“The glory that you have given me I have given to them, that they may be one even as we are one, I in them and you in me, that they may become perfectly one, so that the world may know that you sent me and loved them even as you loved me.”
Our relationship with others mirrors our relationship with God.
God formed us in His image. Others too are in His image. He is love.
Do we ask for what we are not willing to give ourselves? God relies upon His body to reflect and give the love that He is.
Relationships are important and can be formative in the choices firstly that we make but equally the influence that we might have on another’s choices.
We can be oblivious to our impact but if we are reactionary negatively. If we live from a ‘me, me, me’ and how do others love me perspective. We can be damaging rather than healing.
How are we treating love? As a commodity to be hoarded up or as a gift to be extravagantly generous with and given out?
Through loving are we positioned to serve others or to be served?
Jesus came as the servant king who washed the feet of His disciples.
The one occasion we see Him indulgently delighted at the extravagance bestowed upon Him was as the alabaster jar of precious oil was poured over Him in an act of extravagant love and worship.
“But Jesus, aware of this, said to them, “Why do you trouble the woman? For she has done a beautiful thing to me. For you always have the poor with you, but you will not always have me.”
The love that idolised the sacrificial love He would embody as He died for us at the cross.
We stand in the freedom of that love.
God can only truly speak to and gain access to us if we are close and not far removed from Him.
We can, by isolating ourselves from others find a boundary and barrier put up by the enemy because how can we love others isolated from them?
Personally, as I’m sure others have, I have encountered a tunnel that requires an escape route from, because it dulls and dampens down love.
We can become so far removed from who we really are in isolation that our togetherness bond becomes muted, dysfunctional.
God’s living word of scripture unites us. Although speaking of marriage in the natural in the communion of the spiritual we are all one flesh and body in Christ.
“So they are no longer two but one flesh. What therefore God has joined together, let not man separate.”
Again although in the natural speaking of Jew and Gentile in the Spiritual Christ breaks down the barriers between all ethnicities, cultures and nations.
“For he himself is our peace, who has made us both one and has broken down in his flesh the dividing wall of hostility”
We cannot be a body on our own because we cannot love on our own and the enemy has attempted to create this disunity to dismember love.
God is love, He represents it. Satan hates love and he cannot represent it.
God’s and our primary weapon is love. Greater are the bonds of love that unite us than what divides us.
“so that Christ may dwell in your hearts through faith—that you, being rooted and grounded in love, may have strength to comprehend with all the saints what is the breadth and length and height and depth, and to know the love of Christ that surpasses knowledge, that you may be filled with all the fullness of God.”
Sacrificial love opens hearts, homes and churches to give the beauty of togetherness, friendship and love.
The covenant love that unites us. Heaven looks like intense community.
Hell looks like isolation. Our enemy attempts to polarise and bring us to disunity. To make us dependent upon world systems.
Our challenge is to pioneer again what it is to be close family. Heaven is the most intense experience of unity and community togetherness. A place of unlimited love.
We reflect heaven on earth in how we love.
The illustration shows that of the oil poured out by Mary, all she had, in love over Jesus signifying His value and worth to her above all else. Equally poured out from each of us representative of our greatest gift of Love for Him. Light emanating to push back the darkness.
Five Scriptures that come to mind:
“The glory that you have given me I have given to them, that they may be one even as we are one, I in them and you in me, that they may become perfectly one, so that the world may know that you sent me and loved them even as you loved me.” John 17:22-23 ESV
“so that Christ may dwell in your hearts through faith—that you, being rooted and grounded in love, may have strength to comprehend with all the saints what is the breadth and length and height and depth, and to know the love of Christ that surpasses knowledge, that you may be filled with all the fullness of God. “ Eph 3: 17-19 ESV
“But Jesus, aware of this, said to them, “Why do you trouble the woman? For she has done a beautiful thing to me. For you always have the poor with you, but you will not always have me.” Matthew 26:10-11 ESV
“For he himself is our peace, who has made us both one and has broken down in his flesh the dividing wall of hostility”. Ephesians 2:14 ESV
“So they are no longer two but one flesh. What therefore God has joined together, let not man separate.” Matthew 19:6 ESV
The song Holy Spirit. Kari Jobe
Lessisgreater 