EXPERIENCING THE GLORY OF GOD (5)

“May the Lord make your love grow more and multiply for each other and for all people so that you will love others as we love you” (1 Thessalonians 3:12 NCV).

The love of God is transforming. It is the most transforming power known to man. It’s goal is always to bring the beloved into conformity with Christ. J. Oswald Sanders defines love as “the self-imparting quality in the nature of God that moves Him to seek the highest good of His creatures, in whom He seeks to awake responsive love.” Love is the intrinsic nature of God.  When one receives Christ, the nature of love is imparted into him or her in a form of seed, which must be nurtured over time to maturity. When the love of God is received in a heart, it awakens responsive love in the person. This means that the person receives the capacity to respond in love to God and to people. This capacity to respond in love to God and people is the means through which Christians learn to grow in their experience of the love of God. The believer is deemed mature in Christ only to the extent he or she is maturing in love.  The more the believers learn to respond to people and situations around him with the love of Christ, the more mature he will be termed to be.

The sons of Zebedee, James and John, provide a good case study of the transforming influence of God’s love.  They had three character traits that negate love, which the Lord has to deal with in order to mature Christlikeness in them. First, they were inordinately ambitious and that caused serious dissension among the apostles.  “Then James and John, the sons of Zebedee, came to Him, saying, “Teacher, we want You to do for us whatever we ask.” And He said to them, “What do you want Me to do for you?” They said to Him, “Grant us that we may sit, one on Your right hand and the other on Your left, in Your glory.” (Mark 10:35-37 NKJV). Their demand bespeaks of selfishness, which has no place in Christian love. Love by its very nature is not self-seeking. It is rather self-giving.

Second, they were tempestuous and intolerant of opposition.  “As the time drew near for him to ascend to heaven, Jesus resolutely set out for Jerusalem. He sent messengers ahead to a Samaritan village to prepare for his arrival. But the people of the village did not welcome Jesus because he was on his way to Jerusalem. When James and John saw this, they said to Jesus, “Lord, should we call down fire from heaven to burn them up?” But Jesus turned and rebuked them. So they went on to another village” (Luke 9:51-56 NKJV). Jesus had told them that He came to give life to people and not to kill them, which is the work of Satan. Yet they were asking for power to call down fire to destroy the people of Samaria simply because they did not allow Jesus to pass through their territory. Our Lord turned down their request and followed an alternative route. Love is tolerant and provides room for others to change.

Third, they were cliquish and unaccommodating of people who do not belong to their circle.  “Now John answered and said, “Master, we saw someone casting out demons in Your name, and we forbade him because he does not follow with us.” But Jesus said to him, “Do not forbid him, for he who is not against us is on our side.” (Luke 9:49-50 NKJV). Again, this attitude is a clear negation of love. God’s love is universal and always seeks the highest good of His creatures.  Similarly, Christians as those who have received the love of Christ must seek the highest good of all people without distinction.

However, after God poured out His love into the heart of the disciples through the baptism of the Holy Spirit (Romans 5:5), the sons of Zebedee received an impartation of the divine nature and began to grow in love. James loved God and people so much that he had the privilege of being the first Christian martyr. John, on the other hand, lived on to become the great apostle of love. No bible writer received the revelation of love at the level John did. He had the privilege of being one of the delegates who prayed for the new converts in Samaria to receive the baptism of the Holy Spirit. I guess the Holy Spirit must have whispered to him, “what if the Lord had allowed you to call down fire to consume them a few years back?”  James and John allowed the love of God they received in Christ to transform them into the persons God designed them to be. What a godly legacy they left for us!

Let us the pray with our text: “May the Lord make your love grow more and multiply for each other and for all people so that you will love others as we love you” in Jesus’ name.

EXPERIENCING THE GLORY OF GOD (4)

“Then Jesus, looking at him, loved him, and said to him, “One thing you lack: Go your way, sell whatever you have and give to the poor, and you will have treasure in heaven; and come, take up the cross, and follow Me.” But he was sad at this word, and went away sorrowful, for he had great possessions. Then Jesus looked around and said to His disciples, “How hard it is for those who have riches to enter the kingdom of God!”” (Mark 10:21-22 NKJV).

No greater tragedy can ever befall a person than to turn down the love of God. This was exactly what the rich young ruler of our text did. He walked away from the love of God into an irredeemable perdition. What pain of sorrowful displeasure must have pierced through the heart of our Lord as He watched that young man He so fervently loved turn his back against Him and took the first fatal step away from Him? Why would he do such a thing you might be thinking?  He turned down the love of God because he loved something more that Jesus. He loved earthly possessions more than he did eternal treasures in heaven, which Christ offered him instead.   He preferred the perishable blessing of material possessions that he could see to the imperishable blessing he could not see.  Whenever you lack the spiritual sight to see the reality as God sees it, you trade the temporal for the eternal. By so doing, you bring an unmitigated disaster upon yourself. Here is the principle –you cannot have your eyes focused on the visible and still see the invisible (Hebrews 11: 27 NKJV). This truism was the theme of the Lord’s lamentation in the Prophecy of Isaiah, “Who is blind but My servant, Or deaf as My messenger whom I send? Who is blind as he who is perfect, and blind as the Lord’s servant? Seeing many things, but you do not observe; opening the ears, but he does not hear.” (Isaiah 42:19-20 NKJV). Herein lies the real danger of materialism.

