Love is a Demonstration of God’s Power

If the love of God filled our hearts, what a difference it would make! This is the power each Christian truly needs to do the work of Christ. According to Andrew Murray:

“But the fruit of the Spirit is love …” (Galatians 5:22 ESV)

Why are we taught that “the fruit of the Spirit is love”? Because the Spirit of God has come to make our daily life an exhibition of divine power and a revelation of what God can do for His children.

In the second and the fourth chapters of Acts, we read that the disciples were of one heart and of one soul. During the three years they had walked with Christ, they never had been in that spirit. All Christ’s teaching could not make them of one heart and one soul. But the Holy Spirit came from heaven and shed the love of God in their hearts, and they were of one heart and one soul. The same Holy Spirit that brought the love of heaven into their hearts must fill us, too. Nothing less will do. Even as Christ did, one might preach love for three years with the tongue of an angel, but that would not teach any man to love unless the power of the Holy Spirit should come upon him to bring the love of heaven into his heart. . . .

If we want to pray in power, and if we want to expect the Holy Spirit to come down in power, and if we indeed want God to pour out His Spirit, we must enter into a covenant with God that we will love one another with a heavenly love.

Are you ready for that? Only that is true love that is large enough to take in all God’s children, the most unloving and unlovable and unworthy and unbearable and trying. If my vow – absolute surrender to God – was sincere, then it must mean absolute surrender to the divine love to fill me. I must be a servant of love to love every child of God around me. “The fruit of the Spirit is love.” (“The Fruit of the Spirit is Love”)

Success in the Sight of God

My son, do not forget my teaching, but let your heart keep my commandments, for length of days and years of life and peace they will add to you. Let not steadfast love and faithfulness forsake you; bind them around your neck; write them on the tablet of your heart. So you will find favor and good success in the sight of God and man. (Proverbs 3:1-4 ESV)

Success is one of the chief desires in our culture. Many people make a good living selling their formula for success in books, seminars, and on TV programs. The focus of this present cultural attitude is more about what we do and have as opposed to who we are. We define success by a man’s profession and how much money he makes. Such an attitude makes our definition of success very limited. One could argue that a person is a success because he is a famous athlete who has broken many records. However, our athlete may have been divorced three times, currently uses drugs, and never sees his children. In modern America, having lots of money may be the current criteria for success, but is dying with the most toys all that it is cracked-up to be?

When God spoke to Joshua about success, He told him: “Only be strong and very courageous, being careful to do according to all the law that Moses my servant commanded you. Do not turn from it to the right hand or to the left, that you may have good success wherever you go. This Book of the Law shall not depart from your mouth, but you shall meditate on it day and night, so that you may be careful to do according to all that is written in it. For then you will make your way prosperous, and then you will have good success.” (Joshua 1:7-8) God says that real success is contingent upon obeying His Word. The Bible speaks to all the issues of life, not just our professions. When we obey God’s Word, our “way” will be “prosperous.” God’s view of success focuses on who we are.

The New Testament English word “way” is translated from the Greek word “hodos.” It literally means “road – a route to a destination.” It was also used often in a figurative sense, as a “means – a vehicle to a destination.” Therefore, perhaps our focus should be on living successfully (according to God’s Word) as we pursue our goals and calling in life. This view places more emphasis on the means than the result. With God, living in Biblical faithfulness is the true measure of success. Your character is more important to Him than your portfolio.

God is concerned with right living. There is no greater success in the Christian life than living a godly life with what God has given you. Hear the voice of the writer of Proverbs who says, “… give me neither poverty nor riches; feed me with the food that is needful for me, lest I be full and deny you and say, ‘Who is the Lord?’ or lest I be poor and steal and profane the name of my God.” (Proverbs 30:8-9 ESV)

Count it all joy, my friend. Obeying God in Christian conduct and faithfulness – in the life that God has provided you – are the only successes that count. “But seek first the kingdom of God and his righteousness, and all these things will be added to you.” (Matthew 6:33 ESV)

Weakness and Truth

Richard Sibbes:

As the strongest faith may be shaken, so the weakest, where truth is, is so far rooted that it will prevail. Weakness with watchfulness will stand, when strength with too much confidence fails. Weakness, with acknowledgement of it, is the fittest seat and subject for God to perfect His strength in; for consciousness of our infirmities drives us out of ourselves to Him, in whom our strength lies.

