Agape Fever!
We ended 2017 in the Upper Room considering our Lord's discussion about Spiritual Fruit on personal branches. Building on that theme, we are entering into 2018 discerning agape love. Agape love is about grace and fruit, much fruit!
But it is also about love on a human level so that it can be about love on a superhuman level, agape (αγαπη) love. The things visible teach us about things invisible. One of the beauties of being "in Christ" are the eternal realties displayed in visible patterns of created things. God is not only seen in the flowers and stars, He is in the organic life of our relationships. He is seen in the dynamics of two people coming together to form a single oneness. The profoundness of God is in His simplicity.
God is love and His love is righteousness and pure. His love is the single most pervasive trait governing who we are. God's love is in us when we are created righteous in Jesus the Lord. We are made new in His image, Eph. 4:24, when we are created in Him, 2Cor. 5:17. God's grace in this relationship flows out of His love for us.
In our last GraceNotes we exposed the reign of our sovereign Lord prior to temporal existence. He offers grace to newly created life to live in fellowship with His sovereign being. This demonstration of His love inserts our will to choose to also be present. In order for us to see and understand human life, we need to be confronted with choices beyond our created capacity.
Created life can opt for a personal finite power in place of reliance on God Himself and His infinite power. Adam and Eve modeled this for us in the original creation and our choice still lives in the soul of mankind who is created brand new Spiritually! Who we love is at risk.
Deception always rears its ugly head conning our soul-self into what is called sin. Its nothing more than asserting a self-will rather than accepting the beauty and glory of God's grace. Given the option to choose, hostility became the norm because God's reality challenges the identity of finite creation and, it turns out, mankind is foolish … he becomes a fool without His creator! DC has become a house of fools!
The consequence of our choices are measured by the fruit on our branches. Living in fellowship with the Creator of life seems like a no brainer. Even after being created Spiritually new, with a new identity and a righteous spirit, we easily stray from truth and loose benefits of healthy fruit by not consuming God's grace with our faith.
The consequence of straying off the track of fruit and truth is the discipline of love kicking in, getting us back on track. We never loose God's love, it is either blessing us or disciplining us. But what about the object of our love?
Created Spiritually new in God's image, love and grace dominate our provisions of choice. However, still in a fleshly jar of clay, our temporal soul continues to provide mankind choices between the resurrection power of our risen Lord, making us overcomers, or walking in flesh even while living in the Spirit, Gal. 5:25. This is tragic! Who do we really love?
Those who belong to Christ Jesus have crucified the flesh with its passions and desires, v.24. Yet, the believer falls prey to deceptions of partial truth and blatant lies. A believer's sin is tied to the cross of Jesus and covered by the blood of the Lamb. God's agape love covers us even in our foolishness; still we dabble in sin, in the shame of not consuming God's marvelous grace with faith He lovingly provides. We need to be "rooted and grounded" in God's truth and love. We need to know, accept and be who we are in the Lord Christ. Do we love Him?
"But we have this treasure in jars of clay, to show that the surpassing power belongs to God and not to us. We are afflicted in every way, but not crushed; perplexed, but not driven to despair; persecuted, but not forsaken; struck down, but not destroyed; always carrying in the body the death of Jesus, so that the life of Jesus may also be manifested in our bodies. For we who live are always being given over to death for Jesus' sake, so that the life of Jesus also may be manifested in our mortal flesh. So death is at work in us, but life in you."
-2Corinthians 4:7-12.
What a marvelous passage! The Christian life, that is, the believer who lives in the Lord Christ contends with the most difficult living there is until, … we discover what the scriptures declares to be true, IS TRUE!
The mystery of Christ in us takes a lot of time for the "born again" believer to understand. The miracle of new creation has taken place within each believer but the battle has just begun. We know it is true by the testimony of the Holy Spirit within but typically we do not understand who we are in Christ until we accept this reality in experience. Once we understand with our head, it sometimes takes even more time for it to move down into the depths of our heart, where is dwelling our love.
The primary reason is, we don't have the discipline or desire to do the work required to make our new creation a living experience. So what happens is, we are afflicted in every way, but not crushed; perplexed, but not driven to despair; persecuted, but not forsaken; struck down, but not destroyed; always carrying the in the body the death of Jesus so that the life of Jesus may also be manifested in our bodies. This is the Holy Spirit teaching us to live by faith and not by works. He is demonstrating the resurrection power of our Lord Christ Jesus because we have His resurrection life in our jar of clay.
Accepting who we are in Christ is a continuous challenge because we are continually being loved more and more. It is abounding love, Paul tells us in Romans 5. Our finite awareness continually is overcome by an infinite lover drawing us closer and closer into oneness with Himself. Only our own unbelief hinders spiritual maturity.
We exclude ourselves from this loving process by relying on carnality, relying on things rather than upon His Spirit who is faithfully wooing us into His fellowship. We rely on circumstances rather than the expectations in our soul's Lover to nurture our unbelief into faith.
Grapple with the thought Jesus gives us in John 17, "…that they may all be one, just as you, Father, are in me, and I in you … the glory you have given me I have given to them, that they may be as one, I in them and you in me, that they may become perfectly one, so that the world may know that you have sent me and loved them even as you loved me." This spiritual oneness is part of being created new in Christ Jesus. It seems symbolic or mystic because we are not walking in the expectation of its truth.
We know oneness through the union of marriage. This is the context for Paul's statement about our union in Christ, "But he who is joined to the Lord becomes one spirit with him," 1 Cor. 6:17. This is a literal reality just as is the joining of a man and a woman. This is why Paul tells us in this same letter we have received the Spirit Who is from God, "that we might understand the things freely given to us by God." The things of God, Paul tells us, are revealed to us through His Spirit. This is why we are Holy, we are literally the temple of the living God. He has begun a work in us which will continue until we see Him face to face!
Holiness is not who we will be, it is whom we are right now, right now in this sinful mortal flesh in which we dwell! Look again at John's statement in 1 John 4:17, "By this is love perfected with (μετα) us, so that we may have confidence for the day of judgment, because as he is so also are we in this world."
When we are created new our identity changes. The core of who we are in Christ is Spiritual. The sin in our body, the habit of self is no longer who we are. These are the things we bring into submission to Jesus so that His Spiritual Life in us is seen in our mortal flesh.
When the absolute eternal agape love of God pervades our soul, an eternal perspective changes our temporal circumstances and regardless of how painful or how much anguish we are drawn into by the polluted circumstances of this worldly system, we acquire peace and rest in God.
Accepting ourselves in the Lord Christ is submitting to God's truth without regard to circumstances. The Holy Spirit is joined to our spirit reproving us of sin, righteousness and judgment. We experience His work within us according to His own will and purpose. It is what we call FAITH.
Jesus was rejected and so should be our expectation. We can find solace and joy within our sorrow since in each of our jars of clay is residing treasure, our treasure, the living resurrected Jesus Himself!
He has forgiven and given "so much more" by a second birth. This time, a second Adam who is eternal, brings us into His own eternal Kingdom of Light, making us children of the most High! He pours into us His immortal agape love and covers us with His Holy blood. Its time for us to get agape fever!
Jesus loves me, this I know. Lets worship!