Greetings to you most beloved reader! It has been a very long time since I last posted [this may be a slight understatement]. But glory be to God I managed to utilise my time well enough to sit and polish this post up. I pray that it may be a blessing to you!
I am so grateful to share that I am a month and a little more into my studies at university. And while I will share more details about this journey at a later stage, I want to share about the realities on the state of my heart it has brought to light.
I feel like teachers in primary and high school warned me about this and I just did not take note: university is a very diverse environment. It is very easy to feel out of place and overwhelmed because of how fast paced and individualistic it can ban be at first. A helpful time to help sooth the transition is orientation [or O-Week]. And during my orientation week I realized just how large the ocean is and just how small a fish is.
From the age of 15 and onward (after I put my faith in Jesus) I was surrounded by people with whom I was more or less likeminded. No two people are ever going to be exactly the same, so of course there were differences and occasional clashes. But I realize now that because I was closer to them or well accquainted with most, it was easier to sympathisze with them. In a space where everyone is a distant stranger [some from distant lands] I confess that I find it harder to sympathize. More specifically, I confess that it is hard for me to see people as Jesus sees them when they are not close to me [relationally].
I was very eager to connect with other christians on campus and God in His grace led me to them. Yet in pride, I viewed those who did not ‘look’ the part with prejudice. I was even dismissive toward those who I didnt ‘deem fit’. But God allowed for me to see my heart and to pray into that, which is what I want to talk about today. The first instance when the Holy Spirit convicted me of this was in a converstion with another christian. I was expressing my thoughts on the wickedness that I was seeing around me and in a sense, condemning those who participated in it. And her response was ever so gentle. She replied: ‘we have to pray that they will see the Light because it is only by grace that we have been saved.’
The last part of that reponse was a blow to my conscience. It is only by grace that I have been saved, that I am a christian. After that experience I just kept having more convictions that brought me to my knees in repentance. Around that same time a friend of mind posted a lovely reminder to those who are in the faith.
The Gospel
For God so loved the word He gave His one and only Son that whoever would believe would never die but have Eternal life [John 3v16]. The work that Christ did on the cross is enough to cleanse us of our guilt, grant us forgiveness of our sins, set us free from the darkness and death of sin and give us eternal life.
Ephesians 2v1&4-5 says: And you were dead in your trespasses and sins…But God, being rich in mercy, because of the great love with which He loved us, even when we were dead in our tresspasses, made us alive together with Christ – by grace you have been saved…
These were the words that illuminated the condition of heart.
God loved the world that He sent His Son. God’s love is untowards everyone we meet no matter their lifestyle. I believe that God desires for everyone to repent and be saved [2 Peter 3v9]. The word of God also reveals that all humans have been made in God’s image, and should treated with respect and honor [James 3v9 and 1 Peter 2v17].
The words of Jesus Himself
In the gospels, Jesus highlights the two most important commandments: to love God with our entire beings and to love our neighbour as we love ourselves. These two commandments should guide our lives because we will be fulfilling God’s revealed will. When we follow the Holy Spirits guidance we are able to live our lives in this way.
Who is our neighbour?
In my reading of the Scriptures, I have seen that these instructions apply to ALL PEOPLE. I have seen first and foremost the Lord command that the believers should love each other as this will glorify and magnify God in the world [John 15v17]. The Lord says we should love our enemies [Matthew 5v44]. Jesus illustrated through the parable of the good Samaritan that our neighbour is not only inclusive of those geographiclly close to us, or those who share our views, backgrounds, styles or beliefs.
The mercy of the good Samaritan
The Jews of Jesus’ time looked at the Samaritans with disdain and never even spoke to them. [P.S. this is why the Samaritan woman at the well was so shocked that Jesus spoke to her in John 4!] The Samaritans were a genetic mix of Jews and Gentils and the Jews regarded them as heathans. Therefore, the parable that Jesus told in response to a question by lawyer [Luke 10v25-36] held a lot of weight. Jesus showed that the Samaritan was more of a neighbor to the Jew, that other Jews. He was showing that the title neighbor is implicit of even those commonly deemed as ‘outsiders’. Ultimately teaching that love extends even across harsh barriors between two parties. After all, God’s love was the first to extend across the chasm created by sin, in order to save us.
Love your neighbor as yourself. What I would like to be done to me, I must do to others. I have recieved the love of God, how can I dictate who recieves it? What is stopping me from honoring, and respecting and loving those that I meet? Nothing.
Yet still, Love the Lord your God.
The first and most important command is to love God with all our hearts, souls, bodies, mind, strength[with everything we are]. This means to honor God, to respect Him and to walk in agreement with Him… I can not love someone at the expence of loving God. If I do, it is probably not love in it’s pure form.
What God reveals in His word as sin, I can not call good because I love the person commiting the sin. I do not have to support sin or agree with it to love someone. God must be my first priority. I can not be outwardly or inwardly hateful, disrespectful, dishonoring, or discriminant to anyone, that is not the gospel. However, I can not compromise the standard of God and call it love.
I am humbled to say that I am learning to apply this in all the many different scenarios in which I find myself. I still struggle to love and I have been praying for God to fill me with His Spirit, and that The Spirit would bear the fruit of love in me as I follow Him[Galatians 5v22-23]. Ezekiel 36v26-27 and Psalm 51v10-12 have been my frequent prayers. And I know that there is grace and mercy for in Jesus Christ for those who turn to Him for forgivnes and help. So if you also relate to this, I invite you to be praying for your heart too.
The greatest of all of these is Love
The scripture that inspired the title of today’s post is found in 1 Corinthians 13v13: Three things will last forever-faith, hope and love-and the greatest of these is love(NLT). While explaining the futility of a variety of spiritual powers[when excercised without love], the writer says love has these characteristics:
- love is patient
- love is kind
- love is not jealous
- love is not boastful
- love is not proud
- love does not demand its own way
- love is not irritable
- love keeps no records of being wronged
- love not rejoice about injustice but rejoices whenever the truth wins out
- love never gives up
- love never loses faith
- love is always hopeful
- love endures through every circumstance
It is beautiful to note that God’s name can replace the word ‘love’ because these are His characteristics. But it is painful to see that I am not able to replace ‘love’ with my own name and have the statements still be true. I can not love out of my own ability, I need God. And so do you, dear friends.
The first step to being able to love well, is to recieve the love of God who sent His Son to die for our sin. We recieve His love by putting faith in Jesus, His death on the cross and His ressurection from the dead. This, He did so that you could live eternally, and be free from the power of sin. We ask Him to forgie us for our sin, to cleanse us and to come into our lives and change us. We can pray today and He will hear.
Until next time, beloved, try to live a life that is concious of Jesus, The King, and what it means to be in His kingdom. Please let me know your thoughts in the comments. Blessings to you and yours!
Discover more from Kingdom Conscious Reality
Subscribe to get the latest posts sent to your email.