Materialism is the cancer of the present church.  Like cancer, it’s danger is not easily noticed but it works unnoticed until it has taken over the system of its host. By the time cancer become obvious to its victim, it is ready to kill. The rich young ruler could have quarrelled with any person who accused him of being materialistic. Not when he flaunted such impressive religious credential as he did. Our Lord had tested him on the laws of his religion  and found him perfect–“You know the commandments: ‘Do not commit adultery,’ ‘Do not murder,’ ‘Do not steal,’ ‘Do not bear false witness,’ ‘Do not defraud,’ ‘Honour your father and your mother.” And he answered and said to Him, “Teacher, all these things I have kept from my youth.” (Mark 10:19-20 NKJV). Like Paul the young man could boast to be blameless “touching righteousness which is in the law” (Philippians 3:9 NKJV). Certainly, the man was morally upright but had no deep love for Jesus because he could not love God and mammon (Matthew 6:28).

Materialism is a mindset that prioritizes the material over the spiritual, the earthly over the heavenly, the seen over the unseen and the temporal over the eternal. The Bible enjoins us to weigh the eternal more than the temporal. “Therefore we do not lose heart. Even though our outward man is perishing, yet the inward man is being renewed day by day. For our light affliction, which is but for a moment, is working for us a far more exceeding and eternal weight of glory, while we do not look at the things which are seen, but at the things which are not seen. For the things which are seen are temporary, but the things which are not seen are eternal” (2 Corinthians 4:16-18 NKJV). Wise people invest the present to gain the future. That explains why people endure the pain of discipline today in order to enjoy the glory of tomorrow. Besides, most of the things that really matter in life are not material –God, love, kindness, laughter etc. All these are unseen realities that greatly impact our day-to-day life on earth.

The real danger of materialism is that it weakens the ability of believers to respond to the Spirit and to discern God's loving call. This was the case with the young man of our text.  He rejected the love of Christ because “he had great possessions.”  God can love you but until you welcome His love and appropriate it for yourself, it will not benefit you. Our test declared “Then Jesus, looking at him, loved him.” That notwithstanding, an unwelcomed and an unappropriated love has no redeeming power to it, even if it is God’s love. God loves you! Do you love Him? Until we love God with all our heart, soul, mind and strength, we do not love Him well enough. We must love Him with our material possessions too! May our prayers always be that the blessings of God in our lives should not be our reason for rejecting Him and turning our back on His loving call in Jesus Name. 

EXPERIENCING THE GLORY OF GOD (3)

“For God so loved the world that He gave His only begotten Son, that whoever believes in Him should not perish but have everlasting life” (John 3:16 NKJV).

The glory of God is the revelation of His love. To Know God’s love is to know His glory. Paul prayed that believers should “know the love of Christ which passes knowledge; that you may be filled with all the fullness of God” (Ephesians 3:19 NKJV). Knowing the love of Christ results in being filled with the fullness of God, which implies His glory. The primary motive of the coming and the suffering of Christ is to enable believers to experience glory. The Bible testifies to this saying, “God is the One who made all things, and all things are for his glory. He wanted to have many children share his glory, so he made the One who leads people to salvation perfect through suffering” (Hebrews 2:10 NCV). God’s love for the world should result in bringing people of the world to share in His glory. When Moses prayed God to show him His glory, God answered by revealing His nature of love to him.  “The LORD passed in front of Moses, calling out, “Yahweh! The LORD!  The God of compassion and mercy! I am slow to anger and filled with unfailing love and faithfulness. I lavish unfailing love to a thousand generations. I forgive iniquity, rebellion, and sin...” (Exodus 34:6-7 NLT). Wherever you see the compassion and mercy of God, there you find His glory.  The forgiveness and the unsurpassing patience of God towards people, as well as His unfailing faithfulness are some of the ways He demonstrates His love to us and thus reveal His glory.

The clearest revelation of God’s glory was in the person of our Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ. The Bible describes Jesus as “the brightness of His glory and the express image of His person” (Hebrews 1:3 NKJV). In the “Incarnate Word,” we beheld the glory of God –“full of grace and truth” (John 1:14). To know Jesus is to know the glory of the Father. Human beings have no other means of encountering and experiencing the glory of God apart from receiving His gift of love in the person of Christ. Those who receive God’s love gift, which is Jesus Christ, are guaranteed two fold blessings namely.