True and Genuine Wisdom

John Calvin:

“Our true and genuine wisdom can be summed up as the knowledge of God and the knowledge of ourselves.” (Institutes of the Christian Religion)

The Promises of the Covenant

Think of having every hindrance to your fellowship with God disappear. How would you respond? According to Charles Hodge:

The promises of this covenant are all included in the comprehensive formula, so often occurring in the Scriptures, ‘I will be your God, and ye shall be my people.’ This involves the complete restoration of our normal relation to God. All ground of alienation, every bar to fellowship is removed. He communicates Himself in his fullness to his people; and they become his by entire conformity to his will and devotion to his service, and are the special objects of his favor. God is said to be our God, not only because He is the God whom we acknowledge and profess to worship and obey, as He was the God of the Hebrews in distinction from the Gentiles who did not acknowledge his existence or profess to be his worshipers; but He is our God, our infinite portion; the source to us of all that God is to those who are the objects of his love. His perfections are revealed to us as the highest knowledge; they are all pledged for our protection, blessedness, and glory. His being our God implies also that He assures us of his love, and admits us to communion with Himself. As his favor is life, and his loving kindness better than life; as the vision of God, the enjoyment of his love and fellowship with Him secure the highest possible exaltation and beatification of his creatures, it is plain that the promise to be our God, in the Scriptural sense of the term, includes all conceivable and all possible good.

When it is said that we are to be his people it means, that we are his peculiar possession. His delights are with the children of men. From the various orders of rational creatures He has chosen man to be the special object of his favor, and the special medium through which and by which to manifest his glory. And from the mass of fallen men He has, of his own good pleasure, chosen an innumerable multitude to be his portion, as He condescends to call them; on whom He lavishes the plenitude of his grace, and in whom He reveals his glory to the admiration of all holy intelligences. That being thus selected for the special love of God and for the highest manifestation of his glory, they are in all things fitted for this high destiny. They are justified, sanctified, and glorified. They are rendered perfectly conformed to his image, devoted to his service, and obedient to his will. (“The Covenant”)

Be of Good Cheer

Charles H. Spurgeon:

“In the world ye shall have tribulation: but be of good cheer; I have overcome the world” (John 16:33).

My LORD’s words are true as to the tribulation. I have my share of it beyond all doubt. The flail is not hung up out of the way, nor can I hope that it will be laid aside so long as I lie upon the threshing floor, How can I look to be at home in the enemy’s country, joyful while in exile, or comfortable in a wilderness? This is not my rest. This is the place of the furnace, and the forge, and the hammer. My experience tallies with my LORD’s words.

I note how He bids me “be of good cheer.” Alas! I am far too apt to be downcast. My spirit soon sinks when I am sorely tried. But I must not give way to this feeling. When my LORD bids me cheer up I must not dare to be cast down.

What is the argument which He uses to encourage me? Why, it is His own victory. He says, “I have overcome the world.” His battle was much more severe than mine. I have not yet resisted unto blood. Why do I despair of overcoming? See, my soul, the enemy has been once overcome. I fight with a beaten foe. O world, Jesus has already vanquished thee; and in me, by His grace, He will overcome thee again. Therefore am I of good cheer and sing unto my conquering LORD. (Faith’s Checkbook)

 

Seeing God

It is impossible that God should take pleasure in wickedness and therefore, the wicked have no vision of God, for they do not see God’s love. Jonathan Edwards writes:

“Blessed are the pure in heart: for they shall see God.” (Matthew 5:8)

