Simply speaking kindly to someone who has offended you, or putting your arms around somebody who has hurt you can bring positive returns far out of proportion to the loving act itself. It’s just another love test.
The reason God commands us to love is because love is His nature. Jesus said that He is the vine and we are the branches, and we must abide in Him (see Jn. 15:1-5). In other words, our life is in Him.
Jesus said that we are supposed to lose our life for His sake in order to find it. We are supposed to give in order to be given back to...good measure, pressed down, shaken together, and running over (see Luke 6:38).
Paul said that love never fails. The truth is people cannot resist genuine love. This istrue for all of us. In fact, we’ll make fools out of ourselves to be loved. We’ll go places we shouldn’t go. We’ll spend money we shouldn’t spend. We’ll talk on the phone to people we should never be talking to.
Love is the key factor that identifies us as children of God. What was it Jesus said? Did Jesus say people would know us by our denomination? Did He say they would know us by the size of our buildings? No. He said they would know us by our love.
Whether we like it or not, we must live by every word that proceeds out of the mouth of God. We can’t go by feelings. If we go by feelings, we’ll never tithe. If we go by feelings, we’ll always get offended. If we go by feelings, we’ll never love people who hurt us. It’s a love test.
Many of us assume that because we are Christians, we know how to love. We think we know all about love because we think we know all about God. Yes, we know the Bible tells us that God is love (see 1 Jn. 4:8). We also know that God’s love is shed abroad in our hearts when we accept Jesus as our Lord and Savior (see Rom. 5:5).
Once we understand spiritual maturity, we can begin to understand what is involved in spiritual warfare. Most folks understand that effective engagement in spiritual warfare requires some degree of spiritual maturity, but they do not understand why.
For many of us, childhood was a time of simple pleasures. We occupied ourselves with having fun, hanging out with friends, dreaming about the future, and being spoiled by our grandparents. As children, we lived carefree lives. Our biggest concerns may have been who we would play with at recess, what we were going to get for Christmas, or how we would celebrate our birthday. Relatively speaking, childhood was a time of exploring and fulfilling our heart’s desires. Little was expected of us and much was given.
