Jul 16
31
Knowledge or love
1Cor 8:1 . . . Knowledge puffeth up, but charity edifieth.
It is impossible to have fellowship with anyone who has great head knowledge of doctrine, but has not the love of Christ shed abroad in their heart. They will want to argue with you, but never rejoice with you. They will find fault with you, but never comfort you. They will defend their positions, but never just declare Christ crucified with love for those who hear. Even among those who agree on doctrine, there will always be a hair to split, a nit to pick, but never real fellowship. And Paul here, with a word from God almighty, has given us the reason. Only Christ will do. – Chris Cunningham
Walk in love
And walk in love, as Christ also hath loved us, and hath given Himself for us an offering and a sacrifice to God for a sweet smelling savour. Eph 5:2
Here we see the motive for the performance of all duties and responsibilities (which are really privileges and blessings) of believers in regard to Christ and each other. The child of God needs not a law or rules to direct him in his walk or govern his life. He has what he needs – Christ’s love for him. With Christ and His love for us in view how could we not love Him and our brethren. The love of God manifest in Christ giving Himself for us “is shed abroad in our hearts by the Holy Ghost which is given unto us” Romans 5:5. This love is manifest in our conversation or, walk, not just lip service – “My little children, let us not love in word, neither in tongue; but in deed and in truth” 1John 3:18. Our Lord, constrained by love, lived His life for His sheep and died for His sheep. Because He loves His own He now provides for us, He protects us, He comforts us, He forgives us, He intercedes for us, He blesses us with all Spiritual blessings and all temporal blessings. He walked in love here on this earth until His death, and now He reigns in love at the right hand of the Father. It is His desire (which shall be accomplished) that all whom He loves shall be with Him in Glory, eternally. Is this not the motive and attitude of those who know Him? To be like Him? My brethren, because He walked in love for us everything will be alright. As the body of Christ walks in love for Him, His gospel and for one another, everything will be alright. As we are mere mortals there will be difficulties, trials, and misunderstandings. However, as we walk in love, as Christ gave Himself for us and loves us, we will have peace and seek peace, we will give comfort and be comforted, we will forgive and be forgiven.
“Seeing ye have purified your souls in obeying the truth through the Spirit unto unfeigned love of the brethren, see that ye love one another with a pure heart fervently” (1 Peter 1:22). Tommy Robbins.
For the love of the Gospel
From the Scriptures and from my own experience, I must say that God’s people delight in gospel preaching. By gospel preaching, I mean setting forth Christ in His wonderful Person, His glorious work and His eternal exaltation. (Romans 8.34; 1 Corinthians 15.3, 4) There is no sweeter message for the child of God, no more needful word than that Word of God which, when he heard it, gave him faith; that living and active Word that reveals his heart; that eternal Word of God by which he was born again and by which he continues to be nourished in the inner man; that Word which, by the gospel, was preached to him (Romans 10.17; Hebrews 4.12; 1 Peter 1.25). Give the believer the message of Christ, and do not waste his time with religious trivialities!
As with all things, there is no perfection in this life on this matter. There are times – even extended periods – when a true child of God may find no joy in hearing the gospel. But he will not look for the desired joy from another source. Instead, he will cry out with David, “Let me hear joy and gladness that these bones which you have broken may rejoice… Restore to me the joy of Your salvation.”
A believer may also be distracted by the glories of fleshly religion and find some excitement in the passing fads of human religion. He is yet flesh and such religion appeals to the flesh. But you can be certain that the excitement will fade and the hunger for the gospel will return. Believers must have Christ!
We may judge accurately of a man’s profession by this standard: Does he love the gospel of Jesus Christ? If he does not love the preaching of Christ, it can only be he does not love the Christ that is preached. Joe Terrel.
Love and the law
Acts 15: 5: But there rose up certain of the sect of the Pharisees which believed, saying, That it was needful to circumcise them, and to command them to keep the law of Moses…7: Peter rose up, and said unto them,…10: Now therefore why tempt ye God, to put a yoke upon the neck of the disciples, which neither our fathers nor we were able to bear?
This certain sect of the Pharisees not only wanted Christ preached but also the Law of Moses. Today, the vast majority of messages are centered on how man should live, how he ought to treat his fellow man, what he should be abstaining from and what he should commit himself to. When Peter opposed this error he called it “tempting God.” Why?
Such messages tempt God because they deny that Christ and him crucified is sufficient to create obedience in God’s people. Preaching the law to make believers obedient tempts God because it denies that the continual preaching of the person of Christ the Lord in whom sinners were chosen, redeemed, regenerated, preserved and shall be conformed unto is enough to make them obedient. It tempts God because it denies that true worship is in the heart and not in the flesh, in the spirit and not in the dead letter.
