“Truly, truly, I say to you, he who believes in Me, the works that I do, he will do also; and greater works than these he will do; because I am going to the Father.” John 14:12

“This is my commandment, that you love one another as I have loved you. Greater love has no one than this: to lay down one’s life for one’s friends. John 15:12‭-‬13 

‘Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind.’ This is the first and greatest commandment. And the second is like it: ‘Love your neighbor as yourself.’ All the Law and the Prophets hang on these two commandments.” Matthew 2: 37-40 

There’s Love in All That He Says

God is always good, and He always loves us.
His generous blessings are new every day.
But we need to hear what God is speaking to us,
To receive the blessings He wants to convey.

But sometimes unaware, we heed the enemy’s voice,
And we entertain the fear and hate he so loves.
Resulting in trauma that takes our faith, hostage,
Until God says, He’s had enough.
Trauma impairs recognition and memory.
And confusion is trauma’s close friend.
So it’s important to recognize the voice of God
Before the confusion can ever walk in.

But how can we know it’s God’s voice
Out of all of the voices we hear?
How can we identify His voice,
In the midst of confusion and fear?
Let’s consider God’s heart and character
Where there is only love, mercy, and grace.
This leads us to the conclusion,
Love is the only thing God creates.

So whenever we find ourselves in uncertainty,
When the voices are swirling around in our heads,
We can easily pick out the voice belonging to God,
For there is love in all that He says
Linda Troxell © 08/30/2021

How to Love Your Neighbor; When You Don’t

Being fully man and fully God, Jesus had access to His divine powers as He walked the earth. But He chose not to use them because He wanted to understand the entire human experience. Some dispute this idea. They argue that Jesus had to use His divine powers to perform miracles of healing and resurrection. But they are mistaken because one does not need to be God to perform miracles; one only needs to know God. The miracles Jesus performed here on earth were not through His divine power but by the power of His Father working through Him. If that were not true, why did Jesus tell His disciples that they would also do what He did? “Truly, truly, I say to you, he who believes in Me, the works that I do, he will do also; and greater works than these he will do; because I am going to the Father.” John 14:12 

Even knowing the horror of His ending, Jesus stepped down from glory to be an example for us of living without sin. If He had used divine powers, it would not have conveyed the intended message that there is nothing we need that God won’t provide. Everything, from food and shelter to contentment, safety, and love, begins with God above. Every good gift and every perfect gift is from above, and comes down from the Father of lights, with whom there is no variation or shadow of turning.– James 1:17.

Jesus put on human skin to model for us how God calls us to live. Most importantly, He modeled for us how God wants us to love. This is what He told His apostles, who He also called friends, about love: “This is my commandment, that you love one another as I have loved you. Greater love has no one than this: to lay down one’s life for one’s friends. -John 15:12‭-‬13.

Jesus loved everyone, and He lived by His words. However, He never said “I love you,” to anyone. Some of the gospel writers described Jesus as loving one or more persons, and He, Himself, said, “Love one another as I have loved you;” and “As the Father loved me, I also have loved you…” But nowhere in the Bible is it recorded that He said the words I love you to anyone. But then words can be empty and meaningless, so instead of verbalizing His love, Jesus demonstrated it through His behavior. 

Sometimes the demonstrations were dramatic, like healing the sick or casting out demons from the possessed. At other times He showed His love more subtly, like when He loved the outcasts and outsiders by socializing with them freely and respectfully. And He showed His love to the untouchables by never hesitating to touch them. He also showed His love by carefully listening to those with whom He spoke, making them feel heard and understood; in psychology, we call this active listening. On one occasion, Jesus preached to a crowd of more than 5,000 for two days. When He realized His audience was far from home and hungry, He created a feast for 5,000 using only two fish and five loaves of bread. Jesus showed his love wherever He went by caring for the needs of the people.” Then he ordered the crowds to sit down on the grass, and taking the five loaves and two fish, he looked up to heaven and said a blessing. Then he broke the loaves and gave them to the disciples, and the disciples gave them to the people. –Matthew 14:19

When His disciples inquired about the most important of the scriptures, Jesus pointed them to this: ‘Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind.’ This is the first and greatest commandment. And the second is like it: ‘Love your neighbor as yourself.’ All the Law and the Prophets hang on these two commandments.” –Matthew 22: 37-40 The commandment that we love our neighbors as we love ourselves is the second of the two because we cannot obey it until we FULLY understand and fully implement the first. Why? Because unless we believe what God says of us, that we are made in His image, loved unconditionally just as we are, the finished work of the Cross has redeemed our sins, past, present, and future, as well as reconciling us with God forever, it is impossible for us to fully love ourselves. 

