By Lynn Heatley.  In this section, I would like to speak on the nature and overflow of the love of God and how it is an essential aspect in the ministry of reconciliation. In the twelfth chapter of the first book of Corinthians, Paul speaks of the value of spiritual gifts and how all the gifts are needed to have a wholeness that reflects the nature of Christ.  He then transitions into the next chapter by calling his readers to a higher place; a place of understanding of how love is more important than any particular gift.  He summons us to come up higher to a broader place of understanding and lifestyle:  “And now I will show you the most excellent way”.  We will benefit greatly as we follow the Lord in this call to a more excellent way.

The Greatest Thing

When Jesus was asked what was the greatest thing one could ever do, He responded with: Love the Lord your God with all of your heart, all your soul and all your mind and then, after this, love others as you love yourself.[1]

Above all else, Love.  Love God. Love Yourself. Love Others.

In my own journey, I have found that love has to flow in this order.  Until I really came to comprehend and receive the love of God towards me, I had a hard time loving myself.  And only when I began to love myself (in a holy way), could I then begin to love others.  We sometimes are good at loving God, but often fail miserably at receiving His love for us which then reduces our ability to effectively love ourselves and others.  But praise unto our God who continually beckons us to come up higher into a more excellent way.

Let’s talk about this great charge to love and how it applies to reconciliation. Simply stated, when we begin to receive the love of God, we find our own hearts enlarged to love others in a much greater capacity, even the most unlovely (as we can all identify with God loving us when we are most unlovely or unruly).  But love is not always the sugary, gooey, fills-good kind of emotion that we think it is, for love calls and challenges us to do that which is needed, not necessarily that which is desired.  Let’s look at some of the qualities of love and how they apply to areas of reconciliation.

A Love That is Outward

I was not raised in a particular religious family although my parents did have a basic belief in God and of right and wrong.  I was not taught much about the Bible but there was one thing that I was taught in my childhood and that was the golden rule.  The golden rule comes from a saying of Jesus [2] and essentially says “do to others what you would want them to do to you”.  I have since taught this to my own children and have generalized it in a broader way by restating it this way “treat others in a way that you would want them to treat you if you were in their place”.  I have found this “golden rule” to be one of the most important and dynamic instructions to all of us regarding our relationships with one another.   If we simply followed this golden rule in all of our relationships with others, there would not be the need for great amounts of reconciliation with so many.

A Love That Covers

Jesus said that love covers a multitude of sin.  What do you think he is saying in such a simple and yet complex statement?  How this has looked in my own life has been experiencing God’s unconditional love just when I have blown it big time and feel like the biggest creep around.  And then experiencing love from others when I feel like I deserve the opposite.  It really unravels me when I am expecting the worst and somehow get grace in return.  This provokes me to change far more than any strong rebuke ever would because I have found that love has a power to it that is unlike anything else; a power that compels me to change when every self effort has failed miserably.  Jesus does not excuse sin, but He loves us as He convicts and challenges us to “go and sin no more”[3].  What an advocate we have in Him.  I am so grateful that He is my mediator between myself and my heavenly Father.   What a friend we have in Jesus.

A Love That is Honest

As Jesus loves us in the midst of our sin and immaturity, He also calls us to walk in truth.  Truth for ourselves and truth for others.  He does not call us to love others at the expense of being truthful.  But we truly can not speak deep and sometimes correcting truth without having first laid a foundation of love.  I have heard it said that speaking corrective truth without love is one of the most destructive things you could do to another.  In doing this, there is no grace extended to work the truth through and thus the person typically lands in a pit of self condemnation with no escape ladder in sight.  In contrast, truth that comes to us in the midst of love offers us the empowerment and hope to change.  It says “I will love you, as you are, in the midst of this journey of change”.  Love has great power to produce change.

A Love That is Patient and Kind

I am convinced that simple acts of kindness is one area that the Lord continues to challenge us to come up higher in.  Love that is reflected in our actions.  Love that overrules our bad temper or grumpiness.  Love that says “I will still love you with kindness and  patience even if I have had a lousy day”.  Have you ever noticed that in the list of the character qualities of the Spirit (aka fruits of the Spirit[4]), that self control is listed last.  I have noted this aspect in my own life and pray continually that the love of Christ would overrule my disposition to a lack of patience or kindness.  If we walked in more patience and kindness, we would have less areas that we need to reconcile with others in.  Something to ponder and pray about, for sure.

A Love That Sees Ahead

We need to ask God to give us hope for the future for ourselves and others.  A spiritual farsightedness that helps us in present relationships and circumstances.  Jesus had this quality of farsightedness.  When Peter was just about to deny that he ever knew Jesus, Jesus looked into Peter’s eyes and declared that he would fail him before the night was over and then stated the most amazing thing: “after you have returned (repented), go and strengthen the brethren”[5].  I find that encounter humbling and encouraging.  We would think that denying Jesus would have kicked Peter out of the Kingdom for sure, but Jesus declares to Peter: after you have returned, then go and strengthen the brothers.  Jesus declares that Peter’s failure would not kick him out of the Kingdom, but would instead give him authority to be able to strengthen and encourage others.  I wish that we all had that kind of powerful encouragement; one that says, yes you will fail, but after you have returned, you will learn from your failure and will then be able to minister more effectively because of the new place of humility that has now come forth in your life.  Failures are never the end of our story.  We need to ask the Lord for farsighted vision for ourselves and others and encourage others forward in growth and hope through it.

