Mentoring Minutes

“We love, (only) because He first loved us.” 1 John 4:19

We’ve been talking about Love…God’s love for us and ours for Him as His Word tells us that all Love and relationships are to begin. We love only because He first loved us (1 John 4:19) and our love must begin with wholehearted, sold-out devotion and love of Him with all we are so we can truly love ourselves and others (Mark 12:29-31). His Truth and Love is the only way we can do this.

There’s a reason for this and I think in our culture, and even in many of our churches, today, there’s a lot of activity and service in the Name of The Lord but much of it is based on the world’s concept of love…which is anything but love. We fail to build and deal with real Truth in Love relationships.

Many of our church leaders (be sure to read this entire devo) have been crammed full of theology so they can “do ministry” which is basically preaching and teaching The Word of the Gospel which is so needed…but as Jesus said, much of it is being done without a real relationship with Him (Matthew 7:21-23) and others. We know that Jesus said, in the latter times, the love of many will grow cold (Matthew 24:12).

Paul David Tripp in “New Morning Mercies,” as a pastor, author and teacher himself, states it this way in a response to a theology student(s) and future pastor(s) as he tells stories of pastoral counseling in preparing pastors and leaders to know how to serve in loving relationships…

“In the middle of one of these stories, a student raised his hand and said, ‘All right, Professor Tripp, we know we’re going to have these projects in our churches; tell us what to do with them so we can get back to the work of ministry.’ I was both stunned by what he said and thankful for what it allowed me to say. Here was a man heading for ministry who clearly loved ideas more than he loved people.”

Folks, it’s not just pastors and leaders…it’s so many who attend and give and serve in our churches without truly building loving relationships. As one pastor said to me, “Greg, relationships are messy, nasty stuff.” To which I replied, “What part of ‘messy, nasty stuff’ changes God’s Truth.

How is it that we’ve missed the reality that, as I say in our book, The Authority of Love, Second Edition, loving relationships is the currency of Christ’s Kingdom?

Tripp goes on to say, “I cannot forsake truth for relationships, and I cannot forsake relationships for truth.” These are inseparable and absolutely necessary for us to grow as individual disciples of Christ and sons and daughters of God, as well as maturing in accountable, loving relationships and community as families and as Christ’s Family, The Church (Ephesians 4:1-16).

He closes his devotional with this, “It is in a community of humble love that we are best positioned to understand all that God has said to us in His Word.”

May it be so in our lives, marriages, families and churches so the world will TRULY know His LOVE!

Think about it for a moment…God never wastes words! He has a purpose…a perfect purpose in every Word He gives. Why is that important? Because we so often skim over His Words, rearrange His Words and/or dilute or even ignore His Words to fit what we’re going through and how we feel.

He is always Truthful, always Loving in everything that He does because that is Who He Is…regardless of how it impacts us, what we think or how we feel.

His Truth is always Loving and His Love is always Truthful. That’s a great thing to keep in mind as you make your way through this day…and every day.

One simple truth as we continue with Love according to God the Author…He gives His commands in a Covenant Order with us so that if we choose to lovingly obey Him, because of Christ is us, then we are able to fulfill them. When we try to rearrange the order we struggle because we do not have His Truth and Love in us according to who we are in Christ but attempt to live out His Truth and Love in our flesh…it looks good for a while but ultimately fails.

When He tells us to Worship Him alone and Love Him with all we are as the priority command above all others, we need to take Him seriously and obey. Only then can we follow through with the second command to love ourselves (who we are in Christ) and then love others as we now love ourselves and as He has loved us.

Let’s quit putting the cart before the horse and begin to disciple people to first Love God as that is His greatest command. This then gives us the capacity to follow through with all other commands, namely loving self and others…and this allows us to fulfill all the law and the prophets…The Word of God!

Mark 12:29-31; Matthew 22:37-40; John 13:34-35; 14:15. These tell us clearly how to Love. How are you doing first and foremost with growing in your Love for God? Everything else depends on this.

This reality of Love is profound, yet simple. As we’ve been talking about His Love that we have only because He first loved us, learning and growing in our whole-being love for Him, let’s simply look at what that Love looks like according to His Word of Truth…Let me just share it with you directly from God’s Word…

John 3:16 – For God so loved the world that he gave his one and only Son, that whoever believes in him shall not perish but have eternal life.

