What Do We Love?
A very interesting and insightful litmus test for our spiritual well-being in our lives is how or what we love…this may seem like a cliché thought or over-simplification but it truly is not. Jesus said that the pressure of the last days would be so great that the love of many would grow cold! (Matthew 24:12 AMP)
What we often miss in this passage is that what is happening around us affects what is going on within us! Love is a product of our inner man. It flows from God to us and should flow out from us to the world. Jesus said this concept of love, loving God and others, was the very most important thing! (Matthew 22:35-40 TPT)
Even though Jesus said you could summarize all of the Word and its purpose in these 2 commandments, I feel like most of us just glaze over when we start to talk about love. We know that God is love (1 John 4:8, 16), and the greatest of these is love (1 Corinthians 13:13), and that we are supposed to love God and others (Matthew 22). However, I’m not sure we realize the pressure and pointed purpose of the enemy to dull our hearts and minimize our expression of this very identification of our Christianity. (John 13:35 TPT)
Even though this is super important to God and to us, and it seems like such a simple word – yet somehow in the actual expression of love, much is lacking. Just try to share an opposing view on a social media platform…you get the idea. Our culture has become so polarized, even within Christianity, that we can not even share space for differing opinions. Yet…we know how important love is.
Space will not allow us to fully unpack this but my concern is that if we know there is the possibility of our love growing cold and that the enemy is targeting this very identifying factor of the Body of Christ, how can we not be more intentional about this premier fruit flourishing on the trees of our lives?
If we take a look at Paul’s letter to his son in the faith, Timothy, I believe we can glean some vital insights. Paul was near the completion of his race, so we know he was expressing his deepest concerns and most needed wisdom to Timothy. He begins to share with him what it would be like in the end-times. (2 Timothy 3:1-4 TPT)
The first thing we notice is that Paul outlines the fact that the world we live in will become extremely fierce. And the first thing that this will affect is love…people will become lovers of themselves. Because of the intensity of the days – they will slip into self-preservation and love themselves more than anything else.
When we become our “reason”, everything is turned upside down, which is clear in the following verses. When we live like this our gratitude becomes non-existence because we are always wanting more to fill up the abyss of ourselves that we can’t fill. That will cause us to become enslaved to fulfilling our own desires. One can see that this is a slippery slope, ever sliding deeper into degradation – the further we move away from the life-line of love.
And lastly, we begin to love what is around us more than the One Who gave us all of this. (2 Timothy 3:4b AMP) (2 Timothy 3:4b The New Testament: An Expanded Translation by Kenneth S. Wuest)
This is the most convicting phrase of the text, and possibly gives us the reason the people that Paul was talking about had gotten into such a poor spiritual condition. They had shifted their love way from God and began to love pleasures more. From the Greek we could translate that phrase “they became friends with lust.”
Often, we relegate lust only to sexual arenas, however, lust can find its way into almost every avenue of our lives…Are we craving God or are we friends with our cravings?
It is vital that we are aware that the difficulty of our days can deeply affect our expression of love, both to God and others. Let’s make an intentional effort to let this primary fruit of the spirit be the most outstanding characteristic about us. The only debt we can never fully pay is our debt of love. (Romans 13:8 TPT)
We have the tendency to make our lives about a lot of other things rather than what Jesus said was the most important…that we love! I want to encourage all of us to begin to seek out ways to very practically express love in our every day lives, as we do this, we are fulfilling God’s greatest commandment and we will be a living testimony to Him in the earth.
Peter expressed it this way: 1 Peter 4:7-8 AMP
Keeping ourselves focused on loving God and loving others with intensity is a key to thriving in difficult days! Keep burning for Him! Much love from all of us at WILD!
What we often miss in this passage is that what is happening around us affects what is going on within us! Love is a product of our inner man. It flows from God to us and should flow out from us to the world. Jesus said this concept of love, loving God and others, was the very most important thing! (Matthew 22:35-40 TPT)
Even though Jesus said you could summarize all of the Word and its purpose in these 2 commandments, I feel like most of us just glaze over when we start to talk about love. We know that God is love (1 John 4:8, 16), and the greatest of these is love (1 Corinthians 13:13), and that we are supposed to love God and others (Matthew 22). However, I’m not sure we realize the pressure and pointed purpose of the enemy to dull our hearts and minimize our expression of this very identification of our Christianity. (John 13:35 TPT)
Even though this is super important to God and to us, and it seems like such a simple word – yet somehow in the actual expression of love, much is lacking. Just try to share an opposing view on a social media platform…you get the idea. Our culture has become so polarized, even within Christianity, that we can not even share space for differing opinions. Yet…we know how important love is.
Space will not allow us to fully unpack this but my concern is that if we know there is the possibility of our love growing cold and that the enemy is targeting this very identifying factor of the Body of Christ, how can we not be more intentional about this premier fruit flourishing on the trees of our lives?
If we take a look at Paul’s letter to his son in the faith, Timothy, I believe we can glean some vital insights. Paul was near the completion of his race, so we know he was expressing his deepest concerns and most needed wisdom to Timothy. He begins to share with him what it would be like in the end-times. (2 Timothy 3:1-4 TPT)
The first thing we notice is that Paul outlines the fact that the world we live in will become extremely fierce. And the first thing that this will affect is love…people will become lovers of themselves. Because of the intensity of the days – they will slip into self-preservation and love themselves more than anything else.
When we become our “reason”, everything is turned upside down, which is clear in the following verses. When we live like this our gratitude becomes non-existence because we are always wanting more to fill up the abyss of ourselves that we can’t fill. That will cause us to become enslaved to fulfilling our own desires. One can see that this is a slippery slope, ever sliding deeper into degradation – the further we move away from the life-line of love.
And lastly, we begin to love what is around us more than the One Who gave us all of this. (2 Timothy 3:4b AMP) (2 Timothy 3:4b The New Testament: An Expanded Translation by Kenneth S. Wuest)
This is the most convicting phrase of the text, and possibly gives us the reason the people that Paul was talking about had gotten into such a poor spiritual condition. They had shifted their love way from God and began to love pleasures more. From the Greek we could translate that phrase “they became friends with lust.”
Often, we relegate lust only to sexual arenas, however, lust can find its way into almost every avenue of our lives…Are we craving God or are we friends with our cravings?
It is vital that we are aware that the difficulty of our days can deeply affect our expression of love, both to God and others. Let’s make an intentional effort to let this primary fruit of the spirit be the most outstanding characteristic about us. The only debt we can never fully pay is our debt of love. (Romans 13:8 TPT)
We have the tendency to make our lives about a lot of other things rather than what Jesus said was the most important…that we love! I want to encourage all of us to begin to seek out ways to very practically express love in our every day lives, as we do this, we are fulfilling God’s greatest commandment and we will be a living testimony to Him in the earth.
Peter expressed it this way: 1 Peter 4:7-8 AMP
Keeping ourselves focused on loving God and loving others with intensity is a key to thriving in difficult days! Keep burning for Him! Much love from all of us at WILD!
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