Let us therefore repeat the First Great Commandment of God to us, believers:
“And you shall LOVE the Lord Your God with ALL your heart, and with ALL your soul, and with ALL your mind, and with ALL your strength:”
And the Second one is like this: “You shall LOVE your neighbour as yourself.” (Mk. 12:30,31// Lev. 19:18; “neighbour” is not every man or every believer or everyone living “next door” to you; the Lord answered this question in ( Lk. 10:29-37).
On these two Great Commandments hang ALL THE LAW AND THE PROPHETS. (Mt. 22:40) If we would be able to fulfill these two Commandments, we would fulfill all the Law and the Prophets just as Our Lord fulfilled it. (Mt. 5:17). The problem is that WE ARE NOT ABLE to fulfill these two Commandments even if we know the entire Bible from cover to cover and have faith to move mountains and understand all knowledge and preach the Word to all the world! And even if we would bestow all our possessions to feed the poor and offer our bodies to be burned, we still would remain unable to fulfill these two Commandments! (1Cor. 13:2,3) This is where all our true problems start… and also end.
OUR PROBLEM IS THAT WE MAY BE AS LUCIFER, WISE, KNOWLEDGEABLE AND PERFECT AND HAVE NO LOVE. IT WOULD ONLY BE A QUESTION OF TIME WHEN WE WOULD START TURNING SLOWLY AND IMPERCEPTIBLY INTO SATAN!
The true aim of our Salvation as conceived in the Heart of Our Father is not only that we would “miss hell and save our skin”, but that we would LOVE HIM WITH ALL OUR BEING! AND IF WE DO NOT DO THIS COMMANDMENT (even progressively), WE DO NOT DO THE WILL OF OUR FATHER. AND IF WE DO NOT DO THE WILL OF OUR FATHER (even progressively), WE SHALL NOT ENTER INTO THE KINGDOM OF HEAVEN NO MATTER HOW “GOOD” CHRISTIANS WE MIGHT HAVE BEEN AND HOW MANY WONDERFUL WORKS WE MIGHT HAVE DONE. (Mt. 7:21-23// Lk. 13:24-30 – it does not hurt to repeat truth and finally register it in our conscience). But the Lord provided the way, the only way where we are enabled to do these Commandments and the Will of Our Father. It is ON OUR OWN CROSS where we are truly losing our selfish nature which nature stands in the way of the Will of Our Father and also in the way of OUR TRUE LOVE FOR HIM!
It is clearly written: “Whosoever hates his brother is a MURDERER; and you know that no murderer has eternal life abiding in him.” (1Jn. 3:15)
Can human love change into hate? YES, IT CAN. The same is true for friendship or brotherhood; any friend or brother can indeed be changed into our enemy. All we have to do is to start speaking truth to him! (Gal. 4:16) Hatred is a great spiritual force which is not greater than love, but it may separate what love united and it may do a lot of damage in the person affected and in many others around him.
Let us register in our mind and see and understand in our heart that there are always some of the great forces in us that we should be aware of and that may destroy our natural love without a trace! They are the following: PRIDE, SELFISHNESS, JEALOUSY, FEARS, DOUBTS, PREJUDICES, STUBBORNNESS, INDEPENDENCE, SELF-SUFFICIENCY, SUSPICIONS and others. All married or divorced persons must have experienced some of them in their own life! True? These are also a clear proof that our soul is not fit for the Lord.
h) LOVE is the reason for ALL that God creates and does. However, His Love does not always seem to us to be a “true love” because it comes in different forms which we do not readily recognize or appreciate in our soul. In fact, the NATURAL BELIEVER HATES MANY ACTS OF THE LOVE OF GOD TOWARD HIM because many acts of the love of God toward him may cause him pain, suffering and confusion and he hates those acts of God’s love! Do you need an example? Here is one which we already mentioned before:
“AS MANY AS I LOVE, I rebuke and chasten (discipline)” (Rev. 3:19) THAT is not a pleasant love! But this is exactly what we, parents, do with our children! We rebuke and chasten them because we love them! True? Why? The Lord knows that even with believers NOTHING ELSE WILL DO IT! NO SERMON, NO TEACHING, NO BIBLE STUDY, NO CHURCH ATTENDANCE, NO RELIGIOUS ACTIVITY OF ANY KIND WILL EVER DO IT! Do you SEE this? Do you recognize this? Are you experiencing this in your own Christian life?
