- Overcomer Literature Trust
- Swindon
- Wiltshire
LOVE ON OUR SIDE.
By F. B. Meyer
In its deepest sense love is what Christianity needs to exist. Love, as the Bible uses the word, is the fruit of the Spirit. It needs to be inserted into the believer as God’s new creation.
To feel towards enemies what others feel towards friends and to minister to those who are unpleasant and repellent as others minister to the attractive, this is love. To be always the same, not subject to moods or interests, to suffer long, to take no account of evil, to rejoice with the truth, to bear, believe, hope, and endure all things, never to fail, this is love, and such love is the achievement of the Holy Spirit alone.
GOD'S ELECTION POINTS TO HIS LOVE (Ephesians 1 v4)
People have sometimes thought of God's choice in such a way as to encourage a proud self-righteousness, as though God's election includes only a few, so that their fruit might be kept from every thieving hand. To think this is to misunderstand the entire purpose of God.
God has gone to such expense for us, so that the perfume of our love might be a strong smell, that will fertilise places like bees carrying the pollen, so that thirsty souls will be refreshed by our fruit, made for us by the Holy Spirit. We were chosen to love, to love God above all and to love others made in His image.
If a person boasts of their election in an arrogant and exclusive way he shows that he has missed its point and aim. The eternal purpose of God reveals itself, not only in new-found joy, but in new-found love. The love of God proves the election of God. If you do not love, you may talk of election as much as you like, but you have no part in it. But if we are in Christ, by a living faith we have been chosen to love, and love must be Divinely possible. God's choice always carries with it the power to be and do that which He has chosen for us to be and do.
LOVE AND FAITH ARE INSEPARABLE (Ephesians 1 v15)
When there is faith in the Lord Jesus, there will always be love toward all believers because faith is the ability of taking God into the heart. Faith is listening to God obediently. Faith takes the nature of God, just as the expanded lung does the air, or as the child does the parent's gift. Faith, like a narrow stream, conveys God's ocean fullness into the lakes of human needs. Wherever faith links the believer to the Lord Jesus, His nature, which is love, begins to flow into the waiting, expectant heart. And then it flows out toward all others.
The love of God knows no favourite group. It singles out no special school, but, as the sun and wind of nature, it breathes and shines the same on all. It is cosmopolitan and universal. You cannot imprison it within the walls of any one Christian community. It laughs at our restrictions, and with equal grace raises up witnesses from all parts of the Church. So as we become more like God, our love leaps over the barrier of our little pond and passes out to greet all believers, and to use itself in the world.
IT IS ONLY AS WE LOVE THAT WE GRASP CHRIST'S LOVE (Ephesians 3 v17)
The apostle asked that his Ephesian converts might be strengthened with power through the Spirit in their inner being and that Christ might dwell in their hearts through faith, so that, being rooted and grounded in love, they might be strong to grasp, with all saints, the love of Christ. This stress on strength is remarkable. Why is it so needed in connection with love?
Is it because we should be strong to obey the smallest promptings of the gracious Master, Christ? Is it that we need strength to restrain ourselves in favour of the new passion which has entered our hearts, until it has become all-powerful? Either of these assumptions may meet the case, but we must be strengthened before we can receive the fullness of the indwelling Lord, and one major result of His presence within is to make us strong to perceive His love.
ROOTED IN LOVE. The roots that keep a tree in the soil and gather nutrients for its growth are very slender and delicate. So also the actions to which the Spirit prompts us on behalf of others may seem very trivial, but each one gives us greater strength and makes us quicker to understand Christ's love to us.
GROUNDED IN LOVE. A grounded solid foundation is very important for the building which is to tower into the air giving distant glimpses of the landscape. Those who desire to behold, as in a panorama, the love of God, must be content to perform many deeds of unselfish goodness in the depths of obscurity and self-forgetfulness. What we do for others in the name of Christ, and what we feel towards them, is a priceless education, preparing us to know His love. Perform loving deeds, plan to do them, even if you at first are fearful and do them from a sense of duty, if not of delight. Shortly you will come to take joy in them, and you will say to yourself as you go to and fro, "This is something like Jesus feels towards me”. Love understands love.
BUT LOVE NEVER LIVES ALONE. It calls all believers to its aid. No one believer or group of devout thinkers can fulfil all God's love.
LOVE SHOULD BE THE ATMOSPHERE OF OUR CHURCH RELATIONSHIPS (Ephesians 4 v2, Ephesians 4 v15, Ephesians 4 v16)
The unity or oneness of the Spirit is a Divine reality, which we cannot make but must keep. Try as we may, we cannot make it any more perfect than it is. No bases of agreement, no conferences or conventions can do this. We are called upon to give all diligence, that the Divine plan may be realised, as far as possible, among all believers. There will never be uniformity, but there may be unity. The pipes in a great organ will never be all of the same length or tone, but they may be supplied by the same breath, which gives out the same melody.
It must be our endeavour to guard against everything that would jar with the inner unity of the Spirit, such as jealousy, harsh words or gossip. We must resist hurting one another.
It is often necessary to proclaim the truth, to defend it in the church or to enforce it to individuals who may be extremely hostile to it. But love must prompt the speech and control the utterance. It is not enough to speak the truth, we must speak it in love. When a minister told Robert Murray McCheyne that on the previous Sunday he had preached eternal Hell for the ungodly, he replied, "I hope you preached it tenderly”. Oh for more of the spirit of the apostle, who spoke with weeping of those that were enemies of the cross of Christ. It is when there is perfect love between us and our fellow-believers, that the grace of God can pass easily from one to another. If we are out of fellowship with any, to that extent we cannot teach them, or they us. But when love is present in the Church there is a building-up in love. Each gives to another, and gets as he gives.
HUMAN LOVE SHOULD BE MODELLED ON THE DIVINE (Ephesians 5 v2, Ephesians 5 v25, Ephesians 5 v28, Ephesians 5 v33)
It is no ordinary love to which we are summoned. Whether in the home, where man and wife live in each other's presence, or in the daily walk and conversation of life, we are to imitate God, as His dear children. It is not enough to love as any other person does. We must love as Christ did. Our one ideal must be, "as Christ loved”.
To love enemies and to make them friends, to love to the point of self-giving and blood, to love the disgusting until the pollution gives place to purity and beauty, such is the love of Christ. Let us sit at His feet and learn of Him, until we reflect Him, and are changed into the same image from glory to glory. Oh to love like you, blessed Master! Fill us with your love until we are full cups which run over!
OUR LOVE MUST BE SINCERE (Ephesians 6 v24)
There are plenty who say, "Lord, Lord”, but who do not do the things that He says. It is easy to be quick in our expressions, and easily swayed by feelings of emotion, and yet to be heartless and loveless. But such people do not love with sincerity. They resemble the shallow soil, where the seed soon sprouts, and as soon dies, because there is only rock beneath. For such the apostle had no words of blessing.
But wherever there is sincere love to Jesus, however weak and ignorant the disciple, here is a member of the Church who will receive blessings. You may not speak our language or accept all our beliefs but if you sincerely love Jesus, we bid you welcome and wish you grace.
Spirit of God, baptise us in God's holy fire, that we may begin to glow with the sacred flame, and be burning ones indeed.
From ‘Devotional Commentary on the Epistle to the Ephesians’