“You are always and dearly loved by God! So robe yourself with virtues of God, since you have been divinely chosen to be holy. Be merciful as you endeavour to understand others, and be compassionate, showing kindness toward all. Be gentle and humble, unoffendable in your patience with others. Tolerate the weaknesses of those in the family of faith, forgiving one another in the same way you have been graciously forgiven by Jesus Christ. If you find fault with someone, release this same gift of forgiveness to them. For love is supreme and must flow through each of these virtues. Love becomes the mark of true maturity.”
We have to clothe ourselves in Love and become love to be worthy of any authority in Christ.
Love is the mark that identifies us and when we know the word and it lives in and through us in our being and actions.
It is a mystery how we can remain strong and grounded and yet can soar. How we can stand in the beauty of God’s plan and purpose for us.
Walking through sorrow in this life paradoxically is a privileged experience. It is a place where we can walk through the gospel in a way we could never experience any other way.
It is the experience that teaches us how to really love others. Love the body of Christ. Without experience we are too judgemental.
The Lord has to rip judgement out of us to make us ready to be sent. Jesus is always provoking us to greater love. We only have authority where we have love.
Jesus will often help us to recognise our judgement by identifying it to us in ourselves. In our own need of love and forgiveness we can better reach out to the other.
There are some perpetrators of atrocities who we cannot relate and identify with and our only course then is to ask Him to be able to see them as He does and in His grace He shows us them as the broken child He sees and loves and our hearts soften to that image and concept.
Love looks like something and it is in total forgiveness from the heart. If we do not forgive totally we do not have authority.
We can hear the gospel and encounter Jesus and in God’s grace our hearts open to His kindness towards us in love and that enables us to love and offer our own kindness out.
Our prayer is asking the Lord for radical love for ourselves, others close, others we know and even those who we think we have reason to think we hate because we have witnessed another atrocity.
Only when we fix our eyes so closely on Jesus can we find it not to have some hatred in our hearts because there is none in His.
It sometimes brings us to an honest place of saying we need love. To say we don’t have enough. We all need more.
Perfect love casts out fears so we all need more.
“There is no fear in love, but perfect love casts out fear. For fear has to do with punishment, and whoever fears has not been perfected in love.”
Jesus modelled overcoming temptation and enduring hardship and suffering and reigning in God’s will.
“saying, “Father, if you are willing, remove this cup from me. Nevertheless, not my will, but yours, be done.””
Our joy comes in equal measure to the suffering we are willing to take. It requires us also not to hang onto pain in the reality of what others have done to us.
To be one hundred present His we have to die to self. Therefore our hurts and offences. Our circumstances may not change but how we see them has to.
In all that He calls us to be we have to know suffering and go through it. We cannot bubble wrap ourselves and prevent its impact. We can only embrace it and call for more of Him and less of us.
Embrace the cup He gives us knowing it is for good and therefore we can find joy there. We do not suffer alone. He is closer than ever. In the midst of sorrow we can laugh and find joy as we are given authority.
That authority is authentic and real to others too and we can make Him known to others through it.
“Walk in the wisdom of God as you live before the unbelievers, and make it your duty to make him known. Let every word you speak be drenched with grace and tempered with truth and clarity. For then you will be prepared to give a respectful answer to anyone who asks about your faith.”
The illustration shows our body robed with Christ and our heart broken with His for love to flow from His embrace that emanates light that pushes back the darkness.
Four Scriptures that come to mind:
“You are always and dearly loved by God! So robe yourself with virtues of God, since you have been divinely chosen to be holy. Be merciful as you endeavour to understand others, and be compassionate, showing kindness toward all. Be gentle and humble, unoffendable in your patience with others. Tolerate the weaknesses of those in the family of faith, forgiving one another in the same way you have been graciously forgiven by Jesus Christ. If you find fault with someone, release this same gift of forgiveness to them. For love is supreme and must flow through each of these virtues. Love becomes the mark of true maturity.” Colossians 3:12-14 TPT
“There is no fear in love, but perfect love casts out fear. For fear has to do with punishment, and whoever fears has not been perfected in love.” 1 John 4:18 ESV
“saying, “Father, if you are willing, remove this cup from me. Nevertheless, not my will, but yours, be done.” Luke 22:42 ESV
“Walk in the wisdom of God as you live before the unbelievers, and make it your duty to make him known. Let every word you speak be drenched with grace and tempered with truth and clarity. For then you will be prepared to give a respectful answer to anyone who asks about your faith.” Colossians 4:5-6 TPT
The song Hosanna. Hill song
Lessisgreater 