Do you want more and more of God’s kindness and peace?  Then learn to know him better and better.  For as you know him better, he will give you, through his great power, everything you need for living a truly good life:  he even shares his own glory and his own goodness with us!  And by that same mighty power he has given us all the other rich and wonderful blessings he promised; for instance, the promise to save us from the lust and rottenness all around us, and to give us his own character.

But to obtain these gifts, you need more than faith; you must also work hard to be good, and even that is not enough.  For then, you must learn to know God better and discover what he wants you to do.  Next, learn to put aside your own desires so that you will become patient and godly, gladly letting God have his way with you.  This will make possible the next step, which is for you to enjoy other people and to like them, and finally you will grow to love them deeply.  2 Peter 1:2-7 The Living Bible (TLB)

          The natural progression of the Christian’s life is to become like his or her Master; so why do so many Christians lament the fact that they do not have the love of Jesus…that is, they do not love like Jesus loves?  They are painfully aware that the love of Christ Jesus, so evident in some, is sorely lacking in their inmost being.  No amount of effort can “gin up” the love of Jesus, because the source of the love of Jesus is neither our efforts nor our vast learning.  This amazing passage from The Living Bible uncovers, for the most part, what is lacking and what actually blocks the love of Jesus from full expression in the lives of many believers.  The problem, dear reader, is in our spirits–we have enthroned a false image of God, and until the image is corrected, one can only reflect the image of God that one has. 

          Therefore, if your image of God (whom, as a matter of fact, Jesus is the exact representation of) is unloving, your image of Jesus is also.  In other words, you can project no more of a loving image than you actually believe God has.  God will not allow you to project an image of Him that you do not believe He has.  The main theological point here is that the Father and Son are one, in nature, in actions, in words, and in attributes.  Do you believe we need a loving Jesus to save us from an angry God?  Then stop! and go no further until your view of Father is corrected.  Listen to Peter’s words:   Then learn to know him better and better.  For as you know him better,…he even shares…his own goodness with us!  The source of the love of Jesus is, in point of fact, your loving Father in heaven. 

          Perhaps you do not view God as angry; instead, you think He is ambivalent, or at the moment placated, but able to become very angry again.  Perhaps, you think He is hopeful, having His fingers crossed that enough people will come to their senses so that He won’t have to unleash great tribulation and punishment on the earth.  Here is the main question:  do you think He is poised to send the vast majority of everyone who has ever lived to hell to be tormented and tortured in fire and flames forever?  Your answer to this question determines whether the love of Jesus is blocked from full expression in your life.

          Father has specifically stated in His laws dealing with man’s punishment of man, a very important limitation on man’s authority:  do not punish to the extent that your brother is degraded in your eyes.  The Bible clearly testifies over and over about the love of God, and at one point the apostle John even says “God is love.”   As the previous link proves, it has been the plan and purpose of God from the beginning to manifest Jesus’ love in us, those who are the first to believe.  The problem has come in, after the time of Constantine, that the angry God of the Old Testament must exact revenge for all the people living in sin and unbelief–as though the blood of Christ did not pay for all sins for all times and absolutely, irrevocably destroy the works of the devil, and conciliate all men to Himself!

          If you think God is indeed going to send millions or even billions to hell for eternity, then you have degraded your brother in your own eyes.  Much more could be said about the ramifications of this judgment that you have formed, but we urge you reconsider–this is the reason the love of Jesus is blocked from full expression in your life.  If you truly desire the love of Jesus to flow out from you as a sweet savor and aroma,  pray that Father’s will be done in the earth as it is in heaven, and believe that some way, some how, He will drag all men to Himself because Christ was lifted up.  He will do this, and He will not violate their free will in the process!      

          The problem is the doctrine of eternal punishment–banish this hideous doctrine from your heart, and here is a wonder you will find:  you can begin to know the true, loving nature of your heavenly Father, and His real character.  You will stop degrading your brother in your own eyes as “going to hell”, and you will begin to see him as your Father sees him:  as a future brother in Christ!  Finally, you will grow to love him deeply.  This is the love of Christ.  It is the Lord’s doing, and it is marvelous in our eyes!

Blessed are You, O Lord our loving God.  Who is like You O Lord?  Soon everyone will be like You!  Amen, let it be so.

« »