Are you more loving?

Jesus made plain that the greatest commandment was to love God and love people. As a way to further spell out the implications of that kind of love, John wrote, "This is how we know what love is: Jesus Christ laid down his life for us. And we ought to lay down our lives for our brothers and sisters" (1 John 3:16). I get the concept. I believe it. I accept it. I want to pattern my life around it. I want it to be self-evident in every area of my life.

The problem is that it's one thing to understand and accept a concept and quite another thing to see it fleshed out in my life with real people. Jesus expressed this clearly in the Sermon on the Mount. He said:

You have heard that it was said, ‘Love your neighbor and hate your enemy.’ But I tell you, love your enemies and pray for those who persecute you, that you may be children of your Father in heaven . . . If you love those who love you, what reward will you get? Are not even the tax collectors doing that? And if you greet only your own people, what are you doing more than others? Do not even pagans do that? Be perfect, therefore, as your heavenly Father is perfect. (Matthew 5:43-48)

Being perfect means to get to the place where we are perfect in love. That is the love standard of Jesus that we must strive for. But we all know that we fail to achieve it.

Donald Whitney writes, "The test of Christlikeness is not the greatness of your love toward those who love you, but the bounty of your love toward those who do not" (pg. 44).

I don't know about you, but loving difficult people is the greatest challenge for me. They don't deserve my love. They may take advantage of my love. They may reject my love. They may manipulate me as a result of my love. All of this is a real possibility whenever we love people - ALL people.

Yet somehow we are called to grow in love despite all the risks involved. The only way this is possible is for us to be filled up with God's love for us so that we know what real love is and are able to offer it to others. We also need to be wise and discerning, which is another gift from God. Our world has a warped understanding of love and what someone may consider love isn't really love at all. God doesn't want us to offer a warped, worldly love to others. He wants us to offer His love to them. That means sometimes love means standing for truth when it would be easier to lie. It means protecting someone when it would be easier to let them go. It means saying no because its the right thing to do or the best thing for that person even when it would be easier to say yes. And it means we will have to sacrifice when it would be easier to just take care of ourselves.

I don't have all the answers to loving as God would have me to, but I want to grow in His love.

Do you see His love growing in your life or are you regressing? How?

How is God helping you to grow in love?

Are you governed increasingly by God’s Word?

Psalm 1 says this:

¹ Blessed is the one
who does not walk in step with the wicked
or stand in the way that sinners take
or sit in the company of mockers,
² but whose delight is in the law of the LORD,
and who meditates on his law day and night.
³ That person is like a tree planted by streams of water,
which yields its fruit in season
and whose leaf does not wither—
whatever they do prospers.

It makes sense that one would be blessed by God if they do not walk where the wicked walk, stand in the way sinners stand or sit where those with those who mock God sit. Being in those places will be destructive to any life in pursuit of God. That makes sense.

But how do we know what steps to take to move forward? By delighting and meditating on the "law of the LORD." When that Psalm was written centuries ago the "law of the LORD" meant the first five books of the Old Testament and the prophets. The people of Israel knew that as "the law and the testimony." That was to govern their lives.

As Christians we accept the Old Testament and the New Testament because that contains the words of Jesus, the stories of his saving life, the birth of the church and the life of the Holy Spirit poured out on God's people. We believe and testify that God breathed and inspired every aspect of the message of the Bible.

It is the truth of God, God's truth for us together and God's truth for us personally. That means we can trust it and rely upon it. It also means we cannot ignore it. We must obey it. It is not some generic source of truth. It is true for all of us whether we accept it or not. It explains and defines reality. And its promises and commands are ours personally, not just for some "other people." We can count on it.

When we "meditate" or think on the truths of scripture and apply it to our lives it forms our character and our practices. There is nothing in our lives that the truths of God's Word won't touch and we will be like a well planted, growing and fruit-bearing tree. That is the life we are seeking.

What have you done to make sure your life is governed more and more by God's Word? What advice can you give to help us overcome some of the obstacles along the way?

Do you thirst for God?

Listen to these words from Psalm 42:

¹ As the deer pants for streams of water,
so my soul pants for you, my God.
² My soul thirsts for God, for the living God.
When can I go and meet with God?

Or Psalm 63:

¹ You, God, are my God,
earnestly I seek you;
I thirst for you,
my whole being longs for you,
in a dry and parched land
where there is no water.

Saint Augustine said this, “Thou hast made us for Thyself, and our hearts are restless until they find their rest in Thee.”

These words shine a spotlight directly on the need we all have to have our thirst quenched by God. The general activities of our life can make us dry. The stress and anxiety we face can make us dry. Adding “everything that hinders and the sin that so easily entangles” (Hebrews 12:1) to the mix and our soul can seem pretty parched.

There is no one who has not faced these realities and no one who will ever be immune to them. That is why we need God so much. That is why we need to be thirsty for Him. We need Him to quench our thirst and renew our souls.

Apart from this, we are doomed to life in that “dry and parched land.” And it doesn’t need to be that way. Even in the midst of running from God and worshipping other gods, the Israelites were told, “But if from there you seek the LORD your God, you will find him if you seek him with all your heart and with all your soul” (Deuteronomy 4:29).

Our pursuit of God begins with our thirst for Him. The question isn’t primarily one of mechanics but one of deep soul thirst. Are we thirsty for God?

A.W. Tozer offers this wonderful prayer that illustrates this desire:

O God, I have tasted thy goodness, and it has both satisfied me and made me thirsty for more. I am painfully conscious of my need for further grace. I am ashamed of my lack of desire. Oh God, the Truine God, I want Thee; I long to be filled with longing; I thirst to be made thirsty still (Whitney, pg. 23).

Are you dry? If so, can you identify what has made you dry? Are you thirsty? What are you doing to have your thirst quenched?