Five Common Denominators of True Disciples of Jesus Christ
Knowing we'll give an account of our lives leads us to the Second Common Denominator of all True Disciples of Jesus Christ; LOVE. Yup, love. I know it seems so poetic, but since most of humanity could not keep the Ten Commandments and the myriad of other laws found in the Bible, Jesus left us with just two.
Your great, great, great, great… great grand parents Adam and Eve had one command or law and can you believe they broke it. Just one and they couldn’t even keep it. We’re no different, except we’ve been given a New Command; LOVE. Jesus told us all the law and the prophets hung on this one word; LOVE.
I remember way back in 1969 or so, my brother Martin brought an 8 track tape home, and it was call Upon This Rock, by Larry Norman. I remember listening to that tape over and over, not even knowing who this singer song writer was, but I liked what I heard. Over the years I came to love his music and it always championed the notion of LOVE.
Now granted, Larry’s music sprung from that rebel love generation sound, but nonetheless it was peppered with prophetic calls to LOVE as Jesus loved. And love is one of those things that is better caught than taught. My apology to those of you who’ve not caught any recently.
But what is life without LOVE? Not much. This might be a great time to highlight a couple of scripture passages that nicely define what love is and what love is like. First Corinthians 13 and Galatians 5:22-23 give a nice framework to determine your LOVE quotient. Even Jesus tells us that LOVE is about giving and laying down your life for another, done that recently? I could name a few of my friends that are doing that right now.
Paul the Apostle even wrote a description of God’s love towards us while we were utterly hopeless and nasty sinning rascals. The truth is and was and always will be God LOVES us. He never stops LOVING us. So actually if you want to measure your LOVE quotient, ask yourself if you’ve stopped loving someone recently, if so, you’re not following Jesus. He never stops loving ANYONE; even the perpetual sinner.
Oh they may never be saved by His loving grace, but He will NEVER STOP LOVING THEM even as they pass into eternity and out of relationship opportunity with Him and His Father. Man that would be hell, wouldn’t it?
I did read both parts of your blog: Live, love, learn, lead, leave. Very thought provoking and very good to contemplate. I was just thinking on this today and Genola and I were discussing it on our way home from Thanksgiving 2 of 2.
ReplyDeleteMy understanding is: Faith works through love. In this is love, that Christ died for us. It's His love for us that makes our lives possible. BUT, we must choose to BELIEVE. Once we decide to believe that, we express faith. Then His Holy Spirit begins to work His love through us.
My challenge of late is to begin actively believing Christ loves ME, yes ME. Even after all I've done wrong. That is admittedly hard. But, I block His work in me when I don't choose to believe.