I am sharing a poignant message by Bruce, a fellow brother in Christ.
by: Bruce
In the book of Acts, the early Christians, filled with the spirit, were so filled with love for one another that they shared all things common. Those that had plenty had nothing left over. Those that had little saw no lack. Is it any wonder that this type of love caused the church to blaze thru the known world, "turning the world upside down" as one non- Christian exclaimed in Acts?
We would be hard pressed to see anything like that anywhere in our Western Christianity today. This commandment to love others as we love ourselves is not easy, most would agree. I will go a step further. I believe in truth it is not just hard, it is impossible, unless a man or woman gets free from their fleshly nature.
But there is the rub. How many truly want to be free of it? Many say they do, but it is the most valuable asset in our collection of pearls, self-rule, that must be sold in order to truly possess and be possessed by the one who is the pearl of great price.
With the defeat of the flesh goes our "right" to self-rule, self-will, , leaning on our own strength and determination to follow after God, which will never be enough, especially as the cost for following the Lord increases as times get bad,
In these last days, God is revealing that when we say "Lord, Lord", we use the word correctly, as someone how is not his own but as someone 100% submitted to the will of the loving master, the one who bought him with a price.This is Christianity with a cost, something almost unheard of in our Christianity today. This is also the pathway to walking "free indeed", free to love one another with our entire hearts, not just with the remnants of what is left over after we finish loving ourselves. This is the "being saved to the uttermost" that we as His body so desperately need to walk in to prove to a disbelieving world that our God truly reigns.
Make no mistake, the challenge before us is.... Can a man walk in the new nature as Christ promised? Can a man be brought to a place, a dwelling place, an abiding, where he is no longer in the flesh, but in the spirit, all day, every day? Paul told the Ephesians "Nothing profits but a new creature" but how we do not want to believe that.
Our God has promised that our shield of faith would quench all the fiery darts of the wicked one. He promised that we would be given a way of escape in every temptation. He promised that sin would not have dominion over us. He told us clearly that we are not in the flesh, that we are dead to it, and we are now to yield ourselves to God as those who are alive from the dead, not as those trying to die.
Why is it we hear so few hunger after this type of victory? To not know how to walk here is forgivable and understandable, as few teach this "being saved to the uttermost". But not to even hunger after truly defeating the old nature, content to simply "do the best we can" when we all know for a fact that we put far less than our best effort into becoming holy....that is the problem I see we need to address if love is to ever rule as God wills in our lives.
We can talk about love all we want, but until we talk about how to lose our old nature, it is simply nice sounding words, with no power to back them up. Jude told us to "earnestly contend for the faith that was once delivered to the saints". If we are to "turn the world upside down" again as the early saints did, if we are to love as they loved one another, the answer is contending for the faith that "it is no longer I that live, but Christ who lives in me".
May God help lead us to do so.
http://bibleforums.org/showthread.php?210809-Is-it-truly-possible-to-love-others-as-we-love-ourselvesLinkback:
https://tubagbohol.mikeligalig.com/index.php?topic=29051.0
