The Love of Women

Posted on December 9, 2025 by LovingLikeGod.com

davidandjonathon“I grieve for you, Jonathan my brother; you were very dear to me.  Your love for me was wonderful, more wonderful than that of women.”  2 Samuel 1:26

Soon to be King David, upon hearing of the death of Jonathan, the son of Saul, and the one with whom his soul had been knit by the Lord, said something about the love that they had shared. What finally struck me after many years of thinking about their clarion love and connection was that the love they shared was better than the “love of women”.

This is not about how men love women nor is it about gay males. No, it is about a much greater love than that. This is about the way that women love. These were two valiant warriors, yet where love was concerned they did not love one another as might be expected in some Good Ole boys club kind of a way. Rather, this invites us to take another look at the way that women love.

Ultimately, all those who are found in Christ are in Him and He in them as being His bride. There is a quality of love found in women that is very rarely found in men. This passage from the Old Testament is rare if not unique, and demands that we, as men, take another look at how we love.

It is enough that David has put it this way, without me trying to expound on the difference. I leave it to you to contemplate what this must mean. Perhaps once we understood it, we would leave off from our heavy-handed male lover roles, and find ourselves moving toward this truly amazing kind of love that is found in the hearts of women.

Lord, help us to melt into this feminine way of loving in time so that “the world might know.”

Love!

  • By Jay Ferris, originally posted March 2013
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Ownership

Posted on December 2, 2025 by LovingLikeGod.com

marthaandmaryJust a word about ownership: In the hope of keeping this brief, I will leave out the address of the various passages covered. I have touched upon them in other contexts for over a year now.

It says of the believers in the early church, right after and as a consequence of Pentecost that there was not a needy person among them, and this, the fruit of no one thinking that anything they had was their own any longer. They had all things in common. In the wake of the Baptism of The Holy Spirit, there was a radical change of mind where ownership was concerned. Before the Baptism there was a sense of ownership. People were taken up with owning things, now they owned nothing in this sense any longer.

One could conclude that this was the end of ownership, except that Jesus made a promise, that in exchange for allowing Him to change their relational priorities, and their ownership priorities, He would give them, and us, “100 times relationships and 100 times houses” as well, Mark 10: 29-30. These relationships would best be described as family relationships.

In the fulfillment of this promise, we would now own 100 times the houses we might have owned in the past.

There are those who have come to be with us in the distress of these days in our war with cancer – “Crebbs.” Some of them are people whom The Lord has given to us, and we to them. They now own our home as part of the fulfillment of the promise. That’s the deal. On the one hand, they have lost all sense of ownership in the ways they used to think and possess, and yet they now own 100 times what they did before.

It’s a different kind of ownership, however. My wife and I own our home, yet not in the sense that this once was true. Now we are servants living in our home, and when others whom the Lord has made ours show up, they are also servants in our home. This old house is no longer occupied by owners, but by servants. The difference in attitude is wonderful. All the negative things that go along with feelings of ownership have now given way to feelings of servanthood. Those who come as servants share the load that once we bore alone. It is no longer we the owners, and they the guests, we all share in the responsibility of the service of the household.

It is said that Jesus went to visit His friends in Martha’s house. That was back in the days when those who followed Jesus still owned things. The attitude this generates, and the problems this creates are clearly seen in the difference between the attitudes of Martha, and Mary, her sister. Martha was the owner, and Mary was a sister living in Martha’s house. Mary was a sister, not a servant. That left all the weight of servant hood on Martha, with very little of the felt need to serve on Mary. Even back in those days, Jesus says of Mary that she had chosen the better part. What’s wrong with this picture? The fact is there are hosting responsibilities that go along with ownership.

The fact is there are things that go with ownership that can, and often are very onerous. This very burdensome aspect of ownership has been done away in Christ, when the house has many “owners,” owners in the form of servants of the household.