i) THE ABOVE WORD OF GOD goes to a greater depth than we could see and admit in our human soul. The Word continues in a different place saying:
“My son, do not despise the chastening of the Lord, nor faint when you are rebuked of Him. For whom the Lord LOVES He chastens, and SCOURGES EVERY SON whom He receives. IF YOU ENDURE chastening, God deals with you as with SONS… But if you be without chastisement, whereof all are partakers, then are you BASTARDS, and not sons.” (Heb. 12:5b,6, 7a,8)
Is THIS also the LOVE of Our Father? YES, IT IS! Are we receiving it? NO! We are resisting it… whether we are aware of it or not. We may talk about it or preach it to others, but we cannot believe or imagine that WE would need such a “treatment” and that it would come to us in such a form from Our Father, Who is Love. Also, we cannot accept that Our Father would use words like “bastards”, which we try to avoid, because they do not fit our human dignity. How can a born-again, baptized believer be a bastard? Very easily! He refuses the chastening of the Father because His chastening is not in sweet, loving words, but in SHARP Words, PIERCING Words. It must be ENDURED by us (this is also our cross), and IF WE ENDURE IT, THEN God deals with us as with sons and not as with bastards.
Furthermore, OUR FATHER SCOURGES EVERY SON WHOM HE IS RECEIVING! Not few, but EVERY ONE. Do we know what a scourge is? Do we use such an instrument of LOVE in our Christianity? NO! NEVER! According to our human soul, it is not the “Christian way”. The natural Christian souls are expected to deal with one another in “sweet, polite, courteous, pleasant and often in hypocritical” ways that do not prick or offend the senses and the pride of the natural souls of the others. These “sweet, pleasant, polite, courteous” ways are easily confused with “grace and understanding and love”. Do we SEE this? NO! We don’t! We are victims of the same grave error which will very effectively stop us from growing up into Christ and be changed into a spiritual believer! Our old man, old nature always expects or demands “love and grace”, but God apportioned to our old man whip, fire and death! Our old man will never understand or accept this Judgment. He will never admit that he deserves death and hell, but will always seek comfort, love, peace and grace. TRUE? Do you truly see this? Can you at least ponder this question?
When the Lord Himself made a scourge and cleansed the Temple, does it have any spiritual meaning for us today? (Jn. 2:15) Do we glance over it as over an interesting event in the life of Jesus which has no effect on us today?
Well, think twice, for the Lord had done nothing which would have no meaning for us in our own life. He made a physical scourge because the Lord lived in the Old Testament. Now, in the New Testament, it is to be a “spiritual scourge” using His WORD, POWERFUL, SHARP AND PIERCING WORD which pierces the division of our soul and spirit… and cleanses our own Temple, (Heb. 4:12// 1Cor. 3:16) where there are also powers that try to make our Temple a “den of thieves”. Do we see this spiritual fact? NO, we don’t, and we don’t want to see it. We like to be His Temple, but we hate to clean It, purge It and are lazy to vacuum It.
Yes, we ought to be kindly affectioned one to another with brotherly love in honour preferring one another, etc. (Rom. 12:10) BUT we ought not to be like that toward the spirits of darkness and evil in our old souls, which spirits are clearly discerned, identified and shown by the Spirit of God as talking to us or through us! I should be kindly affectioned toward man, but not toward any hell in the soul of that man. When man speaks to me, I am polite and kind to him; when hell speaks to me from that man, I am not polite and not kind. Our Lord did the same. (Mt. 23:13-35)
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To be continued next week in chapter 5 – part 7
brother Hanola
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