Loving Like God

Lately I find myself wondering…why is it so much easier to be transparent in a written word, then face to face? Why can’t I share my love and appreciation of others face to face, and more often than I do? My heart is being stirred to new levels of passion. I know it is The Lord, and I’m wondering how to express it without losing control.

At least, I think losing control is part of what I am struggling with. When a conversation turns toward things about which I have very strong feelings, and I begin to pursue it to the point of getting emotional about it, my natural tendency is to back off so that I don’t lose it. Sometimes I back off short of tears, but sometimes not. In any case, I think there is a nakedness in tears, and an intimacy in tears, which is very threatening for me. It doesn’t matter whether they are tears of joy or tears of sorrow; I want to tell someone how I feel, and before I can get very far, I am reduced to tears. I think the problem is not just me feeling threatened, but I think that others won’t know what to do if I break down and weep, and I am reluctant to put them in that position.

However, increasingly I am sensing that we all need to be put in that position. We need to feel in the depths of our being, the passion in the heart of God. More and more, I am convinced, that “the zeal of The Lord Almighty” (Isaiah 9:7) is His passion.

Maybe it’s a male thing. We are so confoundedly task-oriented, that we can’t afford to lose control. Perhaps if we were more relationship-oriented, we might risk it for the sake of intimacy.

• By Jay Ferris

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!