Monday, February 15, 2010

"The Theme"

"From everlasting to everlasting, Thou art God... God is love... charity (love) seeketh not her own" (Psalm 90:2; I John 4:8; I Corinthians 13:5).

God has always been who He is in His essence. He has always been love. He has always sought not His own benefit, but rather lived in the sublime selflessness so beautifully expressed by the Lord Jesus Christ during His earthly lifetime.

"I do always those things that please the Father... The son of man came not to be ministered unto, but to minister, and give His life a ransom for many" (John 8:29; Matthew 20:28).

This truth first presents to us the necessity of a plurality, as it were, within the unity of the one God. Love must have a recipient in order to be love. Before creation, when there was only God, there must have been a giving and receiving within His being. The Bible solves this enigma by revealing that three persons comprise the Godhead. The Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit have forever existed in the perfection of unity, while nevertheless being distinct personalities within the oneness. Thus, love has always been possible, and infinitely actual, in our Creator. "Father, I will that they also, whom Thou hast given Me, be with me where I am; that they may behold My glory, which Thou hast given Me: for Thou lovedst Me before the foundation of the world" (John 17:24).

If such a one makes a race of beings in His own image, love must be the dominant reality of their existence also. A great spiritual and moral cataclysm occurred early in the history of humanity, however, and love was cast aside for a supposed wisdom of knowing good and evil. Adam and Eve partook of the forbidden tree of the knowledge of good and evil, and true love for God and each other became an impossibility. It is inherent in humanity not to love (as God defines love), but to know. Our brains supersede our hearts, and the reversal of emphasis is the cause of every human misery.

Through Christ, "the love of God is shed abroad in our hearts by the Holy Spirit who is given unto us" (Romans 5:5). A work begins in the believer upon his new birth that will culminate in our being "like Him" (I John 3:2). More than anything else, this means that we shall love as God loves by the power of His presence and enabling. During our earthly lifetimes, the work is ongoing as the Holy Spirit moves upon us and within us to form the character of Christ in growing expression. He seeks to correct the heart/brain distortion, ensuring that character precedes knowledge as our guiding light. The latter is not minimized in the reversal, but greatly enhanced as our cognitive abilities become the servants of the love of God.

"Love is the the theme." The words of the old hymn express the truth that must inform and motivate the great pursuit of our lives. We exist to be loved by our Heavenly Father, and to love Him and others in joyful response. Nothing else will satisfy God's heart concerning us, and nothing else will satisfy our hearts. This day is the one opportunity we have in this lifetime to devote ourselves to the theme. May it be when we lay our head upon our pillow tonight that we will known our Father's love for us, the Son's love in us, and the Spirit's love leading us to experience the wonder God's of selfless nature of otherness. Indeed, we will find ourselves in holy fulfillment as we lose ourselves in holy self sacrifice (Matthew 10:39).

"Mercy unto you, and peace, and love be multiplied."
(Jude 1:2)

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