 |
| Daniel J. Musokwa |
The other installments in this series can be accessed by clicking on these links:
Part 1, Part 2, Part 3, Part 4, Part 5, Part 6, Part 7 and Part 8
A NEW
COMMANDMENT – Part III
1 John 3:10 In this the children
of God are revealed, and the children
of the Devil: EVERYONE
not practicing
righteousness is not
of God, ALSO he who does not love his
brother.
1 John 3:11 For this is the message that you have heard from the
beginning, that we
should love one another;
Here John
gives us a sure way of determining who the children
of God are and who the children
of the
devil are. So simple! He says:
- Everyone NOT practicing righteousness is NOT of God, also
- He who does NOT agape his brother is NOT of God.
Then he
says that this was the message that they’d heard from the
beginning, and it has
never changed. It is the essence of the gospel of Jesus
Christ! Friends, the
Scriptures are very explicit about these things and they leave
no room for doubt
or second guessing what is meant or implied by them. Does the
Scripture above
need any interpretation or a Ph.D in Hermeneutics or
Homiletics?
In summary it
says: If you have no love, you
are NOT of God!
It says
exactly the same in the Greek! I bet very few of us have ever
been taught that,
yet isn’t that exactly what the Scriptures say? Am I
misunderstanding these
Scriptures somehow? Please help!
Oh, and
that’s not even the end of it, here...
1 John 3:14 We know that we
have passed from death to life, BECAUSE we
love the brothers. He who does not love his brother
abides in death.
What’s John
saying? Is He serious? The first time I got a revelation of
this I thought to
myself “truly John must
have been smoking
something when he wrote this!” But no, he seems to be
suggesting under the
influence of the Holy Ghost that the only ASSURANCE we have
that “we have passed
from death to life” (or
are saved at all) is because we AGAPE the brethren! He says “he who does not AGAPE
his brother abides
in death (sin/separation from God)!” Believe me friend,
harsher words have
never been spoken! If you believe John 3:16,
then you MUST also believe 1 John 3:14;
the author is the same, the Holy Spirit!
In other words;
if you love the brethren, you
are saved. If not, you are not saved!
Is what I
have just said above (in bold) any different from 1 John 3:14? Let us be
realistic and get saved! I
tell you most Catholics I know are more saved that most
Pentecostals I know! We
are so full of judgmentalism and pride because we are
“charismatic” and we
CLAIM that we are saved and we know God, but check this out:
1 John 2:5-6 … this is how we know we are in him:
Whoever CLAIMS to live in him
must walk as Jesus did.
Who wants
to CLAIM that he is “in Him”? Then according to this verse the
question is, do
you walk as Jesus did? How’s your agape life? Remember 1
Corinthians 13, the
gifts of the Spirit are NOTHING without agape!! Even if you
are raising the
very dead, left, right and centre, the Bible says you are
absolutely NOTHING
and inconsequential. PLEASE think deeply about these TRUTHS.
There is NO
salvation without AGAPE.
1 John 3:16 By this we have known
the love of God, BECAUSE He laid
down His
life for us; and
on
behalf of the brothers WE ought to lay down our lives.
1 John 3:17
Whoever has the means of life of the world, and sees
his brother having
need, and shuts up his heart of compassion from him, how does the love of God
abide in him?
 |
| Source: Google Images |
Wow! I
really don’t know what to say. John says “by
this we have known (been familiarized with) the AGAPE of
God…” how? “Because
He laid down His life for us…”
Isn’t that amazing? We know God’s agape because He sacrificed.
Then he says “and on
behalf of the brethren WE (also)
ought to lay down OUR lives.” Absolutely incredible!! He
says here that in
the same way that we have KNOWN the agape of God in that He
sacrificed Himself,
we also ought to agape our brothers (saint and sinners alike)
to the point of
sacrificing our own lives and comfort zones. In this is God’s
agape made
perfect in us because it is actually being echoed by us. When
He agapes
(agonizes over) the world, our hearts resonate with His and
say “amen” as we
also agape (agonize over) them by sacrificing ourselves, our
time, our money
and efforts to the point of losing everything in this temporal
world. Such is AGAPE.
Such is AGONY!
Look at
verse 17 above. He asks here “whoever has
the material possessions of this world, and sees his brother
having need, and
shuts up his heart of compassion from him, how
does the love of God abide in him?” A very
interesting question indeed.
