Good Monday Morning (11-22-10),

I’m still seeking the Lord about love. No doubt this topic is of the utmost importance. Paul makes it clear in Corinthians that we can preach the word, work miracles, even give our lives for the Gospel…but if we don’t have love nothing we do counts for the Kingdom.

Paul prays for the Philippians that, first and foremost, they will have love. He prays that their love might abound more and more in knowledge and keen insight.

God wants us to really get this teaching about love. He wants us to be absolutely clear about love. That doesn’t surprise me because only one motivation would have caused Jesus to give up everything He had that was equal with God. Jesus didn’t need promotion — He was already the highest of the high. He didn’t need prosperity — all the wealth of the universe, in and out of time, belonged to Him. He didn’t need to impress God or earn God’s approval — He was the only begotten Son, beloved and accepted and treasured by the Father.

Jesus came to earth for love’s sake and then everything He did while here was birthed out of a heart of love.

If we are to imitate Christ then our first plunge must be into the heart. Nothing we do outside of the heart, outside of love, matters.

But I cannot operate in love until I rest in love. Until I understand with my entire being, understand so deeply that no doubt can enter in — that Father already loves me. Until then I will never be able to operate in pure love toward others. The reason for this is simple: until I comprehend that Father God loves me and will never stop loving me I will always be trying to earn His love, attract His attention, garner His pleasure.

When I am trying to earn something from God, whatever it is, then my actions will be motivated by my self-centeredness, by my need, instead of love. Only when I can forget myself can I selflessly (like Christ) love someone else.

Remembering Heidi Baker’s teaching about loving the one in front of me…I realize I cannot look at the one in front of me until I stop looking at myself. I can’t have compassion for another person’s need until I forget my own need. There is no way to esteem others higher than myself until I can put someone else’s needs before my own. And that can only happen when my heart is saturated in love.

Everything else that I want — greater understanding of God, more insight into the Word, to be used by God, and to become more holy as I live for Him — all these things come after I learn about love.

God is love. So it should not surprise me that all His attributes, all His promises, all His graces and even His power flow out of love.

Paul’s prayer for the Philippians tells me how this progression works. When my love abounds, when it is extended to its fullest development and partnered with knowledge and all insight, then I will have discernment. I will be able to sense what is vital, and to approve and to prize, or recognize, what is excellent and of real value.

How fascinating that what I have been trying to do all these years with my head is something I can only do with my heart!

I am assured, reading these verses, that once love abounds within me I will grow in discernment and insight and then, praise God, I will be untainted and pure and unerring and blameless until the day Jesus returns. As love abounds, I will be filled with the fruit of righteousness that comes through Him, able to glorify the Father through the life that I live.

Discernment and insight don’t come merely through study. They come through love.

Holiness doesn’t come merely through obedience. It comes through love.

No wonder Jesus said that the world would know us…not through our mighty works, not through our great faith that endures torture and martyrdom, not through piety and self-denial…they will know us by the love we bear for one another; the way we love each other. The way we love.

“And I pray that your love may abound yet more and more and extend to its fullest development in knowledge and all keen insight (that your love may display itself in greater depth of acquaintance and more comprehensive discernment). So that you may surely learn to sense what is vital, and approve and prize what is excellent and of real value (recognizing the highest and the best, and distinguishing the moral differences), and that you may be untainted and pure and unerring and blameless (so that with hearts sincere and certain and unsullied, you may approach) the day of Christ (not stumbling nor causing others to stumble).” Philippians 1:9-10, Amplified.

Laurie Gross