It becomes persons when they come into the presence of a king, so to attire themselves, that they may not appear in a sordid habit, and it would be much more unsuitable still, for any to come all defiled with filth. But sin is that which renders the soul much more loathsome in the sight of God. This spiritual filth is of a nature most disagreeable to that pure, heavenly light; it would be most unsuitable to have the pollution of sin and wickedness, and the light of glory, mixed together; and it is what God never will suffer. It would be a most unbecoming thing for such to be the objects of God’s favor, and to see the love of God, and to receive the testimonies of that love. It would be most unsuitable for the glorious and most blessed God to embrace in the arms of his love, that that is infinitely more filthy than a reptile.

It is naturally impossible that the soul, which is impure, should see God. The sight of God’s glory, and impurity of heart, is not compatible in the same subject. Where spiritual defilement holds possession of the heart, it is impossible that the divine light, which discovers God’s glory, should enter. How can he, who is under the power of enmity against God, and who only hates God, see his beauty and loveliness at the same time? Sin, so long as it has the government and possession of the soul, will blind the mind and maintain darkness. As long as sin keeps possession, the heart will be blinded through its deceitfulness.

What pleasure would it give to the soul that hates holiness, to see the holiness of God? What pleasure to them who are God’s enemies, to see his greatness and glory? Wicked men have no relish for such intellectual, pure, and holy delights and enjoyments. As we have observed already, to have a relish for spiritual enjoyments is one part of the purity of heart spoken of in the text. (“The Pure in Heart Blessed”)

Do You really Love the Lost?

John Piper:

“Have you ever wondered what it feels like to have a love for the lost? This is a term we use as part of our Christian jargon. Many believers search their hearts in condemnation, looking for the arrival of some feeling of benevolence that will propel them into bold evangelism. It will never happen. It is impossible to love “the lost”. You can’t feel deeply for an abstraction or a concept. You would find it impossible to love deeply an unfamiliar individual portrayed in a photograph, let alone a nation or a race or something as vague as “all lost people”.

Don’t wait for a feeling or love in order to share Christ with a stranger. You already love your heavenly Father, and you know that this stranger is created by Him, but separated from Him, so take those first steps in evangelism because you love God. It is not primarily out of compassion for humanity that we share our faith or pray for the lost; it is first of all, love for God.”

Friendship with God

We cannot be said to walk with God, because walking with someone is a sign and token of friendship. We must first be justified by faith in Christ, in order to have peace with God. George Whitefield writes:

“And Enoch walked with God: and he was not; for God took him.” (Genesis 5:24)

Walking with God implies that the prevailing power of the enmity of a person’s heart has been taken away by the blessed Spirit of God. Perhaps it may seem a hard saying to some, but our own experience daily proves what the scriptures in many places assert, that the carnal mind, the mind of the unconverted natural man, nay, the mind of the regenerate, so far as any part of him remains unrenewed, is enmity, not only an enemy, but enmity itself, against God; so that it is not subject to the law of God, neither indeed can it be. Indeed, one may well wonder that any creature, especially that lovely creature man, made after his Maker’s own image, should ever have any enmity, much less a prevailing enmity, against that very God in whom he lives, and moves, and hath his being. But alas! So it is.

Our first parents contracted it when they fell from God by eating the forbidden fruit, and the bitter and malignant contagion of it hath descended to, and quite overspread, their whole posterity. This enmity discovered itself in Adam’s endeavoring to hide himself in the trees of the garden. … And this same enmity rules and prevails in every man that is naturally engendered of the offspring of Adam. Hence that an averseness to prayer and holy duties which we find in children, and very often in grown persons, who have notwithstanding been blessed with a religious education. And all that open sin and wickedness, which like a deluge has overflowed the world, are only so many streams running from this dreadful contagious fountain; I mean a enmity of man’s desperately wicked and deceitful heart. He that cannot set his seal to this knows nothing yet, in a saving manner, of the Holy Scriptures, or of the power of God. And all that do know this, will readily acknowledge, that before a person can be said to walk with God, the prevailing power of this heart-enmity must be destroyed: for persons do not use to walk and keep company together, who entertain an irreconcilable enmity and hatred against one another. … But as for its prevailing power, it is destroyed in every soul that is truly born of God, and gradually more and more weakened as the believer grows in grace, and the Spirit of God gains a greater and greater ascendancy in the heart. (“Walking With God”)

Seek A Sure Object of Trust!

