Choose Love (26 page)

He will show us the right way to go, but we have to be looking to Him to see what that is. God says, “I will instruct you and teach you in the way you should go;
I will guide you with My eye
” (Psalm 32:8).

When our son was a child, he had to be clearly disciplined in order for him to do the right thing. With our daughter, all my
husband or I had to do was give her a look of disapproval and that took care of the matter. That’s because she was looking to see what our reaction was. Our son was not even thinking about looking to see that. He was busy doing what seemed like a good idea at the time. He had to be taught to look to us for guidance.

We, too, must be looking to God for His approval of what we do. That means having a sensitive heart toward Him and frequently turning to Him to see if what we are doing pleases Him. We don’t want to be like a wild horse that cannot be tamed without a bit and bridle. We want to be sensitive to the Lord. We will save ourselves a lot of grief if we do that because mercy surrounds those of us who trust in God, and we are guaranteed to have joy (Psalm 32:9-11).

That’s good enough reason for me. What about you?

Prayer of Love

L
ORD
, I long to do Your will at all times. Doing Your will is food for my mind, soul, and spirit that gives me strength and peace. I don’t ever want to be outside of Your perfect will for my life, so help me to always look to You for guidance and counsel. Lord Jesus, I know You did not seek Your own will on earth, but the will of Your Father who sent You (John 5:30). Enable me to fully submit my will to our heavenly Father as well. Lord, I pray You will always fill me with the knowledge of Your perfect will (Colossians 1:9).

You are life to me, and I cannot live without sensing Your presence in my life. “I spread out my hands to You; my soul longs for You like a thirsty land” (Psalm 143:6). I know that “the upright shall dwell in Your presence” (Psalm 140:13). Help me to do the right thing so that I don’t lose that sense of Your presence. I am grateful You never leave or forsake me because Your Spirit dwells within me, but I don’t want to do anything to grieve Your Spirit in me or to lose my sense of closeness to You.

Lord, I know there is a connection between living in Your perfect will and sensing Your presence in my life. I know You are everywhere, but the closeness of Your presence is only felt by those who draw close to You and seek to do Your will. Enable me to never sacrifice the closeness of Your presence because of wanting things my way instead of Yours. I submit my life to You.

In Jesus’ name I pray.

Words of Love

The world is passing away, and the lust of it; but he who does the will of God abides forever.

1 J
OHN
2:17

Do not be unwise, but understand what the will of the Lord is.

E
PHESIANS
5:17

Do not be conformed to this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your mind, that you may prove what is that good and acceptable and perfect will of God.

R
OMANS
12:2

Not everyone who says to Me, “Lord, Lord,” shall enter the kingdom of heaven, but he who does the will of My Father in heaven.

M
ATTHEW
7:21

As the deer pants for the water brooks, so pants my soul for You, O God. My soul thirsts for God, for the living God.

P
SALM
42:1-2

Third Choice

Choose to Love Others in a Way That Pleases God

15

Is Consistently Loving Others Really Possible?

N
o one could love you more or better than God does. You can’t resist His unconditional, unfailing love for long once you fully understand it. Born out of that understanding, a deep and abiding love for
Him
develops within you. And the way you express your love for God affects who you become. It’s in the very process of showing your love for God that He pours His love into you.

Once you sense your own love for God in response to His love for you, you want to show it to Him in every way possible. One of the most important ways to express your love for God is to love others. And this is the third choice we need to must make. In fact, loving God is not complete without it. Choosing to love others fulfills our calling and purpose and clarifies the reason we are here. The Bible says, “
If God so loved us, we also ought to love one another
” (1 John 4:11).

Though you may think I’m assuming you don’t know how to love others on your own, that’s not true. I know you’re able to do that, just as I knew I was. But we all tend to place limits on ourselves in that regard and draw up boundaries in our life that are not established by God. Once He gave me that profound revelation while reading the love chapter in the Bible (1 Corinthians 13), I realized I
didn’t know how to love others with a depth and consistency that fully pleases Him. That’s the way He loves
us
.

I could love my children, of course. Who doesn’t? But I could withhold love from people who hurt me. And I could love from afar those who violated my trust. That’s because I was trying to love them without God’s help. In fact, it’s impossible to love others the way God wants us to without His
enablement
.

It’s with the love God pours into us that we can love others
.

