When the going gets tough, World War 3.
This is our weekly post here at deposition of our faith. Thank you for joining us. This is Week 5.
(Although you can start from anywhere, we encourage you to read up on previous posts as well; sometimes, one topic leads into another)
Scripture Reading: Romans 5:1–5
Without the love of God shed abroad in our hearts, we are just sentient beings that act based on primal instincts and primal fears. We are wicked at our worst, and inconsistent at our best.
When Jesus says to love your enemies or the people who do bad against you, he doesn’t mean using a human, physical sense of love. You literally cannot surmount your primal instinct to hate (or dislike) the things that harm you. Jesus didn’t say forget your haters, or just leave them be and go your way; he said, “do good to them that hate you” (Luke 6:27). Jesus did not stop at saying that we should do good to them, but said that we should love them that hate us.
The love of God is not philosophy. It is not a doctrine. It is literally a spiritual act and can only be fuelled spiritually. We cannot walk in the flesh and love the way God wants us to love. Our physical brains cannot comprehend it. It goes against survival instinct. For instance, animals are not “evil”.
“A lion is not evil when it kills its prey”.
The are driven by primal instinct.
Animals also fight, they also compete for mate partners, some of them are cannibals, many of them only care for their own offspring or a member of their own pack, many of them will turn on each other when the going gets tough.
They are not trying to win a Nobel Prize or get into animal heaven. They are just trying to survive. When we live without the love of God, we are just like regular animals. We don’t do anything special. We also fight, we kill each other, we trick each other, we only care for our own selves or families. Even when we try to care about other people, it is very conditional. Human love cannot project on things that don’t reciprocate. There is still an element of self-centredness when it comes to this earthly love.
We are good…for now.
The love we are called to practice amongst ourselves is a tall order. No man can do it by his own strength. We live in a world today that is full of conflict, crisis, insecurities and dishonesty. Yet, many people believe that we do not need God to be good.
Well,
You don’t need God to not be a liar. You don’t need God to not cheat on your wife. You don’t need God to be responsible for providing for your family and loved ones, and not murder and not steal and not kill…
That is, while the going isn’t tough.
You can be good when things are good. That is normal (Luke 6:33). However, we live in a world where people cheat on their spouses because of the strong passions they feel outside their marriages; yet, they “love” their spouse. We have people who take advantage of others because they felt like they had their backs against the wall. We have robin hoods who justify stealing. We have Governments that tell lies when the truth is a little too bitter to swallow.
If we could be absolutely good without God, we wouldn’t need laws in our lands. Even despite the fact that we have laws, we still have people who look for loopholes. We have people who circumvent justice. Deterrents are not a means of enforcing righteousness. They are a means of enforcing order. The heart of man is desperately wicked, who can know it? People are barely hanging by a thread to their “innocence” simply because they are afraid of a jail term. So what happens when they find a way to avoid jail time?
Last year, I and a few of my friends were having a conversation about whether or not love is important in marriage. At the time, I was of the opinion that love wasn’t as important. Some of my friends disagreed with me, and they said love is the most important thing. Then, one friend said, “Even if I cheat on my wife, it doesn’t mean I don’t love her”. It struck me right in the centre of my skull.
What ?!
I was completely disillusioned with the human concept of love.
In fact, some of my friends even further went on to say, even if they are fighting and arguing everyday, it doesn’t mean they don’t love each other. “Even if we get divorced, I still love her”, one said.
Now, I am not here to make arguments about whether or not these things are right, I am simply showing you how humans think. However, what is the use of loving a person, if you can choose to shoot them in the back and say you still love them? What is the use of saying you love a person, if you can disappoint, deny, forsake, betray and neglect the person at will?
“If this is what love is, then abeg let people only like me”, I remember saying as a joke to the group.
What we do is more important than what we say or think when it comes to love. Peter was somebody who “loved” Jesus. He could not imagine denying Jesus, even when the Lord himself told him what he would do. It was an insult. He probably felt attacked by Jesus when the man said, “you will deny me three times”(Matthew 26:34). Yet, when the time came, Peter denied Jesus and all that had to do with him — his shadow, the thought, sight, and concept of Him!
Now get this: Peter wept (Mark 14:72). He didn’t like that he denied Jesus, but he could not love Jesus unto death. He thought he could (John 13:38).
Read Mark 14:66–71 and notice that they were not even threatening his life at all. However, he had already reached the limit of his “love” for Jesus. Embarrassed, he denied Jesus.
What am I getting at with this example? We cannot love in our human strength. Human love is as fickle as the human mind. Human love is not what is described in 1 Corinthians 13. We need the Spirit of God in our spirit man to love the God-kind of Love (Galatians 5:22–23). When Peter was endued with power from on high, he could go outside and stand before rulers, philosophers, wisemen — the entire public, to witness Christ (Acts 2:14, Acts 3:12, Acts 4:8).
We cannot love our neighbours as we love ourselves if we are operating in the energy of the flesh. If we try to do so by our power, when everything is good we will love our neighbour.
However, when the going gets tough, World War 3.
Join us again next week for another refreshing time with God’s Word.
God be with ye till then!
