Love Is Blind....Really?

The phrase "love is blind" is commonly used to describe someone who is demonstrating the ability to love someone in spite of the objects glaring shortcomings. The premise is that the lover must not see the fault of their beloved or they would never love them the way that they do.

Some might do it in total obliviousness, but others will choose to overlook the faults in order to retain a heartfelt affection for the other. But is love truly blind?

John 1:14 says "The Word became flesh and made his dwelling among us. We have seen his glory, the glory of the One and Only, who came from the Father, full of grace and truth."

It would appear that Divine Love is the demonstration of grace in the midst of a full revelation of the truth! God does not overlook our sin in order to show us favor, He is able to show favor while being conscious of all of our iniquity.

I believe that many of us have chosen the path of "overlooking" the shortcomings of others because it makes it easier to extend grace to them. But is this true grace? Is it grace that flows from the supernatural power of the Holy Spirit? Or is it a counterfeit grace that is birthed out of human strength and ability?

Am I overlooking something in order to be gracious, or am I doing the more difficult act of calling upon the Holy Spirit to produce grace within me by fellowship with Him while remaining fully conscious of the hurt of my heart caused by the actions of another?

Let us not diminish grace to a human characteristic born out of our own goodness and ability. Grace is from God alone; produced by His Spirit through communion with the Son of His love. The Son who became flesh, dwelt among us and was full of grace and truth. Jesus did not minister the grace of the Godhead from afar. He dwelt among us, in the midst of our depravity and brokenness, and with full revelation of our sin He loved us, even unto death.

Oh what a great testimony we would give the world if we were to live with such power in the midst of weak and broken humanity!

What would happen if instead of diminishing someones iniquity by saying "Oh, it's OK. It's no big deal...You're forgiven." we actually acknowledged the magnitude of their offense towards us and then offered them total forgiveness! Of what merit is forgiveness for something that was "no big deal"? The word says that "he who has been forgiven much will love much". Are we not in fact robbing our brothers and sisters of the gift of love when we diminish their offense towards us?

Love for Jesus increases with a greater revelation of our own sin. The revelation that God owes us nothing and that we deserve hell.

Jesus never said to the woman caught in adultery "It's no big deal...you are forgiven!". He acknowledged her guilt before her accusers! "You who is without sin cast the first stone". It was out of that revelation, the truth, that He said to her "Neither do I condemn (pass sentence) upon you. Go and sin no more.".

If love is the greatest of all things, and love is produced in us by being forgiven much, then let us bless one another by living with grace and truth! Grace that has been cultivated by abiding in the presence of Jesus through righteousness. Grace born of the Spirit and not of our flesh.

For grace born out of human ability is cheap grace, and cheap grace will only turn sour in the mouths of the condemned as they stand before the Judge without love in their hearts for Jesus.

True Love is not blind; It searches the hearts and thoughts of all men, and still chose to lay down it's life to pay for our sin. That is Love! Love sees all and conquers all.

Let us love with a love that is full of grace and truth.

Jon

Personal Worship Expression

One of the greatest barriers to worshiping in Spirit and Truth is the commonly held idea that worship is "personal". Worship has never been a personal expression of our love for God, but a Divinely ordained act of submissive agreement to the Great and Mighty God of All Beauty, Love, Light and Glory. All heaven declares "You are Worthy!", and that truth is the sole foundation of all true worship. Everything else is vanity.

The moment we believe that worship is a personal expression, governed by our own likes, dislikes and personality, is the moment we enter into idolatry - forming God, and the worship due His name, after our own desires and likings. There is no place in heaven for such a prideful act. It causes us to participate in the same rebellion which Lucifer incited against the Lord.

Beloved, God has the right to demand any kind of worship posture, expression and utterance out of His creation that He desires; and that creation includes us! We don't worship because we want to, we worship because He is worthy. And for us to deny or withhold ANY form of worship on the basis of our "personality" or "preference" is to deny His Worthiness all together.