Commanding men to reform their lives tempts God because it is a denial that Christ’s circumcision of the heart is not sufficient to create a new inner man who loves God his Savior and the brethren. It is a denial that Christ’s blood alone purges the conscience from dead works to serve the living God. Carnal worship tempts God by calling God a liar who says that the law of the Spirit of life in Christ Jesus has freed the believer from Moses’ law of sin and death. Preaching series-after-series on abstaining from sexual immorality, or giving, or any other form of morality, is directly tempting God because it puts confidence in the flesh, points sinners to the flesh, worships the flesh and exalts not God, but self.
True believers are obedient to the only ruler of their life, the LORD Jesus Christ. Therefore believers desire to hear Christ speak and to follow his commands. God’s commandment is fulfilled when love for Christ is implanted in the newly created pure heart, resulting in faith unfeigned. Unfeigned faith needs not disguise itself with a show of moral reform for it is true faith which worships God in Spirit, rejoices in Christ Jesus and puts no confidence in the flesh. I Ti. 1: 5: Now the end of the commandment is charity out of a pure heart, and of a good conscience, and of faith unfeigned: 6: From which some having swerved have turned aside unto vain jangling; 7: Desiring to be teachers of the law; understanding neither what they say, nor whereof they affirm. Clay Curtis.
The soul melts at the sight!
“We love Him, because He first loved us.” 1 John 4:19
Our affections never flow unto Jesus, until we have had some divine discovery of Him to our heart and conscience. We may try to love Him—we may think it our duty to do so—we may be secretly ashamed of our miserable coldness, and may lament our barrenness in love to Jesus. But no power of our own can raise up true love to Jesus. We cannot love the Lord until we know that the Lord loves us—nor can we love Him with all our heart and soul, until He tells us that He loves us with all His. When He says “I have loved you with an everlasting love,” and sheds abroad His love in the soul—this gives power to love Him. When, too, He sets Himself before our eyes in His divine beauty and blessedness—this makes us fall in love with Him. For beauty kindles love. It is so often in natural love—and always so in divine love. Jesus has but to touch the heart and it softens. He has but to appear—and the soul melts at the sight! J.C.Philpot.
HE WHO TAKES NO USURY
Psalm 15:1: «A Psalm of David.» LORD, who shall abide in thy tabernacle? who shall dwell in thy holy hill?…5: He that putteth not out his money to usury…
Those shall dwell with God eternally, who by God’s grace delight in this law in our inward man, trusting Christ our Righteousness who fulfilled it perfectly for us, who justified us from our sins of breaking it.
“Usury” is drawing interest on money or possessions lent. God forbids oppression, extortion, and taking advantage of the poor. (1 Thess 4: 6; Ex 22: 25; Lev 25: 35-37; Am 2: 8; Deut 23:15) This command also includes a positive side. From a cheerful heart, we are to provide for the poor, expecting nothing in return, as we trust God to provide. (Deut 15:7-8, 10-11) In addition, this law applies spiritually to the preaching of God’s grace in Christ. The root word of “usury” means “to bite, devour.” At Galatia, instead of freely giving the riches of the gospel then waiting for God to give the increase, they were using the law for personal gain—usury. Paul said, “If ‘ye bite and devour’ one another, take heed that ye be not consumed one of another…Brethren, if a man be overtaken in a fault, ye which are spiritual, ‘restore’ such a one in the spirit of meekness; considering thyself, lest thou also be tempted. ‘Bear ye one another’s burdens, and so fulfill the law of Christ.” (Gal 5: 14; 6: 1-2) So, we see that none of us has fulfilled this law in perfection, without sin.
Yet, our Redeemer has! Christ freely paid all the debt his poor people owed, taking no usury of us. “I have raised him up in righteousness, and I will direct all his ways: he shall build my city, and he shall let go my captives, not for price nor reward, saith the LORD of hosts.” (Is 45: 13; Is 52: 3) Christ freely provided us faithful brethren who he made willing to give cheerfully of themselves so we could hear the gospel and Christ called us to partake of his unsearchable riches. Christ not only restored what we lost in Adam but made restitution giving us far more: eternal redemption, eternal righteousness, eternal life. He provides all we need continually, “He that spared not his own Son, but delivered him up for us all, how shall he not with him also freely give us all things?” (Rom 8: 32)
God’s grace and love constrains his people to be cheerful restorers as it did Zaccheus. (Lu 19: 8) “For ye know the grace of our Lord Jesus Christ, that, though he was rich, yet for your sakes he became poor, that ye through his poverty might be rich.” (2 Cor 8: 9) Someone wrote, “As humility is the repentance of pride, as alms-giving is the repentance of covetousness, as forgiveness is the repentance of malice, so restitution is the repentance of usury.” -Clay Curtis.