One of the things which makes me believe the bible more and more is when I see prophesies coming to fruition. All one has to do is pause for a minute and look around and compare God’s word to what we see in front of us and the reality becomes apparent.

For instance, here is what Timothy told us:

2 Timothy 3:1-4 But mark this: There will be terrible times in the last days. 2 People will be lovers of themselves, lovers of money, boastful, proud, abusive, disobedient to their parents, ungrateful, unholy, 3 without love, unforgiving, slanderous, without self-control, brutal, not lovers of the good, 4 treacherous, rash, conceited, lovers of pleasure rather than lovers of God.

The word love appears 5 times in this short section of scripture:

  1. Lovers of themselves
  2. Lovers of Money
  3. Without Love
  4. Not Lovers of Good
  5. Lovers of Pleasure rather than God.

Now can someone tell me if that list is not clearly seen in todays world? I think this is one thing that all of us can agree on, love is fast becoming an extinct species.

This is who man is, “The heart is deceitful above all things, and desperately wicked: who can know it?” (Jeremiah 17:9). The scripture ask, “who can know it?”. Well our God can because he made us and he knows what we are capable of.

While it is easy for the natural man to gravitate to a loveless nature, here is what Jesus commands us to do.

John 13:34-35 (NIV) “A new command I give you: Love one another. As I have loved you, so you must love one another. 35 By this everyone will know that you are my disciples, if you love one another.”

Look at this beautiful command that Jesus Himself gave to His disciples. The commandment to love one another. But how is it possible for a believer to do this when the hearts of men are wicked, deceitful and longs to gravitate towards lovelessness? Well, we cannot do this alone and we need heavenly strength and support to turn the other cheek (Matthew 5:39) and even more so to love our enemies (Matthew 5:44). The heavenly strength to do this comes directly from the Holy Spirit.

Romans 5:5 (NIV) And hope does not put us to shame, because God’s love has been poured out into our hearts through the Holy Spirit, who has been given to us.

The love that God wants us to display comes from Him (It is His Love). Then His love is placed somewhere, it is poured into our hearts and this is done by the Holy Spirit. If it is superhuman love we have to give, then it is superhuman love we have to get. This superhuman heavenly love can only be obtained in the manner dictated in Romans 5:5.

Getting this love and displaying it is critical in making us distinctive and truly God’s children. Again I saw, Jesus said it this way:

John 13:35 (NIV)35 By this everyone will know that you are my disciples, if you love one another.”

It is not about how good we can preach/teach, the amount of ministry roles we possess, how often we come to church, nor even how much tithes and offerings we give each year. But it is ALL about how we extend ourselves in love.

If I pick random persons from off the street and ask them how do they see the Church of God, what do you think their answers would be? The average person would say something along the lines of:

  1.  They are a bunch of people who only focusing on prosperity and money
  2. A set of religious people going to a building on Sundays (churchgoers)
  3. They are a bunch of hypocrites

If you feel that I am exaggerating on the above please let me know. But from where I sit the majority of the world sees the church like this. But Jesus said, it is by our love they will know us. But sad to say the world does not know us by LOVE. It is not the first thing that comes to their mind when someone ask them to describe Gods people. What does this say about the church? I leave that question for everyone to answer themselves.

All I can do or should I say, all we can do is work on ourselves individually. Build ourselves in the Lord by drawing closer to God to get more of the Holy Spirit to enable us to show forth the much-needed love in the world.

God so loved that he gave His only begotten son. Now we must reciprocate and make sacrifices of our own by giving and loving our God and others. I close by saying:

“EYES OFF EVERYONE ELSE, LOVE STARTS WITH ME!”    

Your Brother in the Lord,

Dane Miller | Author

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