·         Deliverance from eternal damnation – should not perish. 

·         Participation in God’s eternal glory –but have everlasting life.

Man, outside of Christ, is dead in sin and cannot do anything that would earn him God’s love and salvation.  Sin makes man guilty before God and therefore unfit for glory. God’s way of dealing with sin was love. Our text declared that He “so loved the world that He gave His only begotten Son.” His uncaused love moved Him to make the greatest sacrifice to meet man’s greatest need. The indescribable love unleashed its eternal power to deal with an indescribable evil called sin. Hence, the Scripture declared, “...But Christ came only once and for all time at just the right time to take away all sin by sacrificing himself” (Hebrews 9:26 NCV). Notice that the sacrifice of Christ is a once-and-for-all solution for the problem of sin. By sacrificing Himself, He effectively and for all times, took away all sins! By this singular sacrifice, Christ solved the greatest problem human beings face and will ever face. Sin no longer has power or consequence as far as God is concerned for all those who have received His gift of love in Christ.  They should not perish having become exempted from eternal damnation because of their faith in Christ and His finished work at Calvary.

Those who are thus exempted from eternal damnation because they have received God’s gift of love in Christ, are brought into the experience of the ever-increasing glory of God through the process of sanctification.  Experiencing God’s love is like a ride on an endless ocean of eternal bliss. Paul prayed, “you’ll be able to take in with all Christians the extravagant dimensions of Christ’s love. Reach out and experience the breadth! Test its length! Plumb the depths! Rise to the heights! Live full lives, full in the fullness of God” (Ephesians 3:18-19 Message). The more of God’s love you discover and experience, the more of it you long after and the more the Holy Spirit transforms you into the image of Christ  from glory to glory. Having this transforming power of God’s love at work in our lives is the way God has chosen to prepare us for glory –“everlasting life.”  May His grace abound for us for a tireless pursuit of His glory as the Holy Spirit takes us deeper and deeper into the experience of the love of Jesus.

EXPERIENCING THE GLORY OF GOD (2)

“Behold what manner of love the Father has bestowed on us, that we should be called children of God! ...” (1 John 3:1 NKJV)

The extraordinariliness of God’s love for humankind is most evident in the elevation of believers in Christ to the glorious status of children of the Most High. The implications of this transaction are deep and rooted in unfathomable mystery. For example, by making us His children in Christ, God subsumes our humanity in His divinity. Apostle Peter affirmed that in Christ, we become “partakers of the divine nature, having escaped the corruption that is in the world through lust.” (2 Peter 1:4 NKJV). Again, by becoming God’s children, we receive His love; consequently, our mortality becomes subsumed in His immortality. “If we love our Christian brothers and sisters, it proves that we have passed from death to life. But a person who has no love is still dead” (1 John 3:14 NLT). Receiving God’s love in Christ and serving as a channel through which that love is extended to others is a proof of possessing eternal life. God’s love for us is so amazing and so astonishingly outlandish that John, the beloved apostle, could not find words to describe it. Nobody, before or after him has been able to describe it either. All he could do was to invite us to behold it, to wonder at it and to stand amazed at its profound immensity.

God could love so limitlessly and so freely because His is love. The apostle John declared, “Beloved, let us love one another, for love is of God; and everyone who loves is born of God and knows God. He who does not love does not know God, for God is love” (1 John 4:7-8 NKJV). God is love! He is exclusively so, such that nothing is love that is called love if it does not emanate from Him. Love is the essence of God’s nature. His love is uncaused and unconditional. Nobody could ever earn the love of God. He proves His love for us by sacrificing Jesus for our sins. “God showed how much he loved us by sending his one and only Son into the world so that we might have eternal life through him” (1 John 4:9 NLT).  He did not wait for us to become good before He sent Christ to die for us. “But God showed his great love for us by sending Christ to die for us while we were still sinners” (Romans 5:8 NLT). God loved us when we were most unlovable! He reaches out to us in mercy in our most despicable condition.  His love for us does not depend on anything good we did or fail to do. It was entirely pure love given at no cost to the most undeserving. Such a love had not been witnessed before in human history. It is unparalleled in content and unspeakable to experience. Hence, John invites us all to behold it with amazing wonder.  

God’s love is so out of reach to mortal humans that the only way we can ever access it is through divine bestowal. To bestow is “placing something really valuable or honouring in the hands of another, thereby conferring a position of responsibility to the person.”  God, in bestowing His love on us, gives us something extremely valuable and honouring. This bestowment confers on us a position of responsibility –“Beloved, if God so loved us, we also ought to love one another” (1 John 4:11 NKJV). Receiving the love of God makes it mandatory that we love others. God loves us so we can love Him and extend His love to others. “We love Him because He first loved us” (1 John 4:19 NKJV). We cannot love Him or other people unless we first receive His love in Christ. He desired that those who have received His love in Christ would serve as channels of His love to others. “And this commandment we have from Him: that he who loves God must love his brother also” (1 John 4: 21 NKJV). This is the pathway to glory.

