4SpiritualSecrets

“Give us this day our daily bread.” (Matthew 6:11)

When Jesus taught His disciples how to pray He gave them a principle that has many applications.  At the end of this chapter, which records the central part of His great Sermon on the Mount, Jesus stated that we should not worry about tomorrow.  Many have made that obvious application to this prayer petition.  People with tragic challenges like addictions or overwhelming suffering are only able to get their heads and hearts around the concept of a solution one day at a time.

Another legitimate application of this principle for living is to apply this concept to divine guidance.  In the third chapter of his letter to the Philippians, the Apostle Paul wrote that one way to discern the will of God for our life is to live up to the light we now have.  He promises that as we do, God will give us more light.  To illustrate that concept someone has said “If you want to see further ahead into the will of God for your life then move ahead into the will of God for your life just as far as you can see.”

When I was a college student I drove across the United States several times.  I drove at night because there was less traffic.  My headlights illuminated about 100 yards at a time.  I discovered that if I kept driving into the light the headlights gave me, I eventually traveled from Pittsburgh to Los Angeles.

It is easier for God to steer a moving vehicle than one that is stationary.  As we respond to the light God is giving us He adds more light to our path.  The application of that principle leads us into His will one day at a time.

“The heart is deceitful above all things, and desperately wicked; Who can know it?

I, the LORD, search the heart, I test the mind…” (Jeremiah 17: 9, 10)

When many people come across this familiar passage in the book of Jeremiah they are so shocked with the startling pronouncement that our heart is desperately wicked they often miss his declaration that above all things our heart is deceitful.  He then follows that insight with the question “Who can know it?” Jeremiah answers his own question by writing that our heart is so deceitful only God can know it.

In my training for the ministry I studied theology and psychology.  I therefore thought I understood what was in the heart of the people who considered me their spiritual shepherd.  I got nowhere understanding people until I agreed with this spiritual cardiogram of Jeremiah.  I especially found it to be accurate as I attempted to understand my own heart.

All of this provides a backdrop against which we can appreciate the profound wisdom of a prayer of David.  To paraphrase and summarize, in the last verses of Psalm 139 David asked God to take the lid off his heart and show him the motives that should not be there.  He then asked God to take the lid off his head and show him the thoughts that should not be in his mind.  His motivation for these two wise prayer petitions was that he wanted to live his life in alignment with eternal values.

Have you come to the place in your faith journey where you realize you do not understand your own deceitful heart or the heart of those you would like to help?  Like David are you looking and directing others to the only One Who knows our heart?

“And this commandment we have from Him: that he who loves God must love his brother also.” (1 John 4:21)

In this love chapter of the Bible, John gives us 10 reasons we must love.  His last reason is that we have been given a commandment by Jesus that we are to love one another.  When Jesus was about to leave the apostles by way of His death on the cross, He left the apostles with this New Commandment.

He explained to them later on in that same setting that this would only be possible because He was sending them the Holy Spirit.  He used a word for the Holy Spirit that means “One who comes alongside of you and attaches Himself to you for the purpose of assisting you.”

In our culture the concept of a commandment is lost for many people because we are so democratic in our values.  The closest we come to understanding the meaning of this word is in our military training.  When my youngest brother was in training the order was given that the smoking lamp was out – which meant no smoking.  In defiance of the order he lighted a cigarette.  His Marine drill instructor ordered him to bury that cigarette in a grave six feet deep.

When he reported to the drill instructor all covered with mud and sweat, the instructor asked if he had buried the cigarette pointing north and south or east and west?  When he wasn’t sure he was told that he had to do it again the next day and make sure it pointed north and south.  The next time the no smoking order was given do you think he lighted another cigarette?

Do you get the full weight of these 10 reasons we must love?

“We love Him because He first loved us.” (1 John 4:9)

As John continues to give us reasons we must love, he writes that anyone who has been loved by God, or by the Holy Spirit of the risen Christ, should have a passion to reciprocate that love.

John was present when Jesus spent the last hours before His crucifixion with the men He had apprenticed 24/7 for three years.  The Gospel of John (chapters 13-16) begins this discourse of Jesus by telling us that “Having loved His own… He now showed them the full extent of His love.”

For three years Jesus had loved these men in ways they had never been loved before.  They were all present with Him because they desperately wanted to reciprocate His love.  Jesus challenged them to love one another as He had loved them.  Then He added these words: “By this the world will know that you are my disciples.”

I’m convinced these men were with Him at His hour of great danger when Rome was closing in on Him because Jesus loved them and they loved Jesus.  I also believe the thought of loving each other as Jesus had loved them had never occurred to them.  It was their passion to reciprocate the love of Jesus that placed them with Jesus at this time. Essentially, Jesus told them the best way to reciprocate His love was to love one another.

John makes this his ninth reason we must love.  The Apostle of Love has now given you nine exhortations to love.  Are you willing to step up and reciprocate the way Jesus has loved you by loving others as He has loved you?

“Love has been perfected among us in this: that we may have boldness in the day of judgment…” (1 John 4:17)

How many of us can approach our day of judgment with boldness?  If we loved perfectly we could approach the certainty of our judgment day with boldness and no fear.

Perhaps John is assuming we know the New Testament teaching that love is the fulfilling of the law.  If we love our brother, sister, neighbor or even our enemies we will not cheat them, steal from them, or break any of the laws that govern our relationship with the people who intersect our life.  If we love God and others the way Jesus showed us and taught us to love we would not fear judgment.  In fact, John writes in the next verse that we would eliminate fear.

