By Jay Ferris, written December 1999

One of the manuscripts which I have been working on for the past 15 years or so is, “The Church as a New Creation”. One of the chapters is, “Looking For a Place To Live”. Jesus went away to prepare that place for us. It is in His Father’s house. We are that house, “… if we hold fast our courage and the hope in which we boast.” This is a house that is build with “living stones,” stones which are put in relationship to each other, “built up together in love.”

In practice, the love of God is not a response to a doctrine, but a heartfelt fruit of the Spirit. Where the structuring of the Body of Christ is concerned, this love is made particularly intense specifically toward those whom the Lord has given into our lives. Jesus is Lord of these relational gifts.

For me, the clearest picture of the sovereignty of God in this connection is found in I Samuel 18:1-3: “And it came to pass, when he had made an end of speaking unto Saul, that the soul of Jonathan was knit with the soul of David, and Jonathan loved him as his own soul. And Saul took him that day, and would let him go no more home to his father’s house. Then Jonathan and David made a covenant, because he loved him as his own soul.“

In this passage, it is clear, that the knitting of their souls was not a decision that they had made, but rather a condition of their hearts that God had done. There only part was to see it, understand it, and walk in it. The beautiful thing about this kind of love is that it is not a matter of human doing.  It is God’s doing, and hard to miss. It does not take a Ph.D. to feel it. 

In Romans 5:5, Paul tells us that this “…  hope maketh not ashamed; because the love of God is shed abroad in our hearts by the Holy Ghost which is given unto us.” Speaking about human doing, as represented by circumcision, Paul tells us in Galatians 5:6 that, “ … in Jesus Christ neither circumcision availeth anything, nor uncircumcision; but faith which worketh by love.“

I always like to “have an answer for the hope within me”, especially a Biblical answer, so I wanted to share this with you. You just might need it someday as one of the weapons of your warfare. It comes out of the same heavenly arsenal as the weapons Jesus used when He was in the wilderness, “It is written…”

Love!