Igniting Your Christian Life; Law of Love

You see, the whole law is just saying, love people. The Ten Commandments are love. Not making any graven image means you love God too much to do that and dishonor Him. Not taking His name in vain means you love Him too much to dishonor Him. All the Ten Commandments are a statement of principles that exhibit love. That’s all they are. Love is a way of life. Christians are to live in love. And that’s why the middle of this whole concept here in Ephesians 3 is love. God is trying to get us to the place where we function in a life of love.

I cannot, you know, and I just can’t stand up here and say, people love each other. If you don’t love people, I’m going to get really mad at you. That doesn’t make it. And I get up here and jump around and hop all over the place. But the point is, there’s only one way to love, and that’s to have Christ fill your life with His love. That will never happen till the Spirit strengthens the inner man. That will never happen till you yield to the Spirit. And you’re going to yield to the Spirit only when you’re filled with the Word of God.

And the Word of God has so filled you that the very Word of the Spirit is there by which to control you. In Ephesians 5 too, it says, like Paul is saying, and we’ll see this later, walk in love. Walk in love, your daily conduct in love, as Christ also hath loved us and hath given Himself for us an offering and a sacrifice to God. What kind of love? The kind of love that gives yourself as a sacrifice. That’s always the way in the Bible. And I’m just reinforcing what we’ve seen so many times.

Biblical love is an act of sacrifice, unselfishness. That’s the kind of love God’s after. God wants us to live in love, and it’s the only way to be happy. It doesn’t do you any good to be bitter and angry and hateful and resentful. You need to learn to love. And if you’re having a tough time with it, then back up to the beginning. Get back in the Word of God. Yield to the Spirit of God. Let Him have control of your life so that Christ can settle down and fill your life with His love.

And by the way, this love is available to everybody. Verse 18, may be able to comprehend with all saints. You say, well, I don’t… my temperament would never permit it. Yeah, everybody has this available. All saints. That’s not any inside track. You know, we sort of secretly do this. We say, well, you know, so-and-so just is so loving. They have the personality that is so loving, and so-and-so, wow, just so hard and cross. It’s a different temperament. No, it’s available to everybody. Now, love may take different forms, and it may express itself different ways through different people.

But love is something that can be comprehended, that is seized and personally possessed by all the saints. It’s for you. It’s for you. God wants all of us to know that love. And we could spend time going all over the Bible to show this, but I think you understand it. But let me add this. You’ll never find it anywhere aside from Christianity. Look at verse 19. This love passeth knowledge the love of Christ. Now notice this. It is not love for Christ. It is the love, what, of Christ. It’s the very same love that Christ had.

Isn’t that amazing? You know, in the 14, 15, 16 there of John’s Gospel, he has Christ leaving his peace, and his joy, and his supply, and his power. He has all the legacy of Christ. And one of the things that Christ left was his love. I can literally love with his love. Incredible. Now, Christians, we fight that a lot. You know, we just think of love as an, as sort of an emotional thing. And you know, we say, well, I can’t stand that person, but I love them in the Lord, you know.

We have a hard time. We’ve got some kind of a quasi-spiritual love. But the thing is that Christ wants us to love with his love. He wants us to love people the same way he loved them, sacrificially, selflessly, givingly, offering ourselves up for their behalf and their needs. But that only comes when we’re controlled by the Holy Spirit. It’s the love of Christ. And listen, the love of Christ passes knowledge. There’s no way human beings can ever know that apart from Christ. The world doesn’t have that kind of love.

Listen, I believe that if there is any husband and wife that ought to love each other, they’re Christians, because I don’t think the world could ever begin to comprehend the love available to us. And listen, it can be expressed in every human relationship. If there’s ever a family where brothers and sisters and moms and dads and kids ought to get along and have love, it’s a Christian family. Because we have a love that passes knowledge that is unavailable to the world. You know, the world’s love says you’re a nice object.

I choose to love you. I’m attracted to you. God’s love says I love by nature. You exist so you get it. The world’s love says I love you until I find something that looks better. God’s love says you look so perfect in Jesus Christ. I’ll love you forever. The world’s love says I love you till you offend me. God’s love says I love you in spite of the fact that you never stop offending me. And that’s the kind of love we bring to a relationship, any human relationship, that the world doesn’t know anything about.

The world loves for what it can get, and we love for what we can give, and what a privilege it is to have this love that passes knowledge. It’s like everything else we have. You know, when the world’s falling apart and we’ve got a peace that passes understanding, right? Philippians 4. And the world is looking for meaningful relationships, and we have a love that passes knowledge. But sad to say, you know, you look at Christianity, and no wonder the Lord Jesus was grieved. No wonder, I mean, that night in John 13, when the disciples were fighting and hassling and arguing about who was going to be the greatest in the And he writes later on does the Apostle Paul to the Philippian church, and he’s so upset because they’re fighting and wrangling, and there’s contention there, and some women have stirred up some problems.