He is Worthy of all worship, and all praise (not just all of the worship that I am willing to give Him). He is worth it all, and demands it all. One day every knew will bow and every tongue will confess the Jesus Christ is Lord. Why? Because we all finally came to an agreement on how to worship Him? NO! Because that is what He deserves, and in the government of heaven it will be required worship (even for those who have rejected His gospel).

How much will that sting? How much will that pain the human heart to know that you are worshiping Jesus now, at the end of the age, when you spent your entire life refusing to give Him the glory due His name? The revelation of who He is will demand it. You're whole being will cry out "WORTHY!! JESUS YOU ARE WORTHY!!!", and your heart will condemn you for your rebellion while in the flesh.

So why am I so enpassioned about this today? Because the Spirit awakened it in my heart yesterday and He will not let it go! He is determined to prepare the Bride for the coming of her Bridgegroom King, and that means that we need to be a people who worship Him in Spirit and in Truth. It is our destiny. It is for our glory. And the Spirit is going to bring us to maturity in this area whether we like it or not. (But we will like it, once we realize that it is pleasing to the One that we love!).

Today the Church needs to grow in trust. That quiet confidence in the Goodness of God and His perfect leadership in all things. We need to finally begin to trust that the Holy Spirit will not destroy us if we obey Him. We need to finally trust in God's love.

We need to trust that the best thing for our meetings, our churches and ourselves is to do everything that the Holy Spirit asks us to do; even if it appears to be foolish, reckless and catastrophic! Why? Because He can not do anything foolish, reckless or catastrophic! It is impossible for God to do anything foolish. It is impossible for God to do anything bad! He is always good and in always.

We are afraid of God because we don't actually believe that God is good. We fear the Holy Spirit because we think that He is out of control and crazy! If we didn't, we wouldn't have a problem opening ourselves up to His moving in power upon our bodies. We wouldn't fear the gift of tongues, and we wouldn't be afraid of His manifestations upon our flesh.

The truth is that we are trying to protect ourselves from being deceived in the very presence of the Almighty God. The God who declares His eternal affection for us through the cross and word. "I will not give you a serpent nor a stone!". "Do not fear!!".

Let's be honest. We are afraid of the Holy Spirit. In fact, I would say that most Christians have more confidence is Satan's ability to deceive them then in the Holy Spirits power to keep them! But let us remember, "Now to Him who is able to keep you from stumbling".

God's Spirit is burning today with passion over this issue. He is looking for children who will trust Him as a good Father and throw themselves down upon His Mercy. Children who will actually demonstrate confidence in His Goodness by living abandoned in love and obedience to the moving of Holy Spirit.

Why should the world have faith in the message of salvation, of a God who will redeem them from the fires of hell, when those who claim to have trusted in Him continue to demonstrate a gross mistrust of His goodness?

I invite you today to meditate on this exhortation. Are we truly trusting God's leadership? Do we honestly agree with Jesus assessment of the Holy Spirit; that it would be better for us if the Holy Spirit were here instead of Him?

The Holy Spirit is described by Jesus as the Comforter. How many of us feel comfortable when He begins to move in ways that we don't understand? Is that a reflection upon Him or us?

Beloved, Holy Spirit is our greatest Friend and Teacher. I want to invite you to say "Yes" to His leadership today, no matter what it appears to cost. The rewards for saying "Yes" are great, but the cost of saying "No" is immeasurable.


Blessings,

Jon

Fruit With Seeds In It

Last week, for a bible study on "How To Produce Spiritual Fruit", I decided to do a visual illustration. The illustration was supposed to have a large serving of fruit on one side, and a few small seeds (taken from that fresh platter of fruit) on the other. My intention was to then ask the question "Which would you rather have? The large plate of fresh, ready to be eaten, fruit? Or a few small gnarly looking seeds?"

I was very excited about my little visual demonstration and thought that it would be a great way of contrasting the spiritual life of "sowing and reaping" vs. the wordly mindset which demands immediate, worry free, gratification.

