THE POWER OF GOD’S LOVE IN ACTION
In human terms, we see that people are motivated by love to put their own physical lives at risk so that another person is rescued from certain death. For example:
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It can be said about these examples that people are motivated by love, or duty, or some kind of internal force to sacrifice their physical lives for another person.
In the example of Jesus, and the example that Jesus represents to his followers, sacrifice of the physical, human body is only a symbolic representation of a spiritual sacrifice. God does not want or expect that his people would actually lay down their human lives for others. The story of Jesus’ death and resurrection, therefore, is a symbolic representation of spiritual death — not physical death.
STUDY TIP: See Death, Resurrection, New Life, Two Deaths and Eternal Life for understanding of spiritual death.
STUDY TIP: See this link for a table that identifies many Biblical concepts with which love is associated.
As we study, we discover that God’s love is strongly associated with his spoken word. In fact, God’s love and his spoken word are the same thing.
This truth is worth repeating:
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The inclusive, expansive nature of God’s love is hard to understand because people born of the flesh always want to dissect and categorize knowledge according to human terms. They need to do this in order to break knowledge down into small pieces that are understandable in their limited human minds.
Born again people who are able to hear God’s spoken voice are not limited to what their human minds can understand. Understanding for them happens in the heart — not in the mind. And the heart that is recreated in the image of God is able to understand what God reveals to their hearts.
Religious people who insist on listening to false prophets, however, will not gain this kind of deep understanding. Their understanding of God is limited to what they learn about him from the literal words of the Bible. They do not understand that God’s written word and God’s spoken word are not the same thing.
It is important to recognize that it is impossible to give away something that we do not have. Sharing God’s written word is relatively easy. All you need to do is repeat the words. Anyone, even unbelievers, can do that. Sharing God’s love (i.e. his spoken words) is more complicated. First you need to hear God’s voice, and then you need to convert spiritual language into human words. Putting that another way, first you need to receive God’s love in your heart and then you share his love by loving your neighbor.
Translating God’s voice into human language is not an easy thing to do. First is the problem of translating whispers of gentle winds, thunder, lightning, dreams and visions into human words. It is like trying to summarize the meaning/message of a large picture in a few words. Second is the fact that most religious people don’t want to hear what you have to say. As far as they are concerned, their religion has already taught them everything they need to know about God. More likely than not, they will resist listening to what you have to say and even persecute you for saying it.
If we think about this dilemma in terms of love, instead of God’s words, the challenges are not diminished. You see what you have to say as love, and religious people see it as offensive challenges to their strongly held religious beliefs. It is difficult to give God’s love (i.e. his word) to people who do not want to receive it.
That being the case, we must ask what it was that drove Jesus to lay down his life for his friends? Moreover, those who imagine themselves to be followers of Jesus must ask what will drive them to lay down their lives for their friends? The answer, of course, is love.
The kind of love that drives people to lay down their lives is not human love. It is Godly love that drives people to die both the first death and the second death. Human love does not have that kind of power.
We know that God’s love resides in the heart, but that does not mean that it does not also operate at the intellectual level. After all, we are told that we have the mind of Christ.
Regarding the mind of Christ, it must be said that this mind is not found in religious people. It is found only in New Covenant disciples who have God’s laws written on their hearts. Concurrently, it is found in servants who hear their master’s and obey it. This brings us to the issue of what it means to obey God’s will. Obedience doesn’t just happen in the heart. It happens in real deeds that are carried out with intellect in the mind.
Religious people like to quote the scripture that says that “faith without deeds is dead.” They use this scripture to support all of their religious activities.
One problem with this thinking is that religion is not faith. Another problem is that not all deeds are the same in God’s eyes. To understand the deeds that God finds worthy, we must look at the deeds of Abraham and the deeds (i.e. works) of Jesus.
STUDY TIP: See this link for understanding of good works.
In other words, it is impossible to give away God’s love unless we first possess God’s love. This means it is impossible to share (i.e. give away) God’s words (i.e. his love) unless we possess his love/words in our heart. Only then can we speak wisdom, knowledge and justice out of our heart. This principle is reflected in this verse which should be interpreted as a command:
Matthew 10:8: “Heal the sick, raise the dead, cleanse the lepers, cast out demons. Freely you received, freely give.
COMMENTARY: Most people do not consider this verse to be a command. They think that Jesus could do these kinds of miracles but do not believe that they could do them. They think this way because they interpret the verse literally — not symbolically. They think that way because they have not personally experienced the transforming power of God’s word in their own hearts.
When the symbolic meaning of the scripture is understood, however, the command to heal the sick, raise the dead, cleanse the lepers, and cast out demons takes on new meaning for them personally.
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All born again, New Covenant disciples are Jesus’ followers. They know how to hear God’s spoken voice, and they know from personal experience that God has changed their hearts. They know that their hearts have changed because God did a miracle in them: He convinced them that Religion is Sin. They would never have believed this unless God changed their hearts (i.e. attitudes) about religion. Before God gave them a new heart, they would say that they “love” their religion. Now they would say that they hate religion because religion is God’s enemy.
They have the power to accomplish these miracles because they speak for God. The power of God’s spoken voice to accomplish miracles is communicated through their words. This power was communicated through Jesus’ words and it is communicated through the words of his followers.
Thus, this verse can be interpreted this way:
You have received (i.e. heard) God’s spoken word without cost. Therefore, give God’s word away (i.e. report it to others) and don’t charge anyone to hear what you have to say.
Sharing God’s words (i.e. speaking for God) to others satisfies God’s command to love your neighbor and love one another. Sharing God’s words is called preaching in the Bible but it is not preaching as we see understand it in religion. Preaching is not for eloquent, trained pastors and evangelists. That kind of preaching is found in religion. Those kinds of preachers preach for pay in the context of commercial religion.
