LOVE

Wouldn't it be grand if there were no problems in the world? No crime like adultery, stealing, murder, slavery, and other things that plague our world and society. Have you ever wondered if it were possible to live in peace and safety and what would be the answer to peace? The answer to all the problems is society is simple. If every person would just love their neighbor as themselves, the world's problems would disappear. Think about it for one moment.

If we truly loved our fellow human beings as we do ourselves, what would be the result? There would be no poverty. There would be no stealing. There would be no slavery. There would be no selfishness. There would be no greed. There would be no abortion. There would be no murder. Nobody would suffer oppression and bondage. Everyone who lacked would help out those who didn't.

I want to interject here a very important issue. Love such as this cannot be forced upon us. There have been societies that have tried to force people to share and be equal. This has proved to be disastrous and resulted in oppression and bondage rather than love. Communism was a great failure. The kind of love I'm talking about is from the within each one of us and only can possibly come about by true and I emphasize TRUE conversion to faith in Jesus Christ. Not conversion to a religion but true conversion to Jesus. This conversion is done by repenting of sin (turning from sin),  believing in, then receiving Jesus. God then forgives all past sin and we become "Born again." God fills you with his spirit which before you did not have. This spirit called the Holy Spirit or Holy Ghost comes to dwell within each believer who receives Jesus Christ.

Does this mean that everyone who confesses Christianity loves his or her neighbor as himself? Well we see from history and from today's world that this is not so. When we come to Christ, He indeed fills us with his spirit but this is not forced upon us. We then have to decide whether to yield to the Spirit that is given to us. We still have the option to say no to the prompting and leading of the Holy Spirit. God does not make us slaves to his will. We have a will. We have to decide whether or not we want to love our neighbor as ourselves. We still have the power to decide whether or not to allow sin back into our lives. We can say yes or no to the prompting of the Holy Spirit. The first church addressed by Jesus in Revelation Chapter 2 is written to the Church of Ephesus. They had a lot of good about them but had left their first love.

The first step to be able to love others is the do the first commandment. "Love the Lord with all our heart, soul and mind." We cannot do this without being "In Christ". It is impossible. Yet after we come to Christ, we still do not have to love the Lord with all our heart but we have the Holy Spirit to help us to do just that if we truly seek God with the desire to love him above all things and yield to his love. Praise his name. It is up to us to choose.

The second commandment is Love your neighbor as yourself. This is impossible without daily yielding to the Holy Spirit given to us at our new birth. I will admit that I have not achieved this myself perfectly but daily I seek and pray to walk in love.

If only we could see that this would bring about the happiness we seek when we buy that new car, house, computer etc. The type of happiness we receive when we get new things is only temporary.  The novelty soon wears off.  The joy of the Lord doesn't have to ever wear off. 

If we worry about keeping the ten commandments, this powerful love would enable us to automatically keep all of God's commandments without even memorizing them.

These two commandments given by Jesus in Matthew 22 would enable us to obey most laws of every country unless the laws of a land forbid conversion to Jesus Christ. Loving our neighbor as ourselves is impossible without the help of the Holy Spirit. It can't be done. Only by seeking and yielding to God can we possibly keep these two commandments. We need to desire this above all other things.

Love is a powerful emotion. I'm not talking of the love that the world thinks is love. That love is not half as strong as real love that comes from God. The love we feel when we meet that someone special depends on circumstances. If the person we are in love with fails us in any way, how fast does that love disappear?? The love from God is different. It is there when our loved ones go away. It is there when all else fails. It will never pass away from one generation to the other. It is what caused Jesus Christ to allow himself to have nails driven into his hands and feet in order to take our place and die for the sins we committed, that we may have eternal salvation and not be lost.

I want to seek this type of love that is so powerful that it is the answer to every problem that we could possibly face. It starts here:

• Matthew 22: 36- Master, which is the great commandment in the law?
• 37. Jesus said unto him, Thou shalt love the Lord thy God with all thy heart, and with all thy soul, and with all thy mind.
• 38.This is the first and great commandment.
• 39.And the second is like unto it, Thou shalt love thy neighbour as thyself.
• 40.On these two commandments hang all the law and the prophets.

The King James Version

We can have this now as individuals but real peace and love in the whole would cannot be achieved until He returns physically.

Even so Come Lord Jesus

DJC