Some people have fear for which there is no basis in fact.  We call that neurotic fear.  Many have fear that is rooted in a fear of losing their possessions.  If we really understand what it means to be holy, to be a faithful steward, or to love God and to love others with the love of Jesus, we will have surrendered all we have to God and we will therefore have nothing to fear losing.

This great apostle has now given us eight reasons we must love.  If we love perfectly we will eliminate the fear of judgment that plagues many devout believers.  We will also eliminate the fear of loss that robs many people of their peace.  Are you willing to apply another motivation to love as that love is profiled in this love chapter written by the apostle who writes more of love than any other New Testament author?

“No one has ever seen God; but if we love one another, God lives in us and his love is made complete in us…  God is love.” (1 John 4:12, 16)

When the Apostle John wrote the fourth Gospel he made it clear that no one has ever seen God, but the only Son of God, who was in intimate fellowship with God the Father, has fully revealed God (John 1:18).  In the verses quoted above John connects the dots for us.  He writes that God is love and when we love in the ways His love is being expressed in and through us, we show the God that cannot be seen to this world.

The greatest revelation of truth this world has ever or ever will see was the life and teachings of Jesus Christ.  Everything He was, everything He did, and everything He said was part of that revelation.  According to John, that revelation is continuing in and through those of us who are His authentic followers in this world today.

The peak of that revelation is love.  Not everything that claims to be love, but the quality of love revealed in the life and teachings of Jesus Christ.  We must love one another with this quality of love because as we do, all the lives we intersect will see God – and the greatest revelation this world has ever known will continue through us. This adds to John’s list another reason we must love.

Are you willing to be part of that continuing revelation of the God Who can only be seen in the lives of those who know Him and are by His grace conduits of His love? Then ask Him to do that on whatever candlestick He has placed you.

“…He abides in us, by the Spirit whom He has given us.… By this you know the Spirit of God: Every spirit that confesses that Jesus Christ has come in the flesh is of God…” (1 John 3:24; 4:2)

In the closing verse of the third chapter of his letter, the Apostle of Love writes that we know God lives in us by the Spirit He has given us.  He then begins his fourth chapter by telling us everything that is spiritual is not the Spirit God has given us.  He then challenges us to test spirits.  This is his method for testing spirits: every spirit that confesses that Jesus Christ has come in the flesh is of God and every spirit that does not confess that fact is not of God.

This raises the question “How does a spirit confess?” The Greek word John uses here for confess is a compound word.  It is the word for speaking and the word for sameness.  It literally means to say the same thing God says or to agree with God.  As we observed in our fourth reason we must love, the outstanding dynamic of Jesus when He lived here in the flesh was love.  That’s how a spirit confesses that Jesus Christ has come in the flesh.  It is when Christ is obviously living in their flesh.  Their life could then be described as love incarnate.

The Apostle of Love has now given us six reasons we must love.  He wrote in his Gospel that God is a Spirit and we must worship Him in spirit if we want to truly worship Him (4: 24).  He is now amplifying that same truth.  Are you willing to let this world see the love of Christ in your flesh?

“Beloved, if God so loved us, we also ought to love one another.” .                (1 John 4:11)

The Apostle John points to Jesus dying on the cross and writes: “This is love… that He loved us and sent His Son as an atoning sacrifice for our sins (1 John 4:10).  He follows that with the words quoted above – that if God SO loved us we ought also to love one another.

Hours before He was arrested and crucified, Jesus challenged the men He had been apprenticing 24/7 for three years to love one another as He had loved them.  He then prophesied that by this the whole world would know they were His disciples.  Peter wrote that by His death on the cross He had given us an example and a calling that we should follow in His steps (1 Peter 2:21).

The Apostle John is in alignment with Jesus and Peter when he gives us yet another reason we are to love one another.  In principle Jesus was instructing the apostles that the best way to reach out is to reach in. Essentially, Jesus was saying that we have a message of love to communicate to the world.  The best way to do that is to love one another and show the world a community of love.

If our churches were the colonies of love Jesus desires them to be, the love-starved people of this world would be beating our doors down to be part of our spiritual communities because everyone has a need to be loved and to belong.  The love John is profiling is the greatest evangelistic tool our Lord has given to His Church.  Are you willing to reach in that you might reach out for His glory?

“…because as He is, so are we in this world…” (1 John 4: 17)

As the Apostle of love continues to give us reasons why we must love, having told us twice that God is love (verses 8 and 16), he writes the words quoted above that as He is, so are we in this world. He also told us in verse 16 that God lives in us.  If God is love and God lives in us, then it follows that as God is (love), so are we (to be love) in this world.  This is yet another reason why we must love.

The perfect example of this was Jesus Christ when He was God in human flesh for 33 years.  The greatest dynamic of His personality was love.  If you had met with Him for a day like Zacchaeus, the Chief of the Publicans (Luke 19), or for an hour like the Samaritan woman (John 4), or briefly like the young man we call the rich young ruler, you would have known that you had been loved as you had never been loved before.  We’re told that Jesus, looking intently at the rich young ruler, loved him (Mark 10:21).

The Apostle John, the author of the fourth Gospel, lived with Jesus 24/7 for three years.  He refers to himself in his Gospel many times with these words: “I am the disciple whom Jesus loved.” Sixty years after he was loved by Jesus, he dedicated the last book of the Bible to Jesus with the words “… unto the faithful Witness Who loved us…”

When people meet with us today do they feel that they have been loved as never before because we are God (love) with skin on in this world?