1 John 4:7-10 – Dear friends, let us love one another, for love comes from God. Everyone who loves has been born of God and knows God. Whoever does not love does not know God, because God is love. This is how God showed his love among us: He sent his one and only Son into the world that we might live through him. This is love: not that we loved God, but that he loved us and sent his Son as an atoning sacrifice for our sins.

1 John 3:16 – We know love by this, that He laid down His life for us.

Romans 8:37-39 – No, in all these things we are more than conquerors through him who loved us. For I am convinced that neither death nor life, neither angels nor demons, neither the present nor the future, nor any powers, neither height nor depth, nor anything else in all creation, will be able to separate us from the love of God that is in Christ Jesus our Lord.

Romans 5:7-8 – But God demonstrates his own love for us in this: While we were still sinners, Christ died for us.

Psalm 136:26 – Give thanks to the God of heaven. His love endures forever.

Ephesians 2:4-5 – But because of his great love for us, God, who is rich in mercy, made us alive with Christ even when we were dead in transgressions-it is by grace you have been saved.

1 John 3:1 – See what great love the Father has lavished on us, that we should be called children of God! And that is what we are! The reason the world does not know us is that it did not know him.

John 15:13 – Greater love has no one than this: to lay down one’s life for one’s friends.

1 Corinthians 13:4-8a – Love is patient, love is kind, it is not jealous; love does not brag, it is not arrogant. It does not act disgracefully, it does not seek its own benefit; it is not provoked, does not keep an account of a wrong suffered, it does not rejoice in unrighteousness, but rejoices with the truth; it keeps every confidence, it believes all things, hopes all things, endures all things. Love never fails;

Food for Thought…We could go on and on about His Love just as His Love does for us. Do you know Him and His Love? Don’t you want to know this kind of Love? Why would anyone not want to spend time with Him and in His Word to know this kind of Love and the God Who Is Love from which it comes? I pray that you do. You can…in Christ!  

Love in Action –

1. Read the Scriptures in this article and ask The Holy Spirit to teach you.
2. Journal what you’ve learned about love in this post. 
3. Spend time in God’s Word and prayer and ask The Holy Spirit to show you His Love.
4. Spend time in God’s Word and prayer and ask The Holy Spirit to show you how to love God with all you are.

Contact us at loveandlordship@gmail.com to find out more about how you can know God the Father, Christ His Son and The Holy Spirit.

Love and Lordship Prayer Focus…Heavenly Father, Your Love is far beyond what I can truly comprehend and yet You have given it to me and are willing to graciously allow me to grow in it. I receive and experience Your Love, by knowing and loving who I am in Christ who has made all this possible and by sharing this Love with all that I can. Help me to love You more so I can love my life enough to lay it down in love for others just as Christ did for me. In His Name. Amen.

“Father forgive them for they know not what they do.” Luke 23:34

We’ve been looking at the Wisdom of Love in Truth being the bridge that links us from knowing and loving God so we can move to knowing and loving ourselves and others (we’ll get to that specifically in the next couple of weeks).

Let’s continue to explore what real Love is according to God in Christ as the Author and Authority. We’ve looked at how Jesus felt relationally, mentally and emotionally, as well as socially up to this point. We even took a glimpse at how he felt physically but I want to dive a bit deeper into the physical pain that He endured. These all play into our fleshly concepts and living out of love and relationships. Unfortunately we define love in line with our feelings and then respond accordingly…so it is a rollercoaster as we can never rely on our flesh and feelings.

God never intended for us to see, know and live out love simply by our feelings. He certainly gave us feelings and emotions and we naturally (in our flesh) respond to many things according to these. However, as I pray we are uncovering in these devotions, Love is so much more and so much deeper.

Our next question to get a better understanding regarding Jesus Love for us is this: How do you think He felt physically after being flogged (viciously whipped – look up the definition), physically beaten, his hair and beard pulled out and then had a crown of thorns placed on his head before finally being nailed to a Cross (John 19:1-30)?

We all know the answer to this but we must give thought to the Truth once again that if love is simply a feeling, as The Author and One who defines it (He is Love), then His response would have been to choose to call the 12 legions of angels (Matthew 26:53) and be removed from the situation…because it didn’t feel good in any way, therefore it couldn’t be love. He had a choice and that choice was out of love, not based on feelings and in spite of the pain.

