This week’s meeting started off with the understanding that “God is love” and if God is love, there is no way to know what love truly is unless we come to know Him. We also came to understand that love is not rooted in simple acts. Rather, love is the characteristics and attributes that define who God is. We learned that love is not concerned about self and that it does not exist in pride.
So! Since none of us were born into an automatic relationship with God, none of us ever knew who love was because we were always taught that love is a thing and were never taught that He was a person. We might have understood being kind and acting nice. We might have learned how to be polite and maintain certain manners, but for so long; to love was a distorted view of human opinions, unstable emotions, and ever changing perspectives.
For that reason we can only know love by getting to know the Father. This lets us know that love has to be developed because love is unconditional, and as human beings we have a lot of conditions for a lot of things and with a lot of people. We also understood that in order to love and actually share that love (true love), we must first receive and accept all that Christ is and has demonstrated because He is the door to God, who is love. Out of love, God offers discernment to those that know they need it, and we all know we need it. Yet, only the humble ask. What we all need is the ability to spiritually understand life in order to make wise decisions and separate within ourselves what is flesh and what is spirit. The reasoning behind our need for this God-given spiritual discernment is because our battles in life are derived from a spiritual origin. This is why we’ve been told to take up or put on the armor of God. Through God given discernment we become able to recognize the traps and deceptive work of an entire army that is in opposition to God. These well devised traps have been set up to pollute our minds, to corrupt our hearts, and to develop within us passions and desires that would voluntarily drive us further and further away from God. These traps come in all forms and are set to catch the carnal at heart. These traps present themselves in the form of distractions and lies that sound good enough to believe. They are aimed at stealing our faith, or at least placing it in the wrong things or wrong people. It is the entire world we live in that is in conflict with God and His ways.
So it is when we find ourselves being influenced to move, behave, and pursue its objectives and narratives, we to become in conflict with God. The reason the conflict exists is because all that the world promotes, values, and teaches is deemed flesh. It is all carnal, worldly, and anchored in self. It is a life lived full of hope, reliance, and faith in all that is material and temporal. It is the opposite of spirit, which God is. On many occasions, if being honest we have all been influenced throughout life by the world and its vision. This is why the person we’ve been has to stop existing while the new creation we are becoming in Christ is being developed. As we learn and practice communicating with God, His voice becomes clearer the more we separate ourselves from His enemy (the world). However, if we are always preoccupied with worldly things such as all the different devices and forms of entertainment, we drown His voice out and the freedom and favor He offers ends up forfeited.
We all have desires for things in this world, but in order for the old man to die we can’t keep feeding him what he wants. We must turn to Christ for divine help and receive with thankfulness whatever grace and mercy God may give us. We then have to be intentional to turn away from the flesh and deny it’s cravings. We must then begin to follow the voice and leading of the Holy Spirit. We have to daily move ourselves out of the way so that God can have His way. We have to be able to recognize the moments we are acting lukewarm or hypocritical because our allegiance is seen in our activities.
It is so vital that our relationship with the Father is always growing. As we get closer to Him, He will reveal things that aren’t always positive in our nature or within our character. However, we cannot let any excuses or lack of faith keep us from overcoming those things we are shown. We overcome based on who we trust. When we actually listen and obey, the results that God has in mind and heart manifest and a new part of our testimony is established.
It is not an easy task to follow Christ or to walk in repentance daily so we have to stay focused. If we look to impress people rather than live to impress God, we will not be able to walk in our freedom. Freedom through transformation begins with changing the way we think. Our thought life changes when we take our concerns and thoughts off the world and place them on God and the things that pertain to His Kingdom. It is amazing how the Lord will begin to use us in ways we would have never thought or even believed. This walk is a day by day and moment by moment choice to not get in God’s way. So let us learn to love, not like the thing we’ve been taught but more like the person we are coming to know. It is obvious that He loves us, now is the time to make it obvious we love Him. Obedience is the ultimate way to show our love. If He is truly first. If He is truly loved by us. Nothing He asks would ever seem too hard or too much, nor would there ever be anything we wouldn’t be willing to do.
SCRIPTURES FROM THIS WEEK
1 John 4:8
1 John 4:16
1 Corinthians 13:4-7
Ephesians 6:10-13
1 Corinthians 10:13
Romans 6:1-4
II Corinthians 5:17
Matthew 6:19-21
James 4:4
Acts 3:19
James 1:13-15
1 John 5:4
John 16:33
Galatians 1:10
Galatians 5:16-18
Romans 8:5-8
Colossians 3:1-2
Luke 9:23-27
John 14-15