STUDY TIP: See these links for more about commercial religion:
Godly preaching is nothing more, or less, than speaking for God like Moses and Jesus. Because God does not charge people to hear his words, people who hear God’s voice should not charge for something that they have received for free. This is the message of Matthew 10:8.
Preaching does not mean standing up in front of a congregation to deliver a sermon. Preaching is simply a matter of speaking for God at opportune times. It is something that all New Covenant disciples do.
Preaching God’s words is how we give love away. Preaching is speaking truth (i.e. God’s word) in love.
Preaching is risky because we don’t know how people will react to our words when we tell them how God feels about their religion. Jesus predicted that people who share God’s spoken word should expect to be persecuted and rejected. They will reject the truth because they are addicted to their religion and don’t want to quit being religious.
Nevertheless, God’s people are commanded to love one another, even our enemies, by speaking God’s words to them.
The only way we can give love is if we first receive it. We receive God’s love when we hear his voice, and we share God’s love when we speak for God to people who cannot hear God’s voice. They cannot hear because they have hard hearts.
Another way that God explains why they can’t hear is that their ears and hearts have not been circumcised. In Bible language, these are evil, impure hearts. People who have clean, pure hearts, however, are able to hear God’s voice. When they hear, they know God and experience his love. Just like faith which comes by hearing, love comes by hearing.
Since God’s love and his voice are one and the same thing, we receive God’s love when we hear his spoken voice. Similarly, the only way we share God’s love is by sharing his voice. We share his voice when we speak for God. That is what God’s true prophets did, that is what Jesus did, and that is what people who follow Jesus will do.
This is worth repeating: The only way we can share God’s love with others is if we share God’s voice (i.e. his spoken word) with others. This is what it means to love your neighbor as yourself. This is what true prophets, angels, messiahs, high priests, witnesses, and warriors do: They speak God’s words (i.e. his love) to others.
However, if we do not speak for God to people who do not know how to hear God’s spoken voice, neither God’s love nor God’s word is in us. The guiding principle of God’s love is this:
Love comes into our hearts through God’s words. Love comes out of us when we speak for God.
The command to love is made very clear in Matthew 22:36-40:
37 Jesus replied: “ ‘Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind.’ 38 This is the first and greatest commandment. 39 And the second is like it: ‘Love your neighbor as yourself.’ 40 All the Law and the Prophets hang on these two commandments.”
COMMENTARY: See this link and How to Love Your Neighbor for in-depth understanding of this verse.
This command is best understood when we first understand that God, his voice and his word are the same thing. Lacking that understanding it is very hard to love someone you cannot see or touch. We cannot see or touch God, of course, but we do have a very real point of contact with God when we hear his voice.
Hearing God’s spoken voice is the substance of faith. Hearing God’s spoken voice is the essence of intimacy with God. Without hearing God’s voice, there is no faith, no intimacy, and no love. The heart, soul and mind are all engaged when we hear God’s voice. The heart is where we hear God’s voice. When we hear God’s voice, our soul is lifted up. And the mind is where we meditate on what we have heard God say to us. The heart, soul and mind, therefore, are all engaged in loving God’s spoken words.
The second commandment to love our neighbor as ourselves is mentioned in many places in the Bible. See this link for understanding of what it means to love your neighbor as yourself. Matthew 22:36-40 does not say explicitly that the heart, mind and soul should be engaged in loving your neighbor as yourself, but we should assume that God expects us to always apply the same standards for loving God, ourselves and others.
Since God’s words have power, we activate God’s power to do justice in the world of religion when we love others by speaking God’s words to them. This principle is discussed in detail in The Lord’s Prayer.
The dynamic relationship between God’s word and God’s love is explained in the following scriptures:
1 John 4:7 a. Beloved, let us love one another;
COMMENTARY: This is another way of saying “love your neighbor as yourself.” It is a companion scripture to Matthew 22:35-40, 1 John 3:11, John 13:34, 1 John 4:11 and 2 John 1:5. Also see this link for more understanding of this verse.
1 John 4:7 b. for love is of God, and he who loves is born of God and knows God.
COMMENTARY: The only evidence that God exists is his words/laws spoken to our hearts. and his love. His love and his words are inseparable. They are not two things. The are one and the same thing.
People who are born again are created in God’s image. The evidence of being born again exists in words that flow out of a clean pure heart.
1 John 4:7 He who does not love does not know God; for God is love.
COMMENTARY: This means what it says: God is love. That means God’s essence and his presence is love. Love begins and ends with God. Just like God is eternal, God’s love is eternal because God and his love are inseparable.
1 John 4:7 In this the love of God was made manifest among us, that God sent his only Son into the world, so that we might live through him.
People who were spiritually dead are resurrected to new life (i.e. they are born again) when they listen to God’s words spoken through messiahs.
1 John 4:11 Beloved, if God so loved us, we also ought to love one another.
COMMENTARY:
1 John 4:12 No man has ever seen God; if we love one another, God abides in us and his love is perfected in us.
13 By this we know that we abide in him and he in us, because he has given us of his own Spirit.
14 And we have seen and testify that the Father has sent his Son as the Savior of the world. 15 Whoever confesses that Jesus is the Son of God, God abides in him, and he in God. 16 So we know and believe the love God has for us. God is love, and he who abides in love abides in God, and God abides in him. 17 In this is love perfected with us, that we may have confidence for the day of judgment, because as he is so are we in this world.
18 There is no fear in love, but perfect love casts out fear. For fear has to do with punishment, and he who fears is not perfected in love. 19 We love, because he first loved us. 20 If any one says, “I love God,” and hates his brother, he is a liar; for he who does not love his brother whom he has seen, cannot love God whom he has not seen.