We are taught to love others. This is what God command, that we love one another. But how can we? How can we be kind to those who harm us? To those who are unkind to us? How can we forgive those who backstab us? How can we love the way Jesus loves? We want to. We long to. But how can we?
The Woman Who Wet Jesus Feet With Tears and Wiped Them With Her Hair - Luke 7:40-47
40 Jesus answered him, "Simon, I have something to tell you." "Tell me, teacher," he said.
41 "Two men owed money to a certain moneylender. One owed him five hundred denarii, and the other fifty. 42 Neither of them had the money to pay him back, so he cancelled the debts of both. Now which of them will love him more?"
43 Simon replied, "I suppose the one who had the bigger debt cancelled."
"You have judged correctly," Jesus said.
44 Then he turned toward the woman and said to Simon, "Do you see this woman? I came into your house. You did not give me any water for my feet, but she wet my feet with her tears and wiped them with her hair. 45 You did not give me a kiss, but this woman, from the time I entered, has not stopped kissing my feet. 46 You did not put oil on my head, but she has poured perfume on my feet. 47 Therefore, I tell you, her many sins have been forgiven-for she loved much. But he who has been forgiven little loves little."
She can do so much, because she realised she has been forgiven much.
She can sacrifice more, because she knew she has been greatly loved.
To show much love - we have to know how much we are loved and forgiven by God.
No wonder SIMON did nothing - apparently he did not know Jesus, and how much he has been forgiven.
This is the 7:47 principle - you want to love others they way Jesus loves, then take note of this.
Not to be grounded by hatred, unforgiveness, bitterness, but soar in the skies with freedom...
Can you love the way Jesus loves? How can I love much?
I need to know how much I’m forgiven. It has to do with my relationship with God. Do I really know how much God loves me? Do I really know how much I’m forgiven?
We TRY our best to love - but can love be forced out of us?
Can we conjure up love by the sheer force of will. Try harder. And love will flow out. Can love be manufactured? Is this the way?
But what can I give? I can only give what I have...
(1) THE SECRET TO LOVING IS RECEIVING GOD’S LOVE
WE ARE MISSING A STEP HERE - Could it be that the FIRST STEP of love is not toward people, but toward Him? Could it be that the secret to loving is receiving? RECEIVING from Him - forgiveness, mercies, grace, love... and only then can we allow that to flow out of us. 1 John 4:19 "We love because he first loved us."
Many people tell us to love. Only God gives us the power to do so.
Max Lucado: "A marriage-saving love is not within us. A friendship-preserving devotion cannot be found in our hearts. We need help from an outside source. A transfusion. Would we love as God loves? Then we start by receiving God’s love.... By instructing people to love without telling them they are loved is like telling them to write a check without our making a deposit in their account."
No wonder so many relationships are overdrawn. Hearts have insufficient love.
TRY THIS - Look at 1 Cor 13:4-8
4 Love is patient, love is kind. It does not envy, it does not boast, it is not proud. 5 It is not rude, it is not self-seeking, it is not easily angered, it keeps no record of wrongs. 6 Love does not delight in evil but rejoices with the truth. 7 It always protects, always trusts, always hopes, always perseveres. 8 Love never fails.
Replace the word love in this passage with your name. [GET ALL TO TRY READING THROUGH THIS WAY.]
How do you feel? As I do that, I felt I’m a liar. Many of these lines are not very true of me.
It set a standard I could not meet. No one can meet it. No one can without Jesus. God is love, the Bible says. Let’s insert Jesus name in place of the word love and see how it sounds:
"Jesus is patient. Jesus is kind. Jesus does not envy, he does not boast, he is not proud. Jesus is not rude, he is not self-seeking, he is not easily angered, he keeps no record of wrongs. Jesus does not delight in evil but rejoices with the truth. Jesus always protects, always trusts, always hopes, always perseveres. Jesus never fails."
ONLY WHEN YOU RECEIVE THIS LOVE IN YOUR HEART can you love others.
You cannot give what you don’t have. Come to Him and receive His love. Be TOUCHED by His love - through the revelation of His Word, testimonies, His works...
If you are not, you have nothing to give others. What you can give is human love - which is finite, limited, always changing, and undependable... No guarantee your love will stays strong all the time. You need to have God’s love in your heart, only then can that LOVE continues to flow out of you.
Rom 5:5 "the love of God is shed abroad in our hearts by the Holy Ghost which is given unto us."
