Let us practice loving each other

Let us practice loving each other Mc Crossan

Let us practice loving each other

Brendan Mc Crossan

One

1-John-4-7- The Way the living Bible

Let us practice loving each other, for love comes from God and those who are loving and kind show they are the children of God.

As I was looking through my Bible, I spotted this verse and immediately the thought that came to me was look at how easy God is making it for us to grow in love, to become better people, to be more obedient children. He didn’t demand we immediately just drop everything and begin to love others, just like that. We have people we have issues with; people that have caused us great pain and God in his gentle ways says, let us practice loving each other, he knows how hard it is for us human beings to love unconditionally just like him. It will take many years for some of us and not so long for others but God is the one giving the same grace to all.

For an example;

I am a very good guitar player; I play my guitar almost every day, and now and again I practice doing different things on it, tunes that I heard, or little blues runs, but for most of the time I just play it during my worship. Then there are days when I sit down and just go over a piece of music until I get it right, I practice hard to perfect that tune until I have it exactly the way I want it to sound.

And that is just the way it is with love, God says to practice even when you are not getting it right, like me hitting bum notes on the guitar; I don’t condemn myself in not getting the tune right immediately, and you and I should not condemn ourselves either when we are trying to practice love. God does not condemn us or is disappointed in us when we try and love and fail; he delights in our effort to be better more loving children.

He knows we will never get it right the first time, he is far from stupid, he knows our faults and our weakness and he uses them to perfect us a little at a time. For instance a person may have done a wrong to us, and we try to be all smiles to them when we see them, trying to be like Jesus, and inside us we are snarling at them with bared teeth waiting to pounce at the first wrong word, our minds thinking all sorts of things , like I could punch her or him in the face, or I should have said this or that the last time I had a row with them, and our lips are drawn back in a false smile, ready to change into lions teeth that could rip their throat out, the very moment they say the wrong thing to us.

I would call that the first stage of practicing loving; we do what we don’t want to because we love Jesus and want to please him, he is more important than our grievances’ against the other person and so we put on a front, a false smile, and a nice little ‘hullo’ as we hurry past them, getting away from them as soon as possible, then we stop and let our face drop and relax that

false smile, and we begin to ridicule that person to another with us or with whom we meet, tearing that person to shreds with our tongues, then we get a little nagging feeling that were doing wrong and we slowly reluctantly drop it and change the subject, even though we love it ridiculing that other person, it felt good to condemn them, to tell someone of the terrible things they did to us, and inside of us wants to go on and on tearing them to pieces with those lions teeth hidden behind our false smile; and then the Holy Spirit puts a little more pressure on us to stop and we eventually slow down and then stop, but wanting to go on getting even, and so reluctantly you give in to the spirits correction and stop all together. The final stage is to love them unconditionally.

How easy it is to tear someone to shreds who have done you wrong, it is easier to condemn someone who hurt you than to forgive them, that is human nature, but since you became born again you have now a new nature that wants to become more and more like Jesus, and it is that new nature that is longing to get to the front, to push the old nature to the back, and therein a battle commences between the new nature of Christ Jesus who lives in you and the old sinful nature who is still around, and that is why God says to practice loving, a little at a time, he will not force you to stop feeling the way you do when you are hurt by someone, he knows your feelings better than you do, and so a little at a time he gives you more grace to change over the years.

Years later you are still going through the same sort of things and you wonder if you ever will achieve the things God wants of you, but you need to remember that it not you helping your self to change it is the grace of God in you and not by human means. Remember the scripture, ‘it is not by might or power but by the Holy Spirits power.’ This is what causes the slow change in you.

If God were to change you instantly, it would be like you roasting yourself on a beach in a hot country and then jumping into a freezing swimming pool, the shock would almost kill you. God is quite content to let his spirit do what he knows best, and the spirit knows the things that you have overcome even though you yourself have not recognized those changes.