Even in the worst of pain (social, relational, mental, emotional and physical) He gave us the best definition and example of love…ever, “Father, forgive them for they know not what they do.” (Luke 23:34). That was not just for His disciples who’d abandoned Him, the crowd that cried, “Crucify Him,” and not just for the Pilate and the soldiers that mocked, mistreated and actually carried out the Crucifixion…it was for you and me…for our sins that nailed Him to that Cross. We are all guilty!

His response was Love, to endure all the pain, rejection and suffering because of His Love (commitment) to His Father’s will and to our salvation…Praise The Lord (PTL)! It was that very blood that was shed in all that torture and pain that allows us to be forgiven and free in Him. That’s Love!

Have you received His Love…received Him as Savior and Lord? That’s why He endured it all because He Loved His Father and it was His plan to show the only Love for us that could save you and me.

We have one more circumstance and emotion to consider as we ponder what True Love, God’s Love or Agape is.

How do you think Jesus felt spiritually when He was betrayed, denied, abandoned, mocked, humiliated, tortured and crucified? Surely He still could rely on the presence of His Father in Heaven?!?

No, He had to endure this alone because He, who knew no sin, became sin for us that we might become His righteousness and by faith be united in loving relationship with God the Father, Son and Holy Spirit (2 Corinthians 5:21)! PTL!

Let me ask one more time, how do you think He felt spiritually when He was fulfilling The Father’s will and laying down His life as the ultimate and only sacrifice that could save us? Here’s a clue…”My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?” (Mark 15:34) Love as a feeling, as we’ve seen over the last few days, would have said, “Enough, Father, I’m calling on the angels to take me out of here,” and walked away. But True Love remains, True Love stays, and so True Love remained on that Cross until the very end…”It is finished.” (John 19:30)

In the darkest hour in all of history and Eternity, when all else was lost and every feeling was horrific, He showed us not only what Love was and is but that it never fails (1 Corinthians 13:4-8a)!

Do you know Him? Do you know this kind of Love that stays the course even when everything else is against it? That stays committed to the very end…that never fails?

Because He, in Love and as Love, showed us what it truly means to Love, you can know Him and know Love! I pray you do and if so learn to give it back to Him and to share it with others (more on this in future posts and podcasts).

Let me ask what love means to you? How have you lived it out in your life, relationships…marriage, family, church family, friends, acquaintances, even enemies?

God’s Love and His defining it and modeling it for us in Christ never changes.

Regardless of the circumstances in your life, the way others treat you, whether they meet your expectations and give you what you want or not, and how your relationships turn out, the reality is that Love is not affected by any of these. It is not emotion-based. It is not circumstance-based. It is not expectation-based. It is choosing to commit because we desire the best for others, regardless of what they do in response, just as Christ did for us (Romans 5:6-8).

God gives us clear commands and order of priorities in those commands that we must heed if we are going to walk in Love with Him and build relationships of Love with others (Mark 12:29-31).

I must repeat this…He took the nails and became sin (2 Corinthians 5:21) for our sins but it was love that actually kept Him on that Cross so that we could be saved and made righteous before God!

Food for Thought…How much time and effort…commitment…do you spend in getting to know and love God? It is the most important relationship in your life and the basis for all other relationships.   

Love in Action –

1. Read the Scriptures in this article and ask The Holy Spirit to teach you.
2. Journal what you’ve learned about love in this post. 
3. Journal how this kind of True Love can change your life and relationships.
4. Apply what you’re learning in every relationship…starting with God, then spouse, children, friendships, even with enemies.

Contact us at loveandlordship@gmail.com to find out more about how you can know God the Father, Christ His Son and The Holy Spirit.

Love and Lordship Prayer Focus…Heavenly Father, let me seek to know Your Love more and more and in so doing to know and love you more. As I do help me to love myself in Christ so I can truly love others with Your Love. In Jesus Name. Amen.