We are the pump people used by the well to draw water. Everybody walk pass will pump something out from us. They take from us whenever they need. We felt used, and taken advantage of. Yes, but as long as the pump is connected to the source of water - the well, what matters? We are the channels, the instrument of blessing to all. The Source will not run dry. It is always blessed to give than receive.
Paul says, "Love never fails." (1 Cor 13:8)
(2) THE SECRET TO LOVING IS KNOWING YOU ARE GREATLY LOVED
Understand that you yourself have been a recipient of LOVE - His love. In fact, it is an undeserving one. And live your life in the confidence of such a love - unchanging and will never be taken away.
The woman is moved by Jesus’ love. What do you think move a poor widow to offer up her 2 copper coins - all that she had? Love of God.
We need to understand this love (next week we’ll going to think through this subject...)
Unless we do, we are going to operate on the level of human love. And how do we understand human love?
• We are more concerned about PROTECTING OURSELVES than truly loving love - what if pp take advantage of us, what if nobody return my love, will I be giving too much.... Unfair. I may be hurt. Who cares for me then?
• We live in FEAR - fear that others may not love us if they knew the person we really are deep inside. That is bondage - we can’t truly be ourselves.
We have to settle this once and for all - anchor your life in this fact - you’re already greatly loved and treasured by God. Nothing will change that. GOD SEES EVERYTHING ABOUT YOU. Whatever you’ve done in the past, whatever you’re going to do in the future, He sees them all. There is nothing we can hide from Him. Yet He loves what He sees - YOU. You don’t have to prove anything.
He already knows the good and bad about you, the past and future about you, and He loves you.
Understand this, and you’ll be freed. FREE from the burden of having to prove yourself.
Max Lucado: "The love of God is born from within Him, not from what He finds in us. His love is uncaused and spontaneous."
Knowing we didn’t do anything to earn God’s love - means we do not need to live in fear of losing it either. If you did nothing to gain it, how could your performance (or lack of) lose it?
1 John 4:8, 11.
8 Whoever does not love does not know God, because God is love.
11 Dear friends, since God so loved us, we also ought to love one another.
(3) THE SECRET TO LOVING IS TO QUIT FOCUSING ON PEOPLE AND START FOCUSING ON WHAT GOD HAS DONE - For You and Others
Receiving that love, experiencing the quality of that love, will ENABLE us to live in the OVERFLOW of His Love. It will keep flowing out through you, the same way we see love flowing out of Jesus. He was always MOVED with compassion.
When a wrong is done to us, that’s when love is not possible. We want that person to be punished. "That’s not fair. He must pay for it." So we set to get even.
Yet Jesus can say, "Forgive them, for they know not what they are doing." But then, who is paying for his wrong. Someone has to pay for it.
You need to LOOK AT IT this way - when you want someone to pay for the ’wrong’ that has been done to you, remember - SOMEONE already has. Jesus has already paid for his sins - including that offence against you.
We are able to love the unlovable, the sinners, because Jesus died too for their sins. God forgives them, the same way our wrongs are forgiven.
Corrie Ten Boom shares this true story in her book, The Hiding Place:
(She tells of meeting the guard from the concentration camp where she and her family had been held by the Nazis.)
It was a church service in Munich that I saw him, the former S.S. man who had stood guard at the shower room door in the processing center at Ravensbruck. He was the first of our actual jailers that I had seen since that time. And suddenly it was all there - the roomful of mocking men, the heaps of clothing, Betsie’s pain-blanched face.
He came up to me as the church was emptying, beaming and bowing. "How grateful I am for your message, Fraulein," he said. "To think that, as you say, He has washed my sins away!"
His hand was thrust out to shake mine. And I, who had preached so often to the people in Bloemendaal the need to forgive, kept my hand at my side.
Even as the angry, vengeful thoughts boiled through me, I saw the sin of them. Jesus Christ had died for this man; was I going to ask for more? Lord Jesus, I prayed, forgive me and help me to forgive him.
I tried to smile, I struggled to raise my hand. I could not. I felt nothing, not the slightest spark of warmth or charity. And so again I breathed a silent prayer. Jesus, I cannot forgive him. Give me Your forgiveness.
As I took his hand the most incredible thing happened. From my shoulder along my arm and through my hand a current seemed to pass from me to him, while into my heart sprang a love for this stranger that almost overwhelmed me.
And so I discovered that it is not on our forgiveness any more than on our goodness that the world’s healing hinges, but on His. When He tells us to love our enemies, He gives, along with the command, the love itself.