I was complimented by my son a few days ago, who had been living in America for the last fifteen years and he came home after being away for 12 of those years, and he said to me as I was driving him back to the airport, ‘Da {dad} you have changed a lot since I last saw you, you are so gentle and thoughtful, even when driving you are so courteous to other drivers letting them have the right of way even when it is yours.’ I was amazed to say the least, I never though he would see any change in me as I never thought about me changing in any way. I never lost my temper or tooted the horn at an ignorant or dangerous driver even when they almost got me killed, it was in my new nature when I began driving and I never noticed but my son did and other members of my family also commented on my attitude towards other drives and they said they would feel road rage when drivers did what they did.

I am changing inside and wasn’t aware that others seen it and at times I thought I was still the same after thirty five years with the lord, when I did those things I used to do. Now of course I realize there is progress and it is the enemy putting pressure on us to look like we have gone back into old ways, but the reality is that we have changed sometimes beyond recognition as we have been changed from glory to glory. The work of the Holy Spirit is a deep cleansing of

our souls, making us more and more like Jesus who dwells in us until no one, not even the enemy can tell the difference between us, and how he does that is by teaching us how to grow in love daily.

We will find ourselves going through the same problems time after time until eventually we learn how to deal with them, and then we move on to another problem we have with loving, and the Holy Spirit repeats the same procedure again and again until perfection in love in that area is attained in that work. All this is a daily task that gets thrown in as we go about our daily lives and we are not even aware of it until much later when we realize that when the same thing happens again we don’t step outside love because that part has now been perfected by trials and tribulations. Instead of trials and temptations being a bad thing they actually work for our good because God says he changes everything for our good; Romans-8-28

James 1 New International Version (NIV)

Trials and Temptations

2 Consider it pure joy, my brothers and sisters whenever you face trials of many kinds,3 because you know that the testing of your faith produces perseverance.4 Let perseverance finish its work so that you may be mature and complete, not lacking anything.

I used to wonder about this bible verse because I seen in other verses that God says to fight the good fight of faith, and to resist the enemy when he attacks, and I believed one time God meant us to continually fight the enemy and never give in, until I realized that there is a difference between an attack that God allows to help us grow because he is in it with us; and an attack from the enemy directly at you.

An attack that God allows you to suffer in is meant to help your faith grow, as you stand your ground in praising him and trusting him to get you through it, and in trying to be loving in it; but not only does he want you to get through it, but in certain cases he uses this to make our love grow, it is in discerning which is which that we need the spirits gift of discernment; so that we allow the spirit of God to work in us by giving us the grace to mature in love while at the same time sending the enemy fleeing. The enemy uses our loved ones to attack us with words of condemnation and arguments and bitterness, and we can chose to attack back at them or learn to forgive them and possible see things from their perspective and so understand their frustrations, it all depend on how we handle this that makes our faith and love grow.

We could rant and rave claiming we are in the right and get very angry and be led into rage or we could stop and think for a moment asking God for the grace to handle this situation and so by doing that we get to grow in love. By getting angrier than the person coming against you gives them the upper hand always, we should learn to put love over everything and see where

God leads us, and remember God is love so you are putting God over your mind and emotions, and this does not come instantly but by years of practice.

This is why this scripture says to put on love by ‘practicing loving others,’ we practice by making mistakes and then saying ‘sorry’ both to the offended party or to God for sinning, and then try again the next time, and there ‘will’ be a next time until you have learned to put on love over the circumstances. This is not an easy task but God has allowed time for this to grow in maturity, he talks often about the farmers sowing seed then having to wait until it grows and matures until it is ready for harvest. God had all this in his design of our beings, he knew it will take time for his fruit to grow and mature and ripen. Won’t it be just awesome that when the angels come around to harvest us for the kingdom of God, that we are fully, mature, fruit, and fit for a king?

God has all the time in the world and is in no rush to make us grow quickly in love, all we have to do is begin practicing it.

Have a good time learning to walk in love, I will pray for you the reader if you pray for me, I have to practice also. Bless You.

Amen