Love

Love

Is it love to be smooth-tongued, to put on a smiling face, to make promises that are never kept and to flatter others to their face? Such love fades quickly; it is fickle. Hypocrisy and flattery appease the flesh. People are willing to put up with a lot of foolishness as long as it is accompanied by ample carnal pleasures.

You wouldn’t expect anymore from “the world.” Unfortunately, this hypocrisy is also found in the Christian world to such a degree that believers who are not contaminated with that spirit are regarded as hard, unloving and severe.

Our carnal mind gives us all kinds of preconceived ideas about how love is supposed to behave, and we act according to these ideas. We think love must always be agreeable, sweet, yielding and should not, in any way, do anything but please people. Ungodly people have the same understanding, and that is why they say that God is hard and unloving. He does not conform to their ideas of love.

It is easy to see that this kind of love will only encourage you to spare yourself. Jesus responded to this kind of love by saying, “Get behind Me, Satan!”

The Spirit of God searches even the depths of God, and in this Spirit we have understood, by God’s grace, that the love of God goes far beyond our human perceptions of what God’s love is. His love is so deep that it is gladly willing to sacrifice everything that we once thought should be nurtured and cherished. Here God gives us an opportunity to test ourselves: Are we willing to offer ourselves and by this demonstrate that we love God?

The best wine is always saved for last. After a person has spoken two or three times from his own human folly, God asks him, “Where were you when I laid the foundations of the earth?” “Now prepare yourself like a man; I will question you, and you shall answer Me.” Job 38:3-4.

Even Job, who spoke in such a way that rulers cowered and opposers “covered their mouths with their hands,” had to acknowledge that he spoke of things he did not understand, things too high for him, things he knew nothing about. Yet it was love itself that was dealing with him. Our lifespan is usually about 70 years, and during that time we have ample opportunity to deny the carnal lusts that war against our soul, thus demonstrating in practice whether or not we have love.

God loves us so fervently that He wants to give us divine, eternal life, full of His own nature—at the expense of our own self-life. A man whose understanding is darkened cannot comprehend this. He only sees the temporal, and he seeks to gain every possible earthly advantage from life. Everything that interferes with his pleasure he regards as evil, even though God’s intention with it was to give him eternal riches.

There is something called the “mystery of godliness,” a mystery that can only be uncovered through godly fear. The knowledge of God’s eternal and sacrificial love is hidden in these mysteries. Once a person tastes even a drop of this love, it will have such a powerful effect that he will forever reject everything that people regard as love.

For this love, no sacrifice is too great because we understand what God’s will is. No obstacle can stop our course, and no evil plans that man can lay against us can make us discouraged. The Lord is with us, and what is man that we should be fearful of him? Since we have learned to lay down our life, we have no fear of those who would take it from us. This is the faith that has overcome the world, and this is the love that has conquered every vestige of “spare yourself.”