John 15:9 “In the same way that the Father has loved me, I have also loved you;
remain in my love. If you obey my commandments, you will
remain in my love, just as I have obeyed my Father’s commandments and remain in
his love. I have told you these things so that my joy
may be in you, and your joy may be complete. My
commandment is this – to love one another just as I have loved you. No one has greater love than this – that he lays down his
life for his friends. You are my friends if you do what
I command you. I no longer call you slaves, because the
slave does not understand what his master is doing. But I have called you
friends, because I have revealed to you everything I heard from my Father. You did not choose me, but I chose you and appointed you to
go and bear fruit that remains, so that whatever you ask the Father in my name
he will give you. 15:17 This
is my command to you – love one another.”
Jesus
is not saying “as you offer praise and worship, you will find it easier to love
one another.” “As you continue to attend church on Sunday you will find it
easier to love one another”. We need to get our plumbing straight: Our
horizontal relationships determine the value of our vertical relationships.
Jesus
has His plumbing straight: “as the Father has loved me I have loved you...”
This is our model. It is not by “having Church and having it abundantly” that
we have a meaningful relationship with the Lord.
I
have attended meetings where we sang ourselves stupid but we were no more
spiritual as a result. The real work of faith happens on the coalface.
His
love flows through us to others and to us from others. The gifts and
manifestations of the Holy Spirit will occur naturally and so will praise and
worship without being whipped up. 1
Thessalonians 3:12 “And
may the Lord cause you to increase and abound in love for one another and for
all, just as we do for you, 3:13
so that your hearts are strengthened in
holiness to be blameless before our God and Father at the coming of our
Lord Jesus with all his saints”.
1 Peter 1:22
“You have purified your souls by obeying the truth in order to show sincere
mutual love. So love one another earnestly from a pure heart” Worship
and praise do not of themselves accomplish this. They flow from this.
Someone will say “I love Jesus!” (With the unspoken
inference that others don’t count.) They may say “by worshipping I am ‘drawing
near to God so He will draw near to me’ James 4:8. Where is God? Read the
passage in context. Same with the Idea of ‘seeking things “above”; where is “above?”
Colossians 3:1 + see vs. 13.
When I love you, I am loving Jesus. 1 John 4:19 “We love because he loved us first. If anyone says
“I love God” and yet hates his fellow Christian, he is a liar, because the one
who does not love his fellow Christian whom he has seen cannot love God whom he
has not seen. 4:21 and the
commandment we have from him is this: that the one who loves God should love
his fellow Christian too.”START AT HOME!
The promise is that His joy will be in us! We will worship
from a spontaneous pure motivation not just because its ‘church again’. How odd
that we should try to return Gods love to Him without allowing that love to
accomplish its full purpose. Jesus never discussed the requirements of our vertical
relationship with God! He did not say “go to church and worship a lot then my
love will flow!” Get the plumbing straight, Let His love flow then everything
else will be a joy. Make this a year of loving.
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