Unfortunately, I don’t have the answer. You know for very sure
that a brethren
is in need, and it just takes a few minutes or shillings to
help him/her out,
and you wouldn’t even feel the pinch – and yet you just don’t
do it. Tell me,
how does the love of God dwell in you? What about all those
songs you sing
telling Jesus “make me like you”? How can He? All these songs
we sing, do we
really mean any of the words in them or do we just sing
because the prospect of
what we are saying appeases the utopian soulish feelings of
our flesh? We say “make
me like You Lord!” We need to be serious and just make the
decision to BE LIKE
JESUS CHRIST! It all starts with AGAPE!
Some of you
have more than you need and you have just stored it all up in
physical earthly
banks “for a rainy day”, while right this very minute that
orphan or widow in your church IS
IN their rainy day and
has been for two years, but you are NOT willing to part with a
few shillings to
help out! If you save your material possessions “for a rainy
day” without
compassion for those in need, then hear this; for you there will be a rainy day for sure so
that your faith in
that phantom ‘rainy day’ should be fully rewarded and come to
pass.
 |
| Source: Google Images |
1 John 4:17 By this,
love has been
perfected with us, that we have confidence in the day of
judgment, that as He
is, we are also in this world.
So “God is agape”,
and if anyone abides (lives) IN agape abides in God and God in
him. And “by this” (by what? … by abiding in agape)
“…
agape (God) has
been perfected with us…” This
means
that Godliness or the deity will have been perfected or
completed in us
if we abide in agape! We become gods or the “partakers of His
divine nature”
when we finally learn to walk in agape. How is that important?
It is important
in that it gives us “… confidence in the day of judgment…”
Why are we
going to be confident before the judge? What evidence of
godliness is the judge
looking for? The judge is looking for Himself in us because
just the previous
verse tells us that “God is agape”, so if we abide in agape we
could then be
confident in judgment that the judge will find evidence of
Himself in us also!
Why? Because “…
as He is, so are we in this world!” What
exactly is He? He is agape…
and so are we, in this world!
That means if
we do not abide in agape, the
judge will not find evidence of Himself in us… then we
should be very afraid
because our confidence in the Day of Judgment has, now, no
judicial basis!
“…
As He is, so are we in this
world!” Wow! What
if we are not as He is in this world? Would the love of God
still be perfected
in us? Would we still know
God? Would God still be in us and us in Him? If we are to
believe the New
Testament, then the answer to all those questions is a
resounding NO!
1 John 4:20 If anyone says, I love
God, and hates his brother, he is a
liar. For the one not loving his brother whom he has
seen, how is he able
to love God whom he has not seen?
If anyone
says “I love God” and yet is not charitable to or does not
display agape
towards his brother, he is a liar! Let’s think about that. He
continues, “For the one not
loving his brother whom
he has seen,
how is he able to love God whom he
has not seen?” have you ever
wondered about that?
Mathematically that means:
“You can love
God only as much as your love for
the person you love the least!”
Please read
that again. I don’t care how loud we can sing about our love
for God, it is ALL
FOR NOTHING if we are hateful or resentful towards the or a
brethren! Therefore
your love for God will always be equal to your love for the
person you hate or
love the least… not an ounce more!!! May
be you need to read that again because it is of paramount
importance! You can
only love God (whom you have NEVER seen) only as much as you
love those whom
you have seen! Now look at verse 21:
1 John 4:21
And we have this commandment from Him, that the one
who loves God also loves his brother.
Mathematically;
Love
for the brethren
= Love for God
No
love for the
brethren = No love for God (however hard we may sing otherwise)
Would you
say that is a fair summarization of 1 John 4:20-21? Now I
would like to
conclude this short letter reminding us of the pre-eminence of
love with the
following Scriptures. Please meditate on them and find solace
and shalom.
 |
| Source: Google Images |
Romans 13:8 Owe no man any thing, but to love one another: for
he that
loves another hath fulfilled the
ENTIRE Law.
Gal
5:6 For in
Jesus Christ neither circumcision avails
any thing, nor uncircumcision; but faith which
works by AGAPE…
Gal 5:14 For ALL the law is
fulfilled in one word,
even in this; Thou shalt AGAPE
thy neighbour as
thyself.
And now
beloved; may the good Lord of peace guide you home through the
path of AGAPE so
that your prayers and efforts in the faith will find their
perfection in your
perfected love of God and the brethren. As we learn to love we
will find our
fountain of life because therein is our crucifixion, agony,
deification and
glorification. My love for you all abounds with the force of
the life of God in
me.
You are an
agent of agape! You are a distributor of love! You are love
manifested and love
personified! YES YOU ARE!!!
I love you
all,
Shalom!
-- Daniel J. Musokwa, General Overseer, New Testament Ministries - TZ, P.O. Box 2590, Mbeya, Tanzania 0715-905001 (SMS only)
No comments:
Post a Comment