As God’s children, we are children of love. Love is in our DNA and we must live in such a way as to let the light of God’s transforming love shine steadily out of us to give the light of heaven to the world of darkness.  You will do this as you receive God’s love, grow God’s love, celebrate God’s love, demonstrate God’s love, and foster God’s love. These constitute all we are called to be and to do as Christians –Ambassadors of God’s love. May the Lord fill us with His love until it overflows towards the healing and saving of those we come in contact with in Jesus name. 

EXPERIENCING THE GLORY OF GOD (1)

¹⁶I ask the Father in his great glory to give you the power to be strong inwardly through his Spirit. ¹⁷I pray that Christ will live in your hearts by faith and that your life will be strong in love and be built on love. ¹⁸And I pray that you and all God’s holy people will have the power to understand the greatness of Christ’s love—how wide and how long and how high and how deep that love is. ¹⁹Christ’s love is greater than anyone can ever know, but I pray that you  will be able to know that love. Then you can be filled with the fullness of God. (Ephesians 3:16-19 NCV)

The glory of God is the manifestation and revelation of His love. We experience the glory any time we feel the love of God in our lives. Our Lord passionately invites us to abide in His love, “As the Father loved Me, I also have loved you; abide in My love” (John 15:9 NKJV).  Abiding in the love of Christ is the sure way to experience His glory. The Psalmist declares, “He who dwells in the secret place of the Most High shall abide under the shadow of the Almighty” (Psalm 91:1 NKJV). This scripture summons us to intentionally cultivate intimacy with God. If intimacy is implied, then abiding “under the shadow of the Almighty” must imply abiding in His love. Only those who abide in God’s love will have access to His secret places. The secret place of the Most High is the place of glory. It is the place of face-to-face encounter with God. God directed Moses to create a physical representation of the secret place of the Most High: “You shall put the mercy seat on top of the ark, and in the ark you shall put the Testimony that I will give you. And there I will meet with you, and I will speak with you from above the mercy seat, from between the two cherubim which are on the ark of the Testimony, about everything which I will give you in commandment to the children of Israel” (Exodus 25:21-22 NKJV). This makes it clear that the secret place of the Most High is the place of most intimate relationship with God. It is the place of the highest manifestation of His glory. Only love can take you there.

The Apostle Paul therefore made four prayer requests for believers namely,

First, he prayed for spiritual strength for all believers –“I ask the Father in his great glory to give you the power to be strong inwardly through his Spirit.” This strength flows out of the glory of God and is imparted to our spirit by the Holy Spirit.  The goal is to make us spiritually strong. Second, he prayed that love becomes the foundation of our Christian life – “I pray that Christ will live in your hearts by faith and that your life will be strong in love and be built on love.” Our life of faith in Christ is strong to the extent it is standing on the foundation of Christ’s love. Love is the evidence that Christ is alive in our hearts. Hence the Word of God declared, “Beloved, let us love one another, for love is of God; and everyone who loves is born of God and knows God. He who does not love does not know God, for God is love. No one has seen God at any time. If we love one another, God abides in us, and His love has been perfected in us.”(1 John 4:7-8,12 NKJV). Love is our identity card as Christ’s followers (John 13:35).  

Third, Paul prayed for power to understand the greatness of Christ’s love for us – “And I pray that you and all God’s holy people will have the power to understand the greatness of Christ’s love—how wide and how long and how high and how deep that love is.” This presupposes a lifelong quest for understanding of the incredible love of God for believers. It implies diligent effort to understand the meaning and the implication of God’s love in its multifaceted dimensions –its width, its length, its height and its depth. As Christians, we have no greater business than to explore God’s love.

Then finally, Paul prayed for revelation knowledge of God’s love –^“Christ’s love is greater than anyone can ever know, but I pray that you will be able to know that love.”  The only way we can know what cannot be known is through revelation (Matthew 16:17). Revelation is knowledge supernaturally imparted in the mind of the Christian by the Holy Spirit. This defines for us a never-ending prayer project.  We cannot imagine a greater prayer point than to seek for the experiential knowledge of the love of God. The ultimate purpose of God in all these is so we “can be filled with the fullness of God.”  To be filled with God is to be filled with His love because God is love.

God is calling us as a church to make love the centre and the circumference of our lives and activities. We should have no greater goal than to learn how to abide in God’s love the rest of our lives. When you learn to abide in God’s love, everything you do becomes a response to His love nothing more, nothing less.