This was to be my launching pad into our bible study on how God produces the Fruit of His Spirit in our lives. It was perfect! All except for one small problem. As I began to rummage through my fridge looking for the most delectable fruit I could find; I discovered that "worry free" living was about to become my biggest problem!

It would seem that in our effort to relieve ourselves from all manner of toil and labor, we have rid ourselves of virtually all seed bearing fruit! That's right!! I could not do my illustration because I could not find any fruit in my house that still had seeds in it!!!

I was left stranded without any seeds for my illustration. But alas, my morning was not a total disaster. The couple that we meet with was very accommodating and when I had to resort to asking them to "imagine that there are fruit seeds in my other hand" they were more than willing to oblige. In the end the illustration and the study was a great success. However, since that morning I have been troubled by my new seedless fruit revelation.

Do you know that the first command that God gave us was to "be fruitful and multiply"? His desire was for us to use the seed we had been given to produce more seed bearing offspring! But it gets even better! God did more than simply command us to be fruitful, He followed up that command by giving us another command regarding what we should eat.

Any guesses on what we were supposed to eat?

"And God blessed them. And God said to them, “Be fruitful and multiply and fill the earth and subdue it and have dominion over the fish of the sea and over the birds of the heavens and over every living thing that moves on the earth.” 29 And God said, “Behold, I have given you every plant yielding seed that is on the face of all the earth, and every tree with seed in its fruit. You shall have them for food." Genesis 1:28-29 (ESV)

So not only are we supposed to use our seed to produce more seedlings, we are supposed to only eat fruit that has seeds in it!

God is a God of growth, multiplication and dominion. His universe is continuing to grow. His humanity continues to multiply, and He is determined to have dominion over everything in heaven and on earth. God loves things that produce seed, because seed allows us to produce a greater harvest.  I can just imagine God crying out from the heavens "Go BIG or Go Home!"

There is no greater demonstration of this reality then Jesus. The Word made flesh. 

"As the rain and the snow come down from heaven, and do not return to it without watering the earth and making it bud and flourish, so that it yields seed for the sower and bread for the eater, so is my word that goes out from my mouth: It will not return to me empty, but will accomplish what I desire and achieve the purpose for which I sent it" - Isaiah 55:10-11 

Do you know that the literal translation of "empty" or "void" means "not without fruit". God's word will not fail in producing the fruit that He intends it to produce. In God's mind there is not such thing as seedless fruit. 

God is so committed to bearing fruit that He declares in John 15; "any branch that does not bare fruit will be cut off and thrown into the fire". God loves fruit, and God's fruit ALWAYS has seeds in it. Why does it have seeds? Because without seeds it's only good for food, and God wants more than simply for us to fill our own faces. His desire is for us to learn how to grow a harvest so that all may be satisfied through His provision.

"Now He who supplies seed to the sower and bread for food will supply and multiply your seed for sowing and increase the harvest of your righteousness" - 2 Corinthians 9:10

Seed for sowing and not just bread for food; that my friends is the true prosperity gospel! The multiplication of God is directed at our seed, not our bread. It is multiplied for the sower, not the eater.

Beloved, if we grind all of our grain into food we will have nothing left to sow, and we will have no harvest of righteousness. And if we eat of "seedless" things then we are going to be left without a harvest of any kind.

What are those seedless things? I would suggest that they are the things that do not flow out of the Spirit. They are the lusts of the flesh and the desires of our selfish nature. Lust, greed, anger, selfish ambition, vain conceit, sexual immorality, drunkenness and idolatry. (Galatians 5) But the fruit of the Spirit (which can only be produced by the Spirit) is grown when we sow the seed of the Spirit into our lives by obeying the Word of God. God's word is our spiritual seed and required for producing a harvest of righteousness.

Beloved, God loves fruit; and God requires that we bear fruit. He also requires that all the fruit we consume have seed in it, otherwise it is not fit for being eaten by His most precious creatures; you and I.

After all of this study on "seed" and "fruit" it causes me think more carefully about what I am spending my life upon. And as Isaiah wrote: "Why spend money on what is not food."

So until next time...Be fruitful and multiply!

Jon