In a recent devotional from seedbed.com JD Walt asked had we considered that the church has no “doctrine of love” and wouldn’t it be a good thing to have? I contemplated his question for several days before he got back to it today in a devotional in which he shared a message first given at a New Room Conference. After to listening to Dr Dongell’s message, I wrote this:
I listened to JD Walt’s seedbed.com’s Daily Text, “Toward A Doctrine Of Love”, this morning and Dr. Dongell’s New Room message that was linked there ….. I have to say that JD set us up, implying that a “doctrine of love” should be articulated as it seems he knew it had already been quite well articulated in this “manifesto” presentation on love. Dr. Dongell hinted at something regarding love that I have had to learn and that many don’t seem to know. Love is an act of embracing the love of God for us first…. feeling it, knowing, understanding the depth of sacrifice it holds, and finding through it a depth of gratitude for the gift of Christ that brings joy sublime and the peace that passes understanding. When gratitude for God’s love gives birth to joy and peace, the other virtues of Holy Spirit abiding soon follow… patience, goodness, kindness, faithfulness, gentleness, self-control, and the ability to walk in them increasingly bearing the disposition and countenance of love toward others. He said several things that stirred me to shout, “Amen!” One was this: Wesley from A Plain Account of Christian Perfection:
“One cause of a thousand mistakes is this:. . . not considering deeply enough that love is the highest gift of God; humble, gentle, patient love; that all visions, revelations, [or] manifestations whatever, are little things compared to love; and that all [other] gifts . . . are either the same with or infinitely inferior to it. You should be thoroughly aware of this—the heaven of heavens is love. There is nothing higher in religion; there is, in effect, nothing else; if you look for anything but more love, you are looking wide of the mark, you are getting out of the royal way. And when you are asking others, “Have you received this or that blessing?” if you mean anything but more love, you mean wrong; you are leading them out of the way, and putting them [on] a false scent. Settle it then in your heart, that from the moment God has saved you from all sin, you are to aim at nothing more but more of that love describe in the thirteenth chapter of First Corinthians. You can go no higher than this, till you are carried in Abraham’s bosom.”
The other was his perspective on 2 Cor 3:1-4 in equating comfort with love. “I have become convinced that the dynamic of comfort (as we see it operating here in 2 Corinthians) is the same as the dynamic by which love operates. I think we can substitute “love” for “comfort” without doing violence to the underlying idea: “Blessed be the God of all love, who has loved us . . . so that we may be able to love others . . . with the love with which we ourselves are loved by God.” With this we have reached the fundamental bedrock for understanding how love from its source (God) to us and through us to others.”
In Jesus’ Beatitudes and Sermon on the Mount, which is first and foremost the definitive instruction for living out love in practical ways…. Reflecting God’s love to us and our love in response to God and extended to others we see this: Blessed are the poor in spirit, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven (the broken, the diseased, the convicted, the repentant, the ignorant, the clueless…for I Am draws near, even rushes to such despairing souls!). When one of God’s creatures finds itself in such a hapless place of nothing more to give or be in one’s own strength, what does it do?? It mourns its sad condition and what is the thing God does in response to the mourning? He COMFORTS! As a loving Parent comforts a restless, hurting, hungry, sick, zwounded, disappointed child…. Comfort is the outward work of a heart that bears the love of God within it…. like the Good Samaritan’s neighborly attitude and acts toward the Jericho Road victimized traveler.
Jesus himself cried out in tears and lamenting in Matthew 23: 37-38, longing to comfort His own people, “O Jerusalem, Jerusalem, the city that kills the prophets and stones those who are sent to it! How often would I have gathered your children together as a hen gathers her brood under her wings, and you were not willing! See, your house is left to you desolate.” And Isaiah’s call for comfort for God’s people which would come through the Messiah is seen in Is. 40…
Even Jesus demonstrated the truth of the comfort we may expect from the God of All Comfort. He had no pillow, no roof over His head, no steady diet of fine food, no convenience or ease in life. Instead what He had was the constant Presence of the Father, availability to fellowship with the Father in prayer, and the assurance of the sufficiency of God’s grace and goodness all things for those who love the Lord. He did not ask God to spare his own disciples from hardship and trials, but to be sanctified, united in Him with the Father, to have joy, to be protected from evil and to know the love of the Father as Christ Himself knew it.
God’s love does not pamper, indulge, excuse, enable, show favoritism, or grant license for disobedience, rebellion, lies, neglect, selfishness, ignorance, greed, haughtiness, or pride. And yet “love” is often used in an attempt to cover not just a multitude of sins, but any and all sin. While God’s love expressed in the gift of grace through the sacrifice of His own son as atonement for Sin once and for all, when “love” is used as a cover for manipulation, exploitation, indulging self-interest, or other conduct contrary to God’s will, we have abused “love.”
https://drive.google.com/file/d/1NInikWAo9dN5JEzW_7zvQRK8-4UGNwVv/view?usp=drivesd
If our concept of loving, being loved, or love-worthiness is defined by or arising from any other source than God ( ANY other source- child, spouse, security, skills, moral stature, financial stability, good health, appearance, altruistic conduct, etc) that source itself , if not also fully attuned to the righteous and sacrificing nature of the love Christ demonstrated, then it is not godly love, but a poor counterfeit with which we deceive and comfort ourselves. And it will not stand the test of eternity.
Will God allow his love present in our hearts through grace to be tested and refined? Without a doubt … The scripture is replete with examples of testing of our understanding of God’s love and our love of God toward God and others.. A few come to mind… Abraham, Job, Joseph, Hannah, Ruth, Jacob, Leah, Moses, Joshua, David, Tamar, Peter, Thomas, James, Stephen, Paul, the mother who surrendered her child in the face of Solomon’s proposed solution to the dilemma of true maternity, Nathan, Elijah, Isaiah, Daniel, Nehemiah, Jeremiah…. each one was called to a demonstration of the truth of their love of God and love of others. Some stood fast in persecution, some held others accountable to do the right thing through conviction, some surrendered their rights for the sake of others, some sacrificed relationships, their own ego and self-interest in the testing of their love. When the quality of our heart’s love fails to meet God’s standard, it is pruned and refined or, in the case of counterfeits derived from something other than the essence of God’s own love , then it is circumcised out altogether. In the ancient dispute over the divine nature of Jesus Christ, was it the same as or merely similar to that of God, when one examines the whole of the Word and Christ’s life, ministry, passion, death, resurrection, and ascension of Christ the truth of his divine nature, evidenced by the full measure of his sacrificial and unconditional love is, without a doubt only present in God.