LOVE
Wouldn't it be grand if there were no problems in the world? No crime like
adultery, stealing, murder, slavery, and other things that plague our world and
society. Have you ever wondered if it were possible to live in peace and safety
and what would be the answer to peace? The answer to all the problems is
society is simple. If every person would just love their neighbor as themselves,
the world's problems would disappear. Think about it for one moment.
If we truly loved our fellow human beings as we do ourselves, what would be the
result? There would be no poverty. There would be no stealing. There would be no
slavery. There would be no selfishness. There would be no greed. There would be
no abortion. There would be no murder. Nobody would suffer
oppression and bondage. Everyone who lacked would help out those who didn't.
I want to interject here a very important issue. Love such as this cannot be
forced upon us. There have been societies that have tried to force people to
share and be equal. This has proved to be disastrous and resulted in oppression
and bondage rather than love. Communism was a great failure. The kind of
love I'm talking about is from the within each one of us and only can possibly
come about by true and I emphasize TRUE conversion to faith in Jesus Christ. Not
conversion to a religion but true conversion to Jesus. This conversion is done
by repenting of sin (turning from sin), then receiving and believing in Jesus. God then forgives all past sin and you
become "born again." God fills you with his spirit which before you did not
have. This spirit called the Holy Spirit or Holy Ghost comes to dwell within
each believer who receives Jesus Christ.
Does this mean that everyone who confesses Christianity loves his or her
neighbor as himself? Well we see from history and from today's world that this
is not so. When we come to Christ, he indeed fills us with his spirit but this
is not forced upon us. We then have to decide whether to yield to the spirit
that is
given to us. We still have the option to say no to the prompting and leading of
the Holy Spirit. God does not make us slaves to his will. We have a will. We
have to decide whether or not we want to love our neighbor as ourselves. We
still have the power to decide whether or not to allow sin back into our lives.
We can say yes or no to the prompting of the Holy Spirit.
The first step to be able to love others is the do the first commandment. "Love
the Lord with all our heart, soul and mind." We cannot do this without being
converted to Jesus Christ. It is impossible. Yet after we come to Christ, we
still do not have to love the Lord with all our heart but we have the spirit to
help us to do just that if we truly seek God with the desire to love him above
all things and yield to his love.
Praise his name.
It is up to us to choose.
The second commandment is Love your neighbor as yourself. This is impossible
without daily yielding to the Holy Spirit given to us at our new birth. I will
admit that I have not achieved this myself like I should.
If only we could see that this would bring about the happiness we seek when we
buy that new car, house, computer etc. The type of happiness we receive when we
get new things is only temporary. The novelty soon wears off. The
joy of the Lord doesn't have to ever wear off.
If we worry about keeping the ten commandments, this powerful love would enable
us to automatically keep all of God's commandments without even memorizing them.
These two commandments given by Jesus in Matthew 22 would enable us to obey most
laws of every country unless the laws of a land forbid conversion to Jesus
Christ. Loving our neighbor as ourselves is impossible without the help of the
Holy Spirit. It can't be done. Only by seeking and yielding to God can
we possibly keep these two commandments. We need to desire this above all other
things.
Love is a powerful emotion. I'm not talking of the love that the world thinks is
love. That love is not half as strong as real love that comes from God. The love
we feel when we meet that someone special depends on circumstances. If the
person we are in love with fails us in any way, how fast does that love
disappear?? The love from God is different. It is there when our loved ones go
away. It is there when all else fails. It will never pass away from one
generation to the other. It is what caused Jesus Christ to allow himself to have
nails driven into his hands and feet in order to take our place and die that we
may have
eternal salvation and not be lost.
I want to seek this type of love that is so powerful that it is the answer to
every problem that we could possibly face. It starts here:
Matthew 22: 36-
Master, which is the great commandment in the law?
37. Jesus said unto him, Thou shalt love the Lord thy God with all thy heart,
and with all thy soul, and
with all thy mind.
38.This is the first and great commandment.
39.And the second is like unto it, Thou shalt love thy neighbour as thyself.
40.On these two commandments hang all the law and the prophets.
The King James Version
We can have this now as individuals but real peace and love in the whole would
cannot be achieved until He returns physically.
Even so Come Lord Jesus
DJC