“The fear of the Lord is the beginning of wisdom, And the knowledge of the Holy One is understanding.” Proverbs 9:10

As we continue to look at Love as the Bridge between God and us…both as we receive His Love and learn to love him, ourselves and others, we must pause to recognize why this is so…

God is The Author and therefore the Authority over all things. As we continue to focus on Who He Is, in particular that He is Love, we must pay attention to what He said and did to define and model love for us. Even His very definition of Authority is rooted in loving service (Matthew 20:20-28) and His modeling of it in Christ as God in the flesh as well (John 13:1-17).

So what does that say to us about Love? I think first of all we need to lay down our definitions of Love rooted in emotions, feelings, attractions and desires. Even though these can be and are part of love they should not define Love. We must find it in our willful acts of obeying Him and serving others. We touched on that extensively in last week’s post.

Here’s some food for thought, and hopefully life transformation, over the next few days…ponder what Jesus, The Author of Love, felt like in each of these situations and then apply His kind of real Love in your life and relationships.

1. How do you think He felt relationally on the night He was betrayed (John 13:21, 38; Matthew 26:31)? If Love were a feeling then He would have stopped then and there and found a new set of friends that made Him feel better. But Love is not a feeling, it is a discipline that we can only learn and grow in when we are found in Christ!
2. If love was a feeling then how could Christ love us after the emotion in the garden where He was in such anguish that He sweat drops of blood (Luke 22:44)? That’s Love! If love was based on feelings He could have and should have cut and run at that moment if He hadn’t already after all His closest friends abandoned Him (see yesterday’s post).

No, Love is commitment and as we will continue to see, The Author and Authority of Love, Himself, showed us clearly the reality of that Love in His commitment to His Father and to us.

Do you know Him? Do you know that kind of Love or only the rollercoaster “love” of emotions and feelings? You can know His Love. I pray you know Him and are growing in His Love and sharing it with others. Contact us a Love and Lordship if you’d like to know more.

We’ve looked at Love from the perspective of how Jesus felt relationally when His closest companions abandoned Him in His greatest moment of need. We’ve looked at how He chose to Love even in the mental and emotional anguish of hematohidrosis, sweating drops of blood usually caused by extreme stress which we know He was facing.

If Love were a feeling surely The Author of Love, Love Himself, would have said, “No way, this is not Love so I’m done.” But He continued to show us what Love truly is.

We continue with the questions and look at how He felt…and loved… even in social isolation and rejection?

Have you ever been the brunt of a group’s joke, or intentionally left out of social functions? Wonder how “loving” Jesus “felt” when the mob cried “Crucify Him!” Crucify Him!” (Matthew 27:22-23) just days after they had praised Him and laid their coats and palm branches before Him as a sign a homage and honor to royalty? (Matthew 21:1-10) How do you think He felt socially?

Surely this would be the “straw that broke the camel’s back” and He would respond in kind. Or how about when the guards mocked Him, spit on Him, tore out his beard and hair, He would recognize that Love would not need to go this far? (Matthew 27:27-31) How do you think He felt physically?

No, He responded in Love by remaining committed and not even opening His mouth at any time. His Love is Love and it goes far beyond and much deeper than how we feel. It is remaining committed to God, to others and to what is right, regardless of the cost…so others can see and know Him.

Do you know that kind of Love or is your love rooted in your desires, satisfaction, wants and feelings? Christ showed us what real Love is and you can know that and live that out in your marriage, family, friendships…even with your enemies (Matthew 5:44). If you want to know this kind of Love contact us at Love and Lordship.

I’ll continue next week with 2 more pressing questions that help us see Love as commitment, as a choice and act of the will rather than as emotions, feelings, circumstances and infatuation…it is so much more!

Love and Lordship…Food for Thought – How have you seen, defined and lived out love in your life and relationships? Is it based on your feelings, hormones and circumstances only…or is it rooted in commitment that stays the course when things get tough?  

Love in Action – same questions from last week

1. Read the Scriptures in this article and ask The Holy Spirit to teach you.
2. Write down what each of the Names of God in this post mean to you. 
3. What did you learn about God from His Word in today’s post?
4. How will you apply what you’ve learned about His kind of Love…the only real Love that exists?

Contact us at loveandlordship@gmail.com to find out more about how you can know God the Father, Christ His Son and The Holy Spirit.

Love and Lordship Prayer Focus…Heavenly Father, have Your way in me to teach me by Your grace what Love truly is and how I can live it out in my relationship with You and with all others in Christ. In His Name. Amen.