The
Love of God
This morning, dear reader, I must
write what I know of and about the
love of God. In spite of the fact that the Christian Bible
includes the phrase "God is love", I have seldom heard or seen the real
love of God being manifested in church leadership.
To recount my story, I received Jesus
Christ into my heart as Savior
and Lord on May 15, 1976, at about 3:00 in the afternoon. That
was my first encounter with the love of God.
Then, shortly thereafter, I was
challenged with the question whether I
would allow God to do anything He wanted to do in me and through
me. It was made clear to me that the correct answer was
"yes". So I took a deep breath, said 'yes', and cringed as I
expected my worst fears to be experienced. They have not happened
yet, to my great relief.
Then I heard a song in church which I
had heard many times before, but
I really listened and heard the message this time. The song was
"The Prayer of St. Francis". The words are as follows (as shown
in the http://www.heavenlyharpist.com/lyrics/prayer-francis.htm
website):
Prayer of St. Francis
Sebastian Temple
Verse 1:
Make me a channel of your peace.
Where there is hatred, let me bring your love.
Where there is injury, your pardon, Lord,
And where there's doubt, true faith in you.
Verse 2:
Make me a channel of your peace.
Where there's despair in life, let me bring hope.
Where there is darkness only light,
And where there's sadness ever joy.
Refrain:
Oh Master, grant that I may never seek
So much to be consoled as to console.
To be understood as to understand,
To be loved as to love with all my soul.
Verse 3:
Make me a channel of your peace.
It is in pardoning that we are pardoned;
In giving of ourselves that we receive,
And in dying that we're born to eternal life.
I had expected the worst, but find
that God wants us to experience the
best as we help others to experience God's best!!! More on the
subject of expectations later. Click on More about
expectations.
Eventually in my reading of the Bible
I came across a statement of
Jesus where He said that He did not come to bring peace, but a sword!
Mat 10:34 Do
not think that I
have come to bring peace on earth. I did not come to send peace, but a
sword.
Mat 10:35
For I have come to set
a man against his father, and the daughter against her mother, and the
daughter-in-law against her mother-in-law.
Mat 10:36
And a man's foes shall
be those of his own household.
Mat 10:37 He
who loves father or
mother more than Me is not worthy of Me. And he who loves son or
daughter more than Me is not worthy of Me.
Mat 10:38
And he who does not
take up his cross and follow Me is not worthy of Me.
Mat 10:39 He
who finds his life
shall lose it. And he who loses his life for My sake shall find it.
I also read another passage which
summarized Jesus' mission on earth:
John 1:17
For the Law came
through Moses, but grace and truth came through Jesus Christ.
As a result I have
slightly revised the Prayer of St. Francis as follows:
Make
us all vessels of Your grace and truth;
where there is hatred let us bring
Your love;
where there is injury Your healing,
Lord;
and where there's doubt - true faith
in You!
Make us all vessels of Your grace and
truth;
where there's despair in life let us
bring hope;
where there is darkness, only light;
and where there's sadness - ever joy!
O Master, grant that we may never seek
so much to be consoled as to console;
to be understood as to understand;
to be loved as to love with all our
soul!
Make us all vessels of Your grace and
truth!
It is in pardoning that we are
pardoned,
in giving to all men that we receive,
and in dying that we are born to
eternal life!
My reason for making these
changes are as follows: First, I believe that this is God's plan
and purpose for mankind, and I didn't want anyone to be left out of my
prayer. Second, I didn't want to be praying for peace when Jesus
did not come to bring peace but a sword. I have come to the
conclusion that Jesus' sword gets applied primarily to family
relationships to set us free from the unreasonable and ungodly
expectations which otherwise hinder us from doing God's will by getting
the obedience of Jesus to work thoroughly in our lives.
Eventually, in 1995, I was directed
to the Toronto Revival, and found
that the official motto of the revival was "To Walk in the Love of God,
and to Give It Away to Toronto and the World". I attended a
conference at the Toronto Airport Christian Fellowship (as it was then
called), and heard the senior pastor tell during a Question and Answer
session that his greatest regret in life was that, in spite of having
been a born-again Christian for 40 years and having been baptized in
the Holy Spirit for 35 of those years, he had never really experienced
the love of God until God graced him and the congregation with a total
meltdown in His love on January 20, 1994! He went on to say that
he and the congregation he served had kind of a 'mental construct' of
what the love of God was, but they experienced the real love of God
that first day of revival and it totally transformed their lives and
their ministry!
I experienced my own total meltdown
in the love of God in July, 1995,
in a little church in Toledo, Ohio, and it totally transformed my life
as well! Since that time I have frequently prayed for people to
experience a total meltdown in God's love, and have seldom been
disappointed unless there was some hindrance in the person's life for
whom I was praying. If we really want to be vessels of His grace
and truth, He will certainly make sure that His grace and truth flow
through us according to our desires and trust in Him!! On the
other hand, if we only want the love of God for ourselves we will
probably be sent away empty.
Luke 1:53 He
has filled the
hungry with good things, and He has sent away the rich empty.
My prayer for you, dear reader, is
that you too will choose to become a
vessel of God's grace and truth to whomever He wants to water with His
grace and truth through you!!
You should bear in mind that, as the
hose gets no praise for washing
the car, we can expect no praise if God uses us as His vessel to touch
others. But I cannot think or imagine of a better or more
fulfilling use of anyone's life than to be a useful vessel for our
heavenly Father through our Lord Jesus Christ!!
Heb 13:20-21 Now may the God of Peace who brought again from the
dead our Lord Jesus, the Great Shepherd of the Sheep, by the blood of
the eternal covenant, equip you with everything good that you may do
His will, working in us that which is pleasing in His sight, through
Jesus Christ, to Whom be glory forever and ever. Amen.