Another example is the farsighted vision that encouraged Jesus before he had to endure great agony. The bible says that Jesus was given the ability to see the vision of what the cross would accomplish before he endured such an awful death, and because he had that vision, it gave him the ability to endure such a hardship[6].  He knew that his obedience in sacrificing his life on the cross would then build a bridge for others to be forgiven and to be able to enter into relationship with our heavenly Father.  He saw all of our faces before him.  This vision helped him to endure such torture and physical pain as the sins of the whole world were placed on him, the perfect Son of God.  His act was a holy transaction of taking all of our sins and giving us all of his holiness[7].  What a wonderful Savior we have in Jesus.

Often, when I am going through hard times, I ask the Lord to show me what is being accomplished in the midst of it all.  Often times, the understanding he brings gives me grace to endure the difficulty.  I found myself asking him for farsighted vision when I found out that one of my dearest friend’s son, only 20, was diagnosed with a terminal illness.  After the shock of it, I found myself crying out to the Lord for a higher perspective than what I had at the time.  He was faithful to answer my cry and bring a vision that carried me and others through a very difficult season.  The Lord was victorious but not in the way that we preferred; and yet His hopeful word that he had set in our hearts beforehand became a strong anchor to hold on to in the midst of the storm.

In relating to reconciliation, we need to seek the Lord for farsighted vision with our selves and others.  If we fail in this step, we often get stuck in hopelessness and never see the restoration that reconciliation will provide.

A Love that Serves

Love always has the quality of being “otherly” to it.  Love does not focus on self all the time, it continues to look for areas to give away what has been so graciously received.  Love does not look to build oneself up, but looks for ways to edify and serve others.  Love gets us past our childish ways of hoarding and begins to learn how to share with others.  When one is becoming filled with the love of God, the need to look to others to meet every need begins to subside.  All of these are healthy components of spiritual growth.  Paul states something very powerful to us in the book of Ephesians[8]: “ that after Christ is established in our hearts by faith, that we would then go deeper in our rootedness of God’s love and out of that place, we would then be able to understand the vastness of the love of Christ and be filled up with all the fullness of God”.  Love is an essential ingredient that we need to become more fully rooted in so that we can be filled with more of the fullness of God.  That fullness will flow over into areas of reconciliation.

A Love that Remains Grateful

Nothing spirals me down faster than when I am in a place of complaining and ungratefulness.  When I am blinded to the positive and begin to only focus on the negative, trouble has begun.  Trouble to myself and trouble to others.  The bible shows us countless examples of what a complaining and bitter spirit does to oneself and others.  We lose perspective and our ability to wound others increases dramatically.  The Lord encourages us, whether things are going great (abounding) or whether we are in very lean times (abasing)[9] we are to remain in a place of contentment, which brings great gain[10].  I am not saying to live one’s life in denial, but I have found that there is always something to be grateful for, even in the worst of times.  Let’s continue to ask the Lord to have a grateful heart.  We will be less prone to injure others and the need to reconcile will be greatly diminished.

A Love that Inspires Obedience

Jesus told us that if we love him, we will do what he says[11].  I have come to understand that my disobedience to the Lord is a love problem.  My disobedience essentially says that I love something else more than the Lord.  When my heart is reestablished in love, than I am willing to do what he is directing me to do, even though it may be very hard.  When I am in disagreement with another person and the Lord prompts me to be the first to say “I am sorry”, this is not always met with great enthusiasm in my soul.  But, because I love the Lord, he eventually wins over my soul and I end up doing what he is says I need to do.  When I am struggling with obedience, I have learned to pray “Lord, help my love for you increase so that I can obey this hard word”.  He has been faithful to answer that prayer in a variety of ways.  I pray that your love for the Lord might also increase, thus resulting in a greater obedience of His words to you.

A Call to Come Up Higher

God is not just looking for polished vessels, he is desiring a purity in our inward hearts that matches any external actions.  He doesn’t just desire outward acts that appear good, but he is after the motives and intents of our heart.  As we are able to receive more of His love, we are able to surrender the areas that still need to be cleaned up by him.  As we go through cleansing, he gives us new perspective and our ability to receive and give love begins to blossom.  Love is such a key to reconciliation.  Out of our need to be reconciled to God, Jesus came and surrendered his life on our behalf so that we could know our Father and be a part of the eternal and beloved family of God[12]. As we grow, we also begin to surrender our lives more for the fullness of reconciliation to come forth. To surrender in such ways welcomes the smile of God on our lives as we follow in His Son’s footsteps.

For Your Meditation and Prayer

I have found this commentary on the love passage in Corinthians[13] to be very helpful in my own internal assessment of how I am relating to and loving others. I pray that it encourages and directs you in your journey as well.

“Love suffers long, having patience with imperfect people.  Love is kind, active in doing good.   Love does not envy; since it is non-possessive and non-competitive, it actually wants other people to get ahead.  Hence it does not parade itself.  Love has a self-effacing quality; it is not ostentatious.  Love is not puffed up, treating others arrogantly; it does not behave rudely, but displays good manners and courtesy.  Love does not seek its own, insisting on its own rights and demanding precedence; rather, it is unselfish.  Love is not provoked; it is not irritable or touchy, rough or hostile, but is graceful under pressure.  Love thinks no evil; it does not keep an account of wrongs done to it; instead, it erases resentments.  Love does not rejoice in iniquity, finding satisfaction in the shortcomings of others and spreading an evil report; rather, it rejoices in the truth, aggressively advertising the good.  Love bears all things, defending and holding other people up.  Love believes the best about others, credits them with good intentions, and is not suspicious.  Love hopes all things, never giving up on people, but affirming their future.  Love endures all things, persevering and remaining loyal to the end.  Love never fails”[14].

Tags: Reconciliation with God, Reconciling with your family, Reconciling with yourself