Living the Life of Love
A heart overflowing with the love of God is also a part of the blessing of Pentecost. Next to pride, a lack of love was the sin for which the Lord had often rebuked His disciples. These two sins have in truth the same root: the desire for pleasing self. The new commandment that He gave them, the characteristic whereby all men should know that they were His disciples, was their love for one another.
It was gloriously manifested on the day of Pentecost when the Spirit of the Lord shed abroad His love in the hearts of His own. The multitude of them that believed were of one heart, one soul. All things they possessed were held in common. No one said that anything he had was his own. The Kingdom of heaven with its life of love had come down to them. The spirit, the disposition, and the wonderful love of Jesus filled them because He Himself had come into them.
The mighty working of the Spirit and the indwelling of the Lord Jesus are bound together with a life of love. This appears in the prayer of Paul on behalf of the Ephesians. He asks that they might be strengthened with power by the Spirit in order that Christ might dwell in their hearts. Then he quickly makes this addition: "that ye, being rooted and grounded in love, may be able to comprehend with the saints the love which passeth knowledge" (Ephesians 3:17, 19).
The filling with the Spirit and the indwelling of Christ bring a life that has its root, its joy, its power, and its evidence in love because Christ is love. If the filling with the Spirit was recognized as the blessing which the Father promised us, the love of God would fill the church and the world would be convinced she has received a heavenly element into her life.
~Andrew Murray~
(continued with # 9 - "Obtaining Courage and Power")
No comments:
Post a Comment