On one occasion a well known evangelist was asked how had he changed after serving the Lord so faithfully for so many years. He answered that he loved people more now than he ever had! 1 John 2:9; "The one who says he is in the Light and yet hates his brother is in the darkness until now." And 1 John 4:20; "If someone says, "I love God," and hates his brother, he is a liar; for the one who does not love his brother whom he has seen, cannot love God whom he has not seen." Finally, John 15:12; "This is My commandment, that you love one another, just as I have loved you."
The test of a true disciple of the Lord Jesus Christ is, do I love others, not just the body of Christ but do I love those who are lost, do I have the Father's love for the unsaved in the world? And in reality that is a test as to whether or not we truly love God, by the way we answer the previous question.
The longer I walk with the Lord I realize more and more that my heart attitude towards the lost reflects the truth of a believers maturity in the Lord! How can we call ourselves believers in the Lord Jesus if we ignore or worse yet, judge those that do not yet know Him? Can we really convince ourselves that it is okay to never lead another soul to Christ, when Jesus commanded all of us to be His witnesses? Jesus' love can be heard in these words from Matthew 23:37; "Jerusalem, Jerusalem, who kills the prophets and stones those who are sent to her! How often I wanted to gather your children together, the way a hen gathers her chicks under her wings, and you were unwilling." Do you hear the love and compassion for the people of that city, for the same people that would later, with hearts full of hate, cry out over and over again "Crucify Him"!
The believers that love the unlovely in the body of Christ do so because they are so aware of how unlovely they themselves are! Anyone can love the lovely, anyone can love those who love them back, anyone can love those who are useful to them, so what? Even the lost do that!
Jesus loved, touched, and embraced the lepers of His day, He loved His disciples when they denied Him, when they argued amongst themselves as to who was the greatest, He loved them, He never stopped, He prayed for them. And we who are disciples in 2012 look and act the same, yet Jesus loves us, and He will never stop loving us and He is praying for us in Heaven! Hebrews 7:24-25 NLT; "Because Jesus lives forever, His priesthood lasts forever. Therefore He is able, once and forever, to save those who come to God through Him. He lives forever to intercede with God on their behalf."
Father, forgive me for not loving as Jesus does, create in me a clean heart O, LORD a heart like His, full of love, mercy and compassion for others. A heart that knows that none of us deserve Your love, I didn't deserve Your love but while we were all sinners Christ died for the sins of the whole world, including mine! May I walk in His love today. In Jesus name. Amen.
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