Integrity- People of God

A NEW COMANDMENT ; LOVE ONE ANOTHER AS I HAVE LOVED YOU

The Love of God is shown by the gift of His Son Jesus who was born to save mankind from eternal destruction. God so loved this world He gave His only begotten Son so who ever will believe in Him shall never perish. The greatest act of love is for someone to sacrifice themselves for another. To give out of our abundance, is an act of kindness; to give to those who are in need, is an act of compassion. But to give our best, or our very life for the one we love is the greatest act of love of all. This is what God did for us He gave His best; He gave Himself to save us from hell.

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

God has given us the greatest gift of love in Jesus. Jesus gave His life so we may fulfill our purpose to reflect the love of God in the earth and to live an abundant life. Mankind was just existing in this fallen state; he was living and breathing with little hope for his future because sin had enslaved him. God saw us in our depravity, in our deepest need, at our lowest point living a distorted life and He still loved us.

We were not looking like God in whose image we were created. Sin had so marred and disfigured us that our lives no longer reflected our creator. The love God has for us would not allow Him to leave us in our fallen state. God payed the ultimate sacrifice, death on the cross, that we may have forgiveness of sin and abundant life.

God created us out of His love so we can show His love on the earth. We were created to be the love of God to the world. But because of the fall, our heart, soul, mind and spirit have a gaping hole that can only be filled with the love of God. We may try other things but they will not satisfy the deep longing we have in us, that was created by our Maker for Himself.

People go looking for everything to satisfy their longing their need for love but nothing else will satisfy the love we need but the love of God. We can use a wrench as a hammer and it may do an adequate job but it will function at its optimum when it is used for what it was created. That is us when we are looking for love and validation in our work, in our families or in pleasure. We fell from our created purpose to show the love and to be the love of God in this world and became in need of love ourselves.

We developed a desperate need for someone to love us and sometimes at any price. We started longing to have someone to love or to have someone to love us. We often go searching for a feeling because that is how this world has defined love. Feelings are shallow physical and mental emotion. If we chase after what the world has defined as love, we will be looking for feelings and settling for a shallow existence when God has created us for so much more.

Those who do not know God and His unconditional love will wander around from place to place, person to person, looking for fulfillment. This will only end into defeat, disappointment and still not knowing true love, the Agape love, the unconditional love of God. His love loves us no matter what we have done or what we have failed to do. God loves because it is Who He is and when we are called by His name we too must show unconditional love to those who may not deserve it.

The world has sold us on a lie from hell, that we are unwanted, unworthy, and unloved. This is a lie from the father of lies, Satan. God, so loved us He would not leave us in our fallen state. He gave His best, His Son Jesus, so we would be saved from our worst self. Jesus became poor that we might become rich. He died that we may live. Jesus was beaten so we would receive His healing. He was chastised so we may have His peace. Greater love has no man than this, than to lay down His life even for someone who does not appreciate the sacrifice that is made.

John 3:16   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.

The world has exalted the love of self over everything even at the expense of everyone else. The world tells us to love ourselves more even if it means hurting family, children, and friends we are to make ourselves happy. The world is good at redefining words so that they are more palatable for us to do wrong. The enemy of God has redefined words so our behavior does not appear to be as wicked, but it is just another strategy of Satan to entrap the people of God. He makes things glitter but it is not gold. Godly love is not selfish. Godly love gives and wants to see the best for others. God’s love has compassion for those who are hurting and God’s love will show love, even if it hurts.

Isaiah 53: 3-5 Surely He has borne our griefs And carried our sorrows; Yet we esteemed Him stricken, Smitten by God, and afflicted. ⁵ But He was wounded for our transgressions, He was bruised for our iniquities; The chastisement for our peace was upon Him, And by His stripes we are healed. ⁶ All we like sheep have gone astray; We have turned, every one, to his own way; And the Lord has laid on Him the iniquity of us all.      NKJV

God sent His Son Jesus, as a baby to live as man in a fallen world. Jesus the creator of all creation was not accepted but was rejected by the world He made. In His unconditional love for the world He still gave His life to save us from destruction. This is the type of love God has planted in the hearts of His children. Love that gives though it may not receive. God’s Love pours out itself into the lives of others even though there may never be any visible signs of acceptance or appreciation.

