BONDED TO GODS LOVE
As we read the many stories from the gospels, we find that there is one gospel writer, the apostle John, who stands out as the one who was bonded to the love of Jesus from the very beginning. His writings emphasize the love of God more than any other Biblical writings. John wrote the last five books of the Bible, which included his gospel and then his three epistles and then the Book of Revelation. In his own gospel he even refers to himself as ‘the dis...
BONDED TO GODS LOVE
As we read the many stories from the gospels, we find that there is one gospel writer, the apostle John, who stands out as the one who was bonded to the love of Jesus from the very beginning. His writings emphasize the love of God more than any other Biblical writings. John wrote the last five books of the Bible, which included his gospel and then his three epistles and then the Book of Revelation.
In his own gospel he even refers to himself as ‘the disciple that Jesus loved’. He was not being proud in saying this - it was simply a revelation of the love of God through Jesus for all of humanity, and so he qualified for that. And in John’s gospel in the story of the last supper when Jesus said that one of them would betray him all the disciples looked at Jesus and said one after another ’Is it I Lord?’ But John was not feeling self-conscious or guilty as perhaps the others did and so he simply said ‘Who is it Lord?’ I’m reading today from the first epistle of John which is totally about the love of God that bonds us to God and to one another.
1John 3:1. Think about how wonderful is the love that has been lavished upon us by the Father, calling us his very own sons and daughters. But realize that the world does not understand us for who we really are, because it does not understand Jesus for who he really is.
2. So, we are now true sons and daughters of God my beloved, and it is not quite clear to us as to what we shall ultimately be like. All we can know is that when he returns we will be like he is, because we will see him for who he really is.
3. And all those who keep this hope and expectation alive will purify the state of their hearts and minds, just as Jesus did.
7. My dear children don't be deceived by anybody about this; whoever is living a life that shows that they are in harmony with Jesus, is living in the same harmony with the Father as Jesus is.
9. Whoever knows that they are part of God’s very life, as his child, will not oppose God outright, because he is born of the same seed, and the essence of God’s life is his life. So he cannot live in hostile contradiction to him because he is part of him.
10. This is how you are going to be able see the difference between those who really are bonded to God as their Father, and those who are still bonded to darkness, in the same way. Whoever doesn’t live a truthful and upright life or doesn’t show love and care and kindness towards others is not bonded with God.
11. And God has been saying to us from the beginning that we must love one another.
John knew how to avoid being bonded to darkness by not letting his mind and heart live in past regrets, or fear of the future, or hopelessness, or resentment, or hostility to others. John knew how to remain bonded to God in his lovingkindness, his expectation of God’s goodness and the power of his might, living in peace and joy and the love of others.
I believe that John would have begun each day by thinking about the love that God had for him, and that his last thoughts at night would have been about the love that God had for him. He knew this was the essence of God’s nature and so he wrote ‘We know how much God loves us, and we have put our trust in his love. God is love, and all who live in love live in God, and God lives in them’. And He would have known and understood completely that God had always been the same – unchanging in his love.
What does God want back from us?
He wants the circle of his love to come from us back round to him.
Doesn’t he want obedience?
Yes – but that same apostle John who wrote about God’s love for us said that if we love God, we will keep his commandments – and that doesn’t just mean the Ten Commandments, it means that when we know what he wants us to do we will do it. He said that both in his gospel and in his epistles. Loving God is our will power – rejecting God’s love is our won’t power, so completing the circle of God’s love back to him comes first and everything else comes after that.
So how do we love a God that we cannot see?
That is the work of the Holy Spirit that has been given to us by God and who sheds and spreads God’s love into our hearts so that we will believe it and feel it - it all starts with God.
But before we can believe in God’s love for us we need to know it is true and we can know it as a truth because the word of God tells us that – as we have seen in every line of what has been said today.
Knowing you are loved by God and believing you are loved by God is the most deep and profound spiritual thing you can do because our spirit is made up of our mind that knows and our heart that believes. What we know as truth with our mind we will believe with faith in our heart.
Our body even has a part to play in this because even our brain has been created to help us complete that circle of love back to God that causes us to know and believe his love for us and to do the things that show we love him back. We were created with a left brain and a right brain and those two parts work together so that we can make balanced decisions in our life. Our left brain is in charge of organizing and ordering and giving our thoughts structure but our right brain is more spontaneous and random and creative and colourful. It is jumping into what we want to do rather than calculating what we ought to do. That means that the left brain has to reorder the chaos of the right brain and when that balance anchors our soul, we can do very creative and inspiring things with enthusiasm and faith but it’s based on love and truth and order.
That is why it is good to sit quietly and gratefully acknowledge God’s presence with us and focus our minds on his powerful work on our behalf in the world of the unseen. That is what faith is – believing that God is at work in our lives for our good. Paul wrote to us about being confident of this very thing, that He who has begun a good work in you will complete it until the day of Jesus Christ (Philippians 1:6).
Paul went on to say that It is God working in you, giving you the desire and the power to do what pleases him.(Philippians 2:13). And in the next chapter Paul says that God is able to subdue all thning to himself. It couldn’t be any clearer than that. But if we don’t focus on that and think it and believe it, we are letting the right brain chaos run our lives.
That process is a picture of what happened in the very beginning of the creation of the universe in Genesis Chapter one. The Bible says that there was darkness on the face of the deep (the Abyss) and that it was without form and void (chaos). The Spirit of God hovered above that disorder and the word of truth – the logos of God, spoke and said ‘let there be light’. And then the mighty creative work of God was put into action. That act of creation was an act of God’s love for us, and that creative love in action is what happens when we sit and contemplate the love of God and give it back to him with a thank you. That is when we become creatively changed into the new creation of his likeness and we can do the creative loving of others. This is what waiting on God and contemplation is all about - nothing more nothing less – it is not a waste of time – it is not passive – it is actively embodying God’s love into the world around us.
Let us wait on God and contemplate on actively embodying God’s love to us and into the world around us. Waiting on God is not a waste of time – it is not passive – it is active - and doing this takes practice - in consciously sitting in the presence of God and knowing that he is doing the mysterious work. Driving a car takes practice and you dont have to understand how an internal combustion engine works – it’s a bit mysterious to me. But I know I have to turn the ignition on, put the car into gear and then drive from A to B – and that last part takes the most practice – but we learn and get our P plates and our licence. We become part of the car and it becomes part of us – which is like being one with God who is directing our lives in faith. The Bible says that if we get off track we will hear a voice behind us saying ‘this is the way walk ye in it’ (Isaiah x.x). In a car we look at Google maps and hear it say ‘turn right at the next round about then drive 500 Metres then turn left. And if we get that wrong it keeps talking and tells us to go to the next roundabout and come back to the first roundabout and start from there ‘This is the way - drive ye in it’. That takes faith in our google maps program. Practice sitting with God and he will direct your path and grow your faith and renew your mind - and truth and love will run your life, not chaos and uncertainty.