Without the Holy Spirit guiding us every day, we can still act in a loveless manner toward even those we love. But with
God’s love in us, it’s possible to love even our loved ones better.

Every situation we encounter requires a choice on our part as to whether we sow love into it. And we can only make the right choice by the Spirit’s leading in response to our prayers. If we are willing to look to Him, God will help us show love in each situation and with each person.

The truth is, God wants us to spend enough time with Him so that we develop His heart of love for others. He invites us to come to Him every day to receive a fresh, new flow of His Spirit of love in us. Because God
is
love—and His Spirit of love is
in
us—we are able to love in a way that pleases Him.

Our love for others is the most important sign that we know God and have been spiritually born into His kingdom
.

Love is one of the fruit of the Spirit. “The fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, longsuffering, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, self-control” (Galatians 5:22-23). Each one of these manifesting through us is a sign that we have the Holy Spirit in us.

No one has actually seen God, but when we show love for others, they see His heart. That’s the way I first saw God’s love—through the love of believing friends and their pastor. “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 4:12). I came to the Lord because I sensed love I had never seen before. But that was only the beginning.

God reveals Himself to others through the love He pours
in
and
through
us to them. People may come to the Lord because of the love we extend to them.

During Jesus’ time on earth, people were attracted to His love. They loved His miracles, of course, but it was more than that. Jesus showed love to all who had a heart for Him and His heavenly Father. He may have seemed harsh with those whose heart was hard against God, but He was revealing who and what they were and the idols and false gods they served.

Paul told us to “
walk in love, as Christ also has loved us
and given Himself for us” (Ephesians 5:2). The apostle John said, “
Let us love one another, for love is of God
; and everyone who loves is born of God and knows God” (1 John 4:7).

Those who don’t respond to love are usually afraid to trust it because they have been burned by what they thought was love in the past. But that was inconsistent, shallow, or fake love. It wasn’t true love. It was halfhearted attempts at human love at its worst. Or it was no love at all. True love originates from God and manifests itself in those who know Him.

Without Love as Our Motivation, We Accomplish Nothing

No matter how eloquently we speak, if we don’t have love in our heart, our words mean nothing
(1 Corinthians 13:1). When interacting with people, the words we say will not accomplish anything if not spoken in love. If we could speak every language on earth but don’t have a love language to accompany our words, they will just be noise (1 Corinthians 13:1). We can say the kindest words to someone, but if we don’t have love in our heart, they fall lifeless to the ground.

We can manifest great spiritual gifts, have superior knowledge, and display faith strong enough to move mountains, but all of that will accomplish nothing if we do it without love (1 Corinthians 13:2)
.

The basis of all spiritual gifts is love. If someone claims to have—or appears to have—spiritual gifts of any kind but doesn’t exhibit
the love of God, those gifts are meaningless. We can evaluate the motivating spirit of anyone on the basis of whether they reveal the love of God working in and through them. Any manifestation of spiritual gifts that doesn’t also manifest the love of God is suspect.

Only what we do out of pure love lasts forever
.
All else is temporary
.

We could go to the extreme of giving away everything we have to feed, clothe, and house the poor, or we could sacrifice ourselves in the most heroic of ways, even our body or our life, but if we don’t do those things out of a heart of pure love, they won’t profit us in any way (1 Corinthians 13:3).

Love is what gives meaning to all that we do
.

Everyone needs to know God still loves them. They don’t want to be constantly reminded of all they do wrong. We believers have the key to life in that we can communicate the love of God to them, but too often what is actually communicated by some is judgment, and it becomes a weapon against others. They think they can get people to change by shaming them and using their failures as evidence against them. This tactic is way wrong and
does not work.

I didn’t come to the Lord because a Christian told me what a miserable failure I was. I received the Lord because they told me God loves me. And they extended His love toward me in a way I clearly felt and trusted. I knew this love I sensed was far greater than any human love.

If we really love people we will tell them God loves them
. We will explain how He has made a way for them to stay out of hell. We will explain to them how to have eternal life with the Lord and a better life here and now.

People want to know that
you
love them too. And one of the best ways to show your love to others is to share how much God loves them. Even if you don’t feel like sharing that at the moment, remember that it’s not about you anyway. Well, not entirely. It’s about
God filling you with His love
and leading you to
touch other people
with it
in a life-changing way. And in the process of sharing the love of God with others, He changes
you.

The more you show love to others with the love God has given you, the more you will be changed into the likeness of God
.