Thomas Manton:

If a man would lead a happy life, let him but seek a sure object for his trust [or faith], and he shall be safe: “He shall not be afraid of evil tidings: his heart is fixed, trusting in the Lord.” He hath laid up his confidence in God; therefore, his heart is kept in an equal poise.

The Condition of our Souls

The working of God’s will has provided the whole plan of salvation. We labor in the sphere of God’s will. God presses His will upon ours. We feel the force of divine energy quickening our wills into activity. However, we are responsible for the condition of our souls. According to Archibald T. Robertson (1863-1934):

Therefore, my beloved, as you have always obeyed, so now, not only as in my presence but much more in my absence, work out your own salvation with fear and trembling, for it is God who works in you, both to will and to work for his good pleasure.

Do all things without grumbling or disputing, that you may be blameless and innocent, children of God without blemish in the midst of a crooked and twisted generation, among whom you shine as lights in the world, holding fast to the word of life, so that in the day of Christ I may be proud that I did not run in vain or labor in vain. Even if I am to be poured out as a drink offering upon the sacrificial offering of your faith, I am glad and rejoice with you all. Likewise, you also should be glad and rejoice with me. (Philippians 2:12-18 ESV)

Paul is eminently practical as well as really profound. He is equally at home in the discussion of the great problems of theology and in the details of the Christian life. … There is in Paul no divorce between learning and life. Speculative theology as philosophy he knows and uses as a servant to convey his highest ideas, but he never forgets the ethics of the man in the street or at the desk. He has just written a marvelous passage on the Humiliation and Exaltation of Christ Jesus, scaling the heights of Christ’s equality with God and sounding the depths of the human experience of Jesus, from the throne of God to the death on the Cross and back again. But Paul has no idea of leaving this great doctrinal passage thus. “So then, my beloved,” he goes on with an exhortation based on the experience of Christ. He returns to the whole lump. There are men and women in our churches who remain true when pastors come and go and when others fall away.

In Paul’s absence, he desires that the Philippians shall press right on with the work of their own salvation in so far as the development is committed to their hands. The eye should rest upon the final goal and so Paul uses a verb that puts the emphasis on the final result. Salvation is used either of the entrance into the service of God, the whole process, or the consummation at the end. The Philippians are to carry into effect and carry on to the end the work of grace already begun. Peter (2 Pet. 1:10) likewise exhorted his readers to make their calling and election sure. They must not look to Paul to do their part in the work of their salvation. His absence cuts no figure in the matter of their personal responsibility. It is “your own’ salvation.” It is the aim of all to win this goal at last. If so, each must look to his own task and do his own work. The social aspect of religion is true beyond a doubt. We are our brother’s keeper and we do owe a debt of love and service to one another that we can never fully discharge (Rom. 13:8). But it is also true that each of us is his own keeper and stands or falls to God. Kipling has it thus: For the race is run by one and one and never by two and two.” (“Realizing God’s Plan in Life”)

A Purpose for All Believers

Jerry Bridges:

God has an over-arching purpose for all believers: to conform us to the likeness of His Son, Jesus Christ (see Romans 8:29). He also has a specific purpose for each of us that is His unique, tailor-made plan for our individual life (see Ephesians 2:10). And God will fulfill that purpose. As Psalm 138:8 says, “The LORD will fulfill his purpose for me.” Because we know God is directing our lives to an ultimate end and because we know He is sovereignly able to orchestrate the events of our lives toward that end, we can trust Him. We can commit to Him not only the ultimate outcome of our lives, but also all the intermediate events and circumstances that will bring us to that outcome. (Trusting God: Even When Life Hurts)

