Thursday, December 4, 2008
LOVE
10:36 AM by Christi Bowman
I John 4:17 states that as Jesus is, so are we in the world and
I John 4:9 states that God sent Jesus into the world so that we might live through Him.
The People, who we are in relationship with, who walk in darkness, can live through us as we live through Jesus. These friends and relatives can know the Father's love and the Father can know their love through us.
Before you write me off as a heretic; hear me out. I have had the privilege of experiencing this through another one of God's gifts to me, my husband. I have loved my husband passionately for 11 years now, but I have struggled with my love for God and with God's love for me.
In a
book review, on Amazon.com, of
"A Walking Prayer Among the Poor" James Calorient writes about the miracle that was Mother Theresa's purpose:
"to quench God's infinite thirst to love and be loved"
God gives us relationship, and the Scriptures are full of information on how those relationships should be managed if we live through Jesus. We are somebody's child, we are hopefully somebody's friend. We may be somebody's spouse and/or parent. Besides these naturally forming relationships God also tells us to seek out relationship with the widowed, the orphaned, the hungry, the thirsty, the stranger, the naked, the ill, and the imprisoned.
God gives us relationship and provides instruction for its management, in Christ, so that His infinite thirst to love and be loved might be quenched through us. God is Spirit, and to interact with the people He created and loves He needed and still needs a body. Jesus, the firstborn among MANY brethren (Romans 8:29), came first to reach ALL of us because we ALL lived in darkness. Some of us now walk and live in the light through the firstborn, Jesus, but what about those who still struggle in darkness? What about those who can't see Him for who He is? I John 4:17 says "In this world WE are like Him."
When we allow the love of Christ to love the people we are in a relationship with, through us, than we are a living sacrifice, like Jesus, and we are being used by God to quench His infinite thirst to love, and when those same people, whom Christ has been loving through us, love us in return, their love partners with us in quenching God's infinite thirst to be loved. This is what it means to be Light. I John 1:5 says that GOD is Light and in Him there is no darkness. Matthew 5:15 tells us that WE are the Light of the world.
For 10 years I could not love God or receive God's love, but I could receive my husband's love and I could love my husband in return. Because Kevin was committed to loving me as God put forth in Ephesians 5:25-33; he was loving me with the love Christ has for His bride. My husband could only love me that way because He lives and loves through Christ. Through my husband living and loving through Christ, God could love me through my husband. And, when I responded to my husbands love for me with love of my own I was loving Christ without knowing it because I was returning the love of Christ, alive in my husband, with my love. 1 John 3:20 (ESV) for whenever our heart condemns us, God is greater than our heart, and he knows everything.
In that same way that my husband loved and continues to love me, through Christ, we can love ALL people, and those people will be actively loved by the Father. When they respond to God's love, alive in us, with love of their own they are loving God whether they realize it or not and they are living through us (1 John 4:17) as we live through Christ (1 John 4:9).
We have this kind of life giving potential, and that is why we are in so much trouble if we live our lives for ourselves, refusing to give it away. To love people, our parents, our children, our spouses, our friends, and the least of these with the love of Jesus is our one and only purpose, it is the gospel by which people are being saved everyday when we live it, and it is the gospel that people cannot see when we refuse its invitation to love.
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