And he says, I just want one thing. Would you have the same love, one for another? Let each of you look not on his own things, but on the things of others. Let each esteem others better than themselves. Would you try to be like Christ, who thought it not something to hold on to, to be equal with God, but made himself a servant? Would you try to get that kind of humility? They’ll never be love until there’s humility. Never. And humility is one of the things born of the Spirit of God.

So he says, look, if you have the inner strength of the Spirit of God, then you have the indwelling Christ who’s at home. You will have incomprehensible love as a foundation for living, as something you grasp for every situation, and is something you experience and understand that the world will never know. I mean it, people. And Jesus said it in John 13. We ought to be able to knock the world right off its feet with our love. We really should. And every time I hear, you know, about some kind of family, it grieves my heart.

And it’s happening all the time. Or between people, or in neighborhoods, or on the job, or anywhere. We ought to be so loving. We ought to exude the very love of Christ. And when we don’t, we betray the fact that we’ve not followed through the process of Ephesians 3, 14 and following. One other thought here. In verse 18 he says, he sort of tries to describe this, but it’s a little tough, you know, he says, what is the breadth and length and depth and height of this love? He says, we are able to grab this love in its fullness.

It’s not incomplete. I mean, it’s up and it’s down and it’s over there and it’s over here. He’s trying to give this thing almost a universal quantitative description. This love extending in all directions. One dear old saint of God said yes. And he said, the breadth and length and depth and height is illustrated by the cross, which is the symbol of love. The upper arm points up, and the lower arm points down, and the crossing arms point and extend their way all around the world to embrace it all. And such is the love of God.

God’s love for us is as big as his whole universe. . Jerome said that the love of Christ reaches up to the holy angels, and it reaches down to those in hell. Its length covers the men on the upward way, and its breadth reaches those drifting away on evil paths. But I guess the best way to interpret this little phrase here is to look at the book of Ephesians itself. What is the breadth of his love? How broad is it? How broad is the love of Jesus Christ? Chapter 2, verses 11 and following.

His love is broad enough to take the Gentiles who were called uncircumcision and to bring them together, those who were afar off, verse 13, and make them near by the blood of Christ. To take Jew and Gentile and make them one, verse 14, and break down the middle wall of partition and abolish the enmity and make one new man reconciling Jew and Gentile unto God. Listen, it’s broad enough to catch the Jew and the Gentile who were at the opposite ends of the world and bring them together. How long is this love? What is its length? Chapter 1 of Ephesians and verse 4.

It began when he chose us in him when? Before the foundation of the world, so it stretches from eternity past. Chapter 2, verse 7, that in the ages to come, he will show the exceeding riches of his grace in his kindness toward us through Christ Jesus. How long is his love? From eternity past to eternity future. How deep is his love? Chapter 2, verses 1 to 3. How deep? Deep enough to reach us when we were dead in trespasses and sin. When we walked according to the course of the world, according to the prince of the power of the air.

When we walked according to the spirit that works in the sons of disobedience. When our manner of life was guided by the lust of the flesh and the lust of the mind, and we were by nature the children of wrath. It was deep enough to reach the lowest pit to draw us out. How high is his love? High enough, according to chapter 1 and verse 3, to take us and bless us with all spiritual blessings in heavenly places. High enough, Ephesians 2.6, to raise us up together and make us sit together in the heavenlies in Christ Jesus.

That’s how high it is. It’s breadth. It can reach anybody. It’s length. It runs from eternity to eternity. It’s depth that reaches the pit of sin. It’s height it takes us to the presence of God and sits us on his throne. That’s his love. This is the kind of love we are to build our life on. This is the kind of love we are to comprehend and to seize at every moment. This is the kind of love we are to experience and know. The kind of love that reaches two parties that hate each other.

The kind of love that runs from one part of our life to the end of our life. The kind of love that reaches the person in the deepest pit. The kind of love that can lift up a person to the very presence of God. That’s the kind of love that we are to know. And so Paul prays that we will have a deep experiential knowledge of Christ’s love. A comprehension of its infiniteness. An expression of that same infiniteness that can only happen because we’re rooted and grounded in it. Because Christ is at home in us.

Because we are strong in the inner man. Because the Spirit of God is at work there. This is living life at a full throttle, people. Really love it up. Thank you for joining us in this exploration of igniting your Christian life. Law of love. Until next time, remember to keep the faith. Stay strong and continue to shine your light in the world. To hear these daily devotions of your daily bread, please log on to goddessgovernment.com Goodbye, and may your faith always lead the way. [tr:trw].