This difference in attitude, and responsibility is very big and very important! This is another point of the warfare associated with these wonderful and new relationships that are ours in Christ. This is not some new and irresponsible variety of relationships, it has responsibilities, and clearly defined roles that go along in the wonder of it all. This was never meant to be some gathering of irresponsible “warm fuzzies,” sitting around and singing verse after verse of Kumbaya, no, this is a new and clearly defined way of living in and by the Spirit. Not to share the responsibilities that go along with it is to contribute to the warfare against the saints, not the fellowship of the saints.

So let us be done with the old attitudes of ownership and hospitality, and embrace the new as co-heirs of this amazing and passionate new way of living.

Love!

  • By Jay Ferris, originally posted March 2013.
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One Of The Battles In A War Of Many Fronts

Posted on November 25, 2025 by LovingLikeGod.com

divided house” This I say then, Walk in the Spirit, and ye shall not fulfil the lust of the flesh. For the flesh lusteth against the Spirit, and the Spirit against the flesh: and these are contrary the one to the other: so that ye cannot do the things that ye would. But if ye be led of the Spirit, ye are not under the law,” Galatians 5:16-18.

In this context we are touching on one of the battle fronts in this war between flesh and Spirit. Certainly this is an important part of the war, but not the front I have in mind for present exploration. Rather what I am thinking about and wanting to address in this post is the war that goes on between flesh and blood family members and the presence of the Spirit in our lives.

“Suppose ye that I am come to give peace on earth? I tell you, Nay; but rather division: For from henceforth there shall be five in one house divided, three against two, and two against three. The father shall be divided against the son, and the son against the father; the mother against the daughter, and the daughter against the mother; the mother in law against her daughter in law, and the daughter in law against her mother in law,” Luke 12:51-53.

This is the war that we have in view in this post.

Interesting that Jesus begins His answer with “For from henceforth…” This suggests a point of demarcation between how things once were in flesh and blood families, and how things are about to be in families. The last thing that Jesus said before this, as recorded by Luke was:

“But I have a baptism to be baptized with; and how am I straitened till it be accomplished!”, Luke 12:50.

This suggests the possibility that what Jesus is looking at here in His Baptism of sorts has consequences that might also impact our lives, and especially our family lives once we have undergone the fall-out from His baptism, in our case, the baptism of The Holy Spirit. The baptism changes our position or location, certainly our priorities where relationships are concerned. Baptized in the Spirit we find ourselves in a new love, with new and different people, and this is very threatening to those we have been associated with to date, especially our own flesh and blood.

This is much like what happened in the heart of Cain when Abel came along and displaced Cain from his central place in the lives of his parents. This kind of displacement can and most often does cause a relational war. Flesh and blood relationship is no longer our highest priority, and unless the flesh and blood people in our lives come under the influence of the same Spirit with some understanding of the magnitude of the difference that makes relationally, as likely as not they will make war on our new lives and relationships in Christ.

Make no mistake, this is a real war. It is very painful all around, because it is born out of woundedness, resentment and not love. It is the number one killer of spiritual relationships. Flesh and blood will put up with this intrusion provided it is limited to flesh and blood marriage, and that, likely as not, for the sake of the perpetuation of the flesh and blood family.

Spiritual relationships, however, are not bound by or to the flesh. They may be reproductive in the Spirit, but that reproduction has to do with the family of God, not the family of the flesh.

This front in the war between flesh and Spirit is one of the most telling, where our ability to move forward in Christ is concerned, because moving forward in Christ is first and ultimately about Spiritual relationships first with Him, and ultimately including each other. This transition in relationship begins in this present age where the war is still going on. It is little wonder that Jesus addressed this reality early rather than late, because it is such a big obstacle to receiving Him and Him in each other.

The Holy Spirit changes our relational priorities, if only we are strong enough in The Spirit to Let Him have His way with us.

Please note, this is not a call not to take care our own, where flesh and blood is concerned, but only to be aware that in Christ we have a new “our own,” and taking care of them is also a priority of the highest order.

Love!

  • By Jay Ferris, originally published March 2013.
Posted in J.Ferris: Reposts with Notes, J.Ferris: Warfare against Intimacy and Conversation | 1 Comment