FAMILY MATTERS
July 2011
THE TWELVE C’S OF LOVE:
I Corinthiasns 13 and More…
C IS FOR CONVICTION
Introduction
Love is a noun but also a verb at the same time. Love is what you do, how you do it, and why.
As a Noun = Love is who God is and whom we are meant to be
Love is what we are made to be within our True Selves
The image of Jesus Christ is that of love
That is the image we are to reflect, growing up into Him
As a Verb = Love is what we do for Him and in His Name
We love others with His love and we experience Him in this loving
Loving others is our deepest need
This is what they need most from us
The rationale of love as we define it forms our unifying philosophy/theology of life.
It is like a rudder on a ship…it determines direction and destiny
If it centers in us then we think in terms of what we get out of it
If it centers in God then we think of what glorifies Him
If we think of others then their real needs are our focus
Our focus needs to be as is His – on others – in His Name
The true Christian life is a vicarious one…as it was with our Lord…and He is our Example.
It is a life for others
It lives for others…it loves for others
Our vicariousness depends also on our convictions and what life means to us
What does God mean to us…what is His role within our lives
What do others mean to us…and why
How do we count for Him in the lives of others
We live it from the inside out…according to our inner convictions and thinking
We need the mind of Christ…to think and envision as He does
We need the heart of Christ…to know and understand as He does
This is how our insides get lived out…with Him as our Example
Because of our convictions this is how and why we live as we do. It challenges us to love God, others, our true selves, and life as He intended it to be lived out to His glory.
1. Loving God with all our being
Every Hebrew child learned to recite Deuteronomy 6:4 and the doorpost of every home contained this portion of Scripture. The Shema calls us to love God with all our being. It is written on every believer’s heart and it is the key to all we are and all God expects of us. He knows us well; that is why it is in the form of a Command. Do it, and live. The reality of it is so far reaching within our lives and relationships that what God is giving us is the gift of life: God-life. Love loves God. He is its Source as well as its circumference.
Jesus calls it the first and greatest commandment. All else is built upon it. Without it we have no other sure foundation on which to build.
Learning how to do that is another matter entirely. That is because how we define love is not how God perceives it. To live according to our definition is to miss the mark. It is to build on a false foundation. The result is our own condemnation and self-destruction.
2. Loving others as we love ourselves
When we learn to take God’s command seriously we come to discover it compels us to love others as He loves them. He means for us to take Him seriously. To love Him means to love others. In His love we learn to love others as He loves them. His joy is to be able to love them through us.
Learning how this is to be obeyed is a real problem for us for we would rather pick and choose, and His love does not allow for that. He goes as far as to command us to love our enemies, to love those who hate us, and mistreat us. That means that none get excluded. He also points out to us that we cannot love Him any more than we are able to love them for they belong to Him and He loves them all just as He loves us.
The real problem we have in learning to love them springs from the lack of love we have for ourselves. His command to us includes this love as well.
3. Loving ourselves
It can be said that the greatest struggle we have in life springs from this command and our inability to realize it and live it out. We are commanded to love others as we love ourselves. But how do we love others when we have not yet learned how to love ourselves? This is a constant struggle for any shame-based person. Until we allow God’s grace to deal with our sense of shame and guilt, we have no real love for Him or for others, even in His Name.
There is no question in Scripture about us being loved by God, but that does not mean we accept it, believe it, practice it, and allow ourselves to feel it. Yet, who are we to call God a liar? Who are we to question or doubt the full, unconditional love of God for us? It is true others may not love us, but God does. We cannot prove to God we are unlovable when He sees it otherwise. He loves each one of us as if He had no one else to love! Now, how can we twist that into a lie?
It is time for us to see ourselves and others with His eyes…then, and only then, will we be in reality. And only then will we be able to love God as He is and others as they are in His sight.
4. Love is doing God’s will…in His way
Only when we learn to love Him with all our being and love others and ourselves as He loves us will we ever be able to discern His will for us and find the strength in His Spirit to fulfill that will to His glory.
First, His will teaches us the truth about ourselves: we are not our own…we have been bought with a great price, and as a result all that we are and have we owe to Him and His grace. We have to know His will and do it to His glory, because we have no life apart from Him and His will for us is the best and greatest we could ever know.
Second, we are here for His purposes…and not for our own. To live for Him is His will for us. We owe our all to Him. We find our all only in Him. The doing of His will is the greatest thing we could ever do. Anything less is to honor only self and to honor only self is to dishonor Him.
Being His and doing His will is the summum bonum of life itself. There is no other achievement that can surpass it. In His will we find our absolute joy and fulfillment.
5. Love values others…as He values them
The Christian life is a vicarious life: it has to be lived for others. Not only does it reveal them to us as His, but we also come to realize His place in them and within us as His own. In a very real sense the key word and concept for each of His own is others. We meet Him in them. What we do for them is what we do for Him. When we stoop to wash their feet we soon discover in doing it that the feet are in reality His.
By learning to put them ahead of ourselves we are honoring Him and putting Him first in all things. He is our Example in all this. We also discover all that we are doing, we are doing as unto Him. Herein lies our joy and peace.
6. Love is living the life God intends for us
Jesus is love’s example of how to pray: “Not My will but Yours be done….” “Not what I want but what You want for Me….” Since we are not our own, we belong to Him, therefore doing His will is what we are to be all about. We owe Him our all on a daily basis as well as eternally.
We are here for Him and not ourselves or others alone. But living the life to which He calls us means focusing on the real needs of others as revealed by Him.
7. Love is living with eternal values in view
Living today in the light of eternity means living as He did. Living as a child of God is what makes sense to us for He is in it with us and we with Him. Living it to His glory makes sense since we are doing it for Him and unto Him. All that we are and do has His mark on it, that is why and how it is eternal.
8. Love fashions its own worldview
It learns to see life through God’s eyes. This gives us the worldview of Jesus and that of the Holy Spirit. How different this is from any human dream or vision. Love learns to care for that world by learning to care with God’s own heart, not our own. It sees the world as His, and knows that in making all things new it will become a Redeemed Earth in His time and planning. How we live and what we do within His world, we do as unto Him and in His strength alone. Love determines to have its heart broken by the things that break the heart of God.
Conclusion
His is the One love we are willing to die for as well as live for and by whom it lives and dies. Love is building God’s Kingdom within His world for His sake and doing it in ways that glorify God alone. Love is living as unto Him. It is serving all others but it is doing it by living for Him so it will never lack His power, motivation, and outcome. Love is living as Jesus did in His earthly ministry and now in His Incarnational ministry in and through His own.
Love is living out His love within us. The love they are receiving and experiencing is of Him and they sense it. It is more than we could ever give them of ourselves. This happens because love is learning to allow Him to be alive in and through us. We are here to love-gift His world for Him.
Surrendering our hearts to Him and His purposes is what love is all about. This is also what true discipleship is all about. What we do for others in His Name is our life-gift to Him as our Lord.
May He find us loving when He comes for His own. This is the hope and the abiding conviction we have to live by.
Dr. Emil J. Authelet
eauthelet@cox.net
Next Month:
C IS FOR COLLABORATION