The finished work of the Cross gives us a chance to die to sin and live as a child of God, co-heirs with Jesus, simply by having faith in Jesus as our Lord and Redeemer. (Luke 12:32) God forgave our sins by imputing His son’s perfect righteousness to us. In this exchange, Christ got all our guilt and sin, and we got His righteousness. Until we understand what Jesus bought for us on the Cross, we will never fully understand nor accept God’s forgiveness. Paul confirms the great exchange of our sin for Jesus’ righteousness in 2 Corinthians 5:18, which says: And all this is from God, who has reconciled us to himself through Christ and given us the ministry of reconciliation, namely, God was reconciling the world to himself in Christ, not counting their trespasses against them and entrusting to us the message of reconciliation.

In the original Greek, the word for reconcile is katallasso, which means to change or exchange. Clearly, Paul is saying that to make a way for us to live with Him in eternity, God exchanged our sins for the righteousness of Christ, thus allowing Him to see our sins no more. Even so, unless we can believe in our hearts that because of our redemption, God sees His Son’s righteousness where He used to see our sin, we will always feel shame and contempt when we look in the mirror. 

Apart from narcissists, we all have experienced some degree of self-loathing. It is the dissatisfaction, or perhaps outright hatred, we feel for the person we see in the mirror. This hatred is manifested by the voice in our heads calling us ugly, stupid, fat, and on and on. And it may also tell us that we are hopeless and we will never do or be anything right. As part of the contempt for ourselves and the shame we feel in response to that voice, we then ask ourselves this destructive, question nonstop, “What will people think if they know…? This is a universal condition; the only variance being the degree. And, if we can’t love ourselves, we have no love to give; we cannot give what we do not have.

This may seem like a catch-22; we can’t love ourselves because we feel unworthy of God’s love, and we can’t love our neighbors because we don’t love ourselves. But it isn’t a catch-22 because there is an escape. It begins when we stop believing what the world tells us about love, that it is an emotion, a feeling that Jesus told us we must have for our neighbors; even the most annoying, who are also made in the image of God. But love is not an emotion; it’s a behavior, well, technically, many behaviors.

Just as Jesus did, when we love someone, we put their needs above our own and ensure they have what they need. If they are hungry, we feed them. If they are cold, we get them a jacket or a blanket. If they are hurt or scared, we comfort them. We treat those we love tenderly; we are tender and patient when we speak to them. And when we listen to them, we listen carefully, not to plan our next reply, but to understand and empathize with their feelings. The world has led us to believe these behaviors are the result of the love we identify as coming from our hearts. But in reality, what we are feeling is the result of feel-good chemicals that rush into our brains when we are sexually attracted to someone. The behaviors don’t come from love but from our attempt to pursue that person. 

What the world tells us is often backward and what it tells us about love is no different. Love doesn’t lead us to behave in a loving manner, and love is not an artificial feeling manufactured by various chemicals. Instead, in kingdom reality, it is loving behaviors that lead to love. More accurately, the behaviors lead to the fruits of the Spirit. When we live from these fruits, i.e. love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, generosity, faithfulness, gentleness, and self-control, we are living in obedience to God. It is that obedience that leads to the euphoria we identify as love. It’s a lasting euphoria, that pales in comparison to the temporary artificial euphoria that comes from sexual attraction.

So if you believe you cannot love those who are thorns in your side, maybe your annoying and critical neighbor, your nosey mother-in-law, or especially your overbearing boss, I challenge you to treat them with only loving behavior for thirty days. I wager that you will begin to see the fruit of the Spirit in your life and feel the euphoria that comes from obeying God. 

Let’s pray:

Lord, thank you for all the blessings you bring to us; blessings that we are mostly unaware of. Help us to be more aware of and more grateful for all of them. And, Lord, help us to remember that although the world is our temporary home, we are not to live by its ideas or by its standards. Help us to be aware of and to live in kingdom reality. A reality in which you meet all of our needs, and love is the architect of our thoughts, words, and deeds and not a mere feeling. And, Lord, please help us to live in obedience to you so that we may permanently possess all the Fruits of the Spirit. Help us too, Lord, to understand that to love our neighbors, all of our neighbors, we need only model our behavior after Jesus’, approaching the world from the fruits of the Spirit. Because we know Lord that if everything we do is from love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, generosity, faithfulness, gentleness, and self-control, we will be living in full obedience to you. And we will feel the euphoria that obedience brings. Help us to always know and remain in your will, Lord. We pray this in the holy name of Jesus. AMEN!