge, and though I have all faith, so that I could remove mountains, but have not love, I am nothing. And though I bestow all my goods to feed the poor, and though I give my body to be burned, but have not love, it profits me nothing. 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.”

The above Scripture is a wonderful list to keep in your pocket. Whenever you sense that your life is not going this way, confess your sin to God and He will remove whatever is not love. 1 John 1:9 says, “If we confess our sins, He is faithful and just to forgive us our sins and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness.”

According to John 15:11, love produces joy. Look, what kind of joy is produced in the obedient believer who abides in Christ’s love? John 15:11 says, “These things I have spoken to you, that My joy may remain in you, and that your joy may be full.”

Are you having trouble with fear?

Love is the solution. 1 John 4:18 says, “There is no fear in love; but perfect love casts out fear, because fear involves torment. But he who fears has not been made perfect in love.”

Whenever we experience fear, we can say to ourselves and to God, “Well, I guess I have more to learn about Your love; show me and teach me, Lord.” Then God would respond as it says in Romans 5:8-9, “But God demonstrates His own love toward us, in that while we were still sinners, Christ died for us. Much more then, having now been justified by His blood, we shall be saved from wrath through Him.”

John 15:13 says, “Greater love has no one than this, than to lay down one’s life for his friends.”

God the Father loved Jesus the Son. Jesus loves us (John 15:9), and now we are to live our life showing His love to others. What command is given in John 15:12-13? “This is My commandment, that you love one another as I have loved you. Greater love has no one than this, than to lay down one’s life for his friends” (John 15:12-13).

Divine love surpasses any kind of conditional human love.

I have read that there are three different kinds of love (actually, they are three different words, but only one of them refers to the word ‘love’ as God is love). One kind of love is Eros, which is the physical expression of love. In marriage, this is God’s best; outside of marriage, it is perverted into lust. Another one is Phileo which is brotherly love. This can be best described as my love for you BECAUSE of something good inside of you. There is nothing wrong with this, as a matter of fact it is good. However, it depends on something inside of you that attracts me.

The Bible kind of love, God’s love, is called Agape. This is a word that the world did not even have before Jesus came. The closest thing to it is the Old Testament word lovingkindness, which is in Hebrew checed. Checed and Agape indicate an unconditional love. In other words, the one loving you does not look for anything good in you, or lovable in you; they just love you because they are love. They just love you because they ache inside to love you, no matter how bad you are. It is not an act of obedience, it is real, and it becomes emotional; however, it does not start with emotions.

Love is what draws us to God. Romans 2:4 (NIV, 1984) says, “Or do you show contempt for the riches of his kindness, tolerance and patience, not realizing that God’s kindness (love) leads you towards repentance?” I am so glad that when I was dead in sin, a rebel towards God, that His love drew me to Him.

“Therefore be imitators of God as dear children. And walk in love, as Christ also has loved us and given Himself for us, an offering and a sacrifice to God for a sweet-smelling aroma” (Ephesians 5:1-2).

“This is love, that we walk according to His commandments. This is the commandment, that as you have heard from the beginning, you should walk in it” (2 John 1:6).

“Let all that you do be done with love” (1 Corinthians 16:14). What sacrifices might you have to make in order to repair a broken relationship and display the fruit of His love?

In Romans 5:5 and Galatians 5:22, we are shown that we have the ability to love as God loves.

“Now hope does not disappoint, because the love of God has been poured out in our hearts by the Holy Spirit who was given to us” (Romans 5:5).

“But the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, longsuffering, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, self-control. Against such there is no law” (Galatians 5:22-23).

We were made in God’s image and in His likeness.

Genesis 1:26 says, “Then God said, ‘Let Us make man in Our image, according to Our likeness; let them have dominion over the fish of the sea, over the birds of the air, and over the cattle, over all the earth and over every creeping thing that creeps on the earth.’” Image means having the character of God, and likeness means operating our life the same way God operates His life. How is that? By faith and love.

People who do not have God living in them are not normal. Their manufacturer made them to operate with love and faith, and they are operating in selfishness and in the sense realm without faith. If you had an automobile and the manual said to put unleaded fuel in it, you would do that. But if you put in orange juice instead of unleaded fuel, you would destroy the auto. In the same way, every time we, as Christians, do not act in love, we are destroying ourselves.

The person who misses love misses the best that life has to offer. But it is up to us to develop it. We have to make our freedom of choice many times during the course of the day. When someone hurts us, or slanders us, we must act in love.

Giving is one of the results of love.

“For God so loved the world that He gave His only begotten Son, that whoever believes in Him should not perish but have everlasting life” (John 3:16). When you see someone who is an unselfish giver, you can see love. This not only includes money, but also time. This universe was created to function on love and giving, so whenever you give, more is returned. God gave His only Son, but He got back billions of sons and daughters and His firstborn Son, Jesus as well.

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