Marriage and Satisfaction

Sinclair B. Ferguson:

We [should not] make the mistake of thinking that marriage will provide the ultimate satisfaction for which we all hunger. To assume so would be to be guilty of blasphemy. Only God satisfies the hungry heart. Marriage is but one of the channels He uses to enable us to taste how deeply satisfying His thirst-quenching grace can be. (Discovering God’s Will)

The Work of Faith in Prayer

Faith is wholly of God, and has nothing of our own power in it. Faith is not of us, it is the gift of God. It descends from God to be infused into our hearts, and can never be taken from us. William Guthrie writes to help us understand the relationship of faith and prayer:

Therefore, I tell you, whatever you ask in prayer, believe that you have received it, and it will be yours. (Mark 11:24 ESV)

It is faith’s work in prayer to enable the soul to wait patiently until God give an answer to prayer. Faith is still petitioning and supplicating the Lord until He gives a gracious return. To renew the self-same thing in prayer again and again, it being according to His will and warranted in His word, in the exercise of the self-same faith, is no tautology, though it were a hundred times to have the self-same suit. It was the way of the woman of Canaan. “I am not sent to thee,” says Christ; yet she prays still, “Have mercy upon me, Lord.” And it made Paul return his suit again and again. “For this thing I besought the Lord thrice.” This is also an excellent work of faith. . . .

Faith’s work in prayer is, to make the petitioner take up God aright as the object of prayer, and Christ Jesus as the only Mediator, and take up their own condition aright, that they may apply the promises accordingly. For faith’s work is to apprehend aright our Lord Jesus Christ the Angel of the covenant, and to apprehend our own soul’s case and condition aright, as in Isa. xli. it is called a looking; as it makes them take up Him whom they are seeking and themselves aright. This is faith’s work in prayer. . . .

This grace of faith apprehends things altogether beyond the reach of human reason, and brings these things home unto the man’s own bosom. It makes things that are absent as if they were present; it brings that into the man’s heart that he shall have to all eternity; it brings in God to the man; it brings in Christ to his bosom; it brings in the joys of heaven to his soul – hence it is said to be “the substance of things not seen.” It was this that made Moses see Him that is invisible, and the eternal glory and happiness of the saints in heaven, whereupon he refused to be preferred in Pharaoh’s court; and this is the nature of this grace which is so necessary and requisite a qualification in the duty of prayer.

Worship and the Church

In vain do they worship me, teaching as doctrines the commandments of men. (Matthew 15:9 ESV)

God is spirit, and those who worship him must worship in spirit and truth. (John 4:24 ESV)

What is it like when you attend worship at your church? Is it clear that the service belongs to God? All, who serve in church leadership, are responsible for insuring that God is glorified by what takes place during worship. The worship of God is a very serious responsibility and must not be approached casually.

What does worship mean to you? Are you seeking to work yourself up into an emotional high or are you glorifying and delighting in the God of all glory? The former action is based on the premise that worship is all about our need to feel good. The latter turns our focus from ourselves to the love of God and His merciful grace.

A God-centered people will seek to focus on the glory of God during the service. During such worship, the sinner feels his conscience exposed as God’s Word is proclaimed. The reality of God is manifest among His people.

I find it shameful when churches place their priority on marketing schemes to meet the felt-needs of a culture of unbelievers. Such churches do not effectively deliver the message of who God is. The result encourages the unbeliever to ask, “Who do I want God to be?”

Thus, true conversions become rare because the church accepts the norms of popular culture upon which to base its worship of God. The true heart of the church is worshiping God by preaching His infallible Word. When we attend church, we should see an unapologetic awe, respect, love, and delight in the God of the Bible. Such churches will preach and glorify the God who is. There we will find true worship.