November 12, 2014

Love: How Is It Cultivated? (Part 1)

By John Spadafora

Blog

Read the series: Part 1 | Part 2 | Part 3 | Part 4

Jesus said that loving God and others is the fulfillment of the whole Bible. It’s relatively easy to learn doctrine in a short period of time. But to understand the love found in the eternal community of God, how God demonstrates that love to us and how we are invited to cultivate relationships that mirror that eternal love — that takes a lifetime.

That’s why it’s the primary business of the church — its worship, discipleship, interventions, and activities. And it’s the principle work of the Spirit to produce in us the growing desire and capacity to love others as Christ has loved us.

I believe the fulfillment of Jesus’ command to love is found in His invitation:

“I am the bread of life; he who comes to Me will not hunger, and he who believes in Me will never thirst ... from his innermost being will flow rivers of living water” (John 6:35, 7:38).

Everyone is thirsty | We see it in Scripture and we know it by experience. Our fundamental thirst is for relationship with our loving Creator as His image-bearers. Jesus declares Himself the only person who can satisfy that thirst. The deepest desires of our soul — for love, truth, value and identity — are fulfilled in Christ for a simple reason: we have been created by Him and for Him, and we are held together in Him (Col. 1:16-17).

Jesus satisfies | How, then, are we satisfied in Him? “Come and believe.” Jesus invites us to turn to Him — consciously and continually, instead of turning to any other person or thing — and trust Him for the crucial desires of our existence.

To the extent our thirst is satisfied in Jesus will we be able to invite others to satisfy their thirsts in Him as His love/Spirit flows through us in our relationships.

One caveat: Jesus promises to satisfy our fundamental thirst for Him. He does not promise to satisfy all our desires for pleasing relationships and circumstances. We know too well that there is still pain and disappointment in our fallen world. But when Jesus invites us to turn to Him alone, He invites us to trade our innate, self-protective tendencies and “counterfeit gods” for ultimate satisfaction.

What inspires love? | What awakens (or reawakens) the desire to love God and others? Where does it all begin? In Luke 7:47, Jesus made a direct connection between our experience of God’s forgiveness and our love for God and others.

The more we are aware of our own need of grace, the more love we have to offer. And the more we examine our own ways of relating to/loving people compared to God’s ways, the more we will see our own need for grace. We cannot fabricate this love; we cannot try harder. Instead, our intimate fellowship with God cultivates this fruit that He has already planted in us.