Whenever you
are confronted with an opponent. Conquer him with love. – Mahatma Gandhi
Recently I wrote about abiding or clinging to the vine of life- Jesus.
John 15:5 says, “I am the vine, you
are the branches. If a man remains in me and I in him, he will bear much fruit;
apart from me you can do nothing.” Other versions say that you
cannot produce or yield anything; you can do nothing at all. We must abide,
cling to, live in, and dwell in the vine or the Lord. He is our source of power
and life. We cannot do anything on our own. John said, “Remain in me.” Do you
want to bear fruit? I suspect you do,
but you can’t on your own. Bible teacher Beth Moore said you can do stuff, but
not the “things you cannot do.” You
cannot do miracles or supernatural things. These are the things God created you
to do through Him.
Elsewhere in Scripture it says that God created you and me to love. This
is hard for me. “Dear friends, since God so loved us, we also
ought to love one another…we love because He first loved us” (1John 4:11,19). Why did I move
from bearing fruit to loving? Because “Whoever does not love does not know God,
because God is love” (1 John 4:8). Love is a key of life. Agape love is
the love of God that is supernatural, selfless and from God, impossible to give
without His power and love within us. The love chapter that many people can
find if they have attended a wedding recently, is about love. It speaks about
being a clanging cymbal without love. “If I have the gift of prophecy and can
fathom all mysteries and all knowledge, and if I have a faith that can move
mountains, but do not have love, I am nothing” (1 Corinthians 13:2).
There it is again, “nothing.” Paul is
saying that our motivation must be the love of God in us in all things we do.
So, whatever we desire or try to achieve, we must rely on God and His love to
achieve it. Apart from Him we can do nothing. He will provide for us to bring
about reconciliation, or other God given missions. But we must trust in God to
do it.
Gandhi’s
quote above is that love is a tool or better yet a weapon. As Ephesians 6 tells us, we must put on the full
armor of God, “And take the helmet of salvation, and the sword of the Spirit, which is the
word of God”
(Ephesians 6:17).
This is Spirit power, “For the
word of God is living and powerful, and sharper
than any two-edged sword,
piercing even to the division of soul and spirit, and of
joints and marrow, and is a discerner of
the thoughts and intents of the heart” (Hebrews 4:12). If we take and use this power
in love we can do it. “For with God nothing will be impossible”
(Luke 1:37).
“Fear the Lord, you
His holy people, for those who fear Him lack nothing” (Psalm
34:9). Without Him we can do nothing, but if we revere Him all things are
possible and we will have all we need.
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Thanks for sharing your thoughts.