"Behold! How They Love One Another"

Central Thought

We Desperately need Him and His Love at work in us.
We also Desperately need each other to love.

I read this often quoted line a few months back. The line itself is believed to orginate from a report given by a Roman procurator to Caesar (Tiberius, Julius??) about the potential threat of this new cult that was spreading throughout the empire. That statement frequently poked into my thoughts.

During a night watch the following came to me during a time of soaking prayer in 1 John over GCC. It became an on-going prayer that the Lord continues to add to as it is given out. While this one wasn't the most peculiar or flashy communique, its subtle. soft voice grabs our attention as it invites us to carefully consider its simplicity. Here is how it unfolded:

This is Our Witness, Our Testimony, to the world and to each other, before a Loving Holy God, that the world will know that we are His because the great love He lavished on us has been evidenced in our great love for each other.

He then told me to put a banner over that statement, “Behold How They Love One Another”. Love is as simple as it is complex and facinating. It would be un-realistic to believe we can completely describe its facets. However, the Lord began to describe some of the important ones i believe He wants us to consider and act on.

“Perfect Love:

... Covers a multitude of Sin
... Casts out all Fear
... Permeates our Being
... Is Seen – Our Fruit
... Looks for the Lost and Lowly
... Lifts the Fallen
... Restores to Righteousness
... Gives Life by Giving it up for another
... Always Hopes and Trusts
... Never Fails or Gives up
... Gives deference to the other
... Seeks His Neighbour's welfare

Each time i would enter into a soaking prayer or pray over this word, He would give me a few attributes. The interesting thing about them is that the majority are verbs:

Lives Larger
Encourages
Lifts
Builds
Gives Instantly
Dreams
Shares
Rules
Lives Larger
Swings Wide the Gates
Makes Room for More
Welcomes
Comes out of Brokenness and Surrender

I believe this is a good start and we all can and should, no, must, add to this list within the words of our testimonies. We can ask the Father which ones He wants us to add. It is an on-going thing. While we can't be all things to everyone, we can be someone to somebody. We just have to ask the Father who and He will show us.

Initial Impressions

No one has ever seen God; but if we love one another, God lives in us and his love is made complete in us. -- 1 John 4:12 (NIV).

While this verse is a huge statement in itself, it should not be seriously considered without meditating on the whole of this chapter let alone the book. Out of all the things God desires and calls us to, Love is the head, framework and foundation. It really is what we are to be focusing on; Loving Him, foremost, passionately without reservation, and, Our Neighbours. The rest of the things we need to be mindful of would become instinctive within this context.

A Greater Sense
The most powerful moves of God will come out of a spirit of humility, anonymity and keeping a low profile but keeping a watchful, prayerful eye on each other, as opposed to bringing our ministries to the forefront, synthesising community through process and program, and merchandising God's truth and healing.

In the world today there is more money, food, goods and services available than at anyother time in history. As a race we can generally say we lack for nothing corruptable or temporal. Yet famine, pestilences, poverty, loneliness, sickness and abandonment are wide spread. We are in a glut of truth in the Church these days. Everyone has a book, a conference to stage or a ministry to tell about, but, are we really about the doing of what we know? There is a literal smorgasbord of truth to feast at, which in itself is a great thing. but we have become spiritually obese. We eat and don't exercise like we should.

Before this starts to sound like yet another world vision appeal, i would like to say that we, the church, heirs to the kingdom have the best position in this world to not only just relieve these things grieving the Father's heart but to also bring His presence in to those places, into the cracks where a huge populace has fallen into. I believe this to be observable and measurable.

For every three healthy souls, there are five broken. For every one visibly broken, there are four who have fallen through the cracks, For every one we stumble across in the cracks, there are four we may never see. That is, of course, without asking the Father where the are.