The sacrifice God made for us, the death of Jesus, to be adopted into the family God is why God requires us to show this same love. It cost God a great price to save us and this is a small thing He asks of us, to love those who are un-deserving, worthless and pitiful. Though the world will not understand our forgiveness and love for others and our flesh may try to rise up and scream at us to take matters into our own hands, for revenge God tells us to show the love of Christ and the world will marvel.

Matthew 22:37-40  Jesus said to him, “‘You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, with all your soul, and with all your mind.  This is the first and great commandment.  And the second is like it: ‘You shall love your neighbor as yourself.  On these two commandments hang all the Law and the Prophets.” NKJV

Jesus lived under the laws of the Old Testament and He explained the two greatest laws that were given, to love God with all their heart, soul, and mind and to love others as themselves. If the people would love God and love others to the level that they knew how, the love they had for themselves, all the other commandments rest on those two laws. If they loved God they would do those things that pleased and glorified Him. If they loved others, to the best of their human ability, as they love themselves, they would be fulfilling the law.

Romans 8:2-4   For the law of the Spirit of life in Christ Jesus has made me free from the law of sin and death. ³ For what the law could not do in that it was weak through the flesh, God did by sending His own Son in the likeness of sinful flesh, on account of sin: He condemned sin in the flesh, ⁴ that the righteous requirement of the law might be fulfilled in us who do not walk according to the flesh but according to the Spirit. For those who live according to the flesh set their minds on the things of the flesh, but those who live according to the Spirit, the things of the Spirit.

Jesus’s death and resurrection condemned and destroyed sin in our flesh and gave us life according to the Spirit of God. We could not love others who wronged us in our own strength in our natural fallen state. Jesus gave us the ability, by the power of the Holy Spirit, to love others unconditionally. Those who live according to the flesh set their minds on the things of the flesh. If we are to be free of the past and love the God kind of love, we must set our minds on the things of the Spirit of God.

The traditions of religion want us to focus on the old commandments, thou shalt not and thou shalt not, the things we do. The world would have our minds focus on the things of the world, all the things we do not have or desire to have. Jesus came and fulfilled the law. He paid every sin debt to set us free from the law of sin and us trying to do things in our own strength. Jesus also set us free from the traditions of religious men who want to give us all types of rules to follow. God gave us the Holy Spirit to live in us to empower us to show the love of God.

John 13:34-25            A new commandment I give to you, that you love one another; as I have loved you, that you also love one another. ³⁵ By this all will know that you are My disciples, if you have love for one another.”

This is the new command Jesus gave us to love one another as He has loved us and it is by this love that we show to the undeserving, the world will know we have the love of God in us and we are His disciples. To love unconditionally is unnatural for the fallen man, he cannot show this type of love separated from God’s love. This is how the world will know we are followers of Jesus because we will lay down our rights, our comfort, and our pride for others so we may show them the unconditional love of God.

For those who say they are, saved; a Christian; a believer; love God and yet hate those who look like God are deceived. Self -deception is the worst type of deceptiveness because we are convinced we are right and sincere in our actions. There are those who hate out of religious convictions, social beliefs or because of financial and family opinions and yet in their minds they are justified.

What a master of deception the enemy of God is, to have those who are created in His image and likeness to hate those who reflect His image. That is a fallen and corrupted mind. Those who live according to their flesh minds are focused on the things of the flesh. This is why Jesus says it is by the love we have for one another people will know we are His disciples.

We must choose to set our minds on the things of the Spirit, the word of God, if we are going to live according to the Spirit of God. Our natural propensity is self-preservation and it is only by the power of the Holy Spirit and a renewed mind we can show love to those the world call un-loveable. Jesus gave us one new commandment, to love others as He has loved us and he told us how to walk in this love by having our minds on the things of the Spirit and not of the flesh.