Here is the revelation that is shaping my life today – being loved flows to being love, and the evidence of your faith most naturally is present from your faith. No evidence means no faith, it’s not that evidence gets you anywhere it proves where you have been.
James 2:8,14-17 TPT
[8] Your calling is to fulfil the royal law of love as given to us in this Scripture: “You must love and value your neighbour as you love and value yourself!” 14] My dear brothers and sisters, what good is it if someone claims to have faith but demonstrates no good works to prove it? How could this kind of faith save anyone? [15] For example, if a brother or sister in the faith is poorly clothed and hungry [16] and you leave them saying, “Good-bye. I hope you stay warm and have plenty to eat,” but you don’t provide them with a coat or even a cup of soup, what good is your faith? [17] So then faith that doesn’t involve action is phony.
Observation
If you know God and have experienced his love, mercy and grace, then you will be moved to live reflective of that encounter. An intimate experience of her love will not just leave you deeply loved, it will send you as a deep lover of others, and that’s what it does. So James can say “then faith that doesn’t involve action is phony.” It’s not that our actions purchase love, it’s that freely loved sends me to freely love. And this is the entirety of the message of scripture, be restored into the arms of love himself and then go and be who you were all along, a lover in the image of love himself. That’s it, close the book, you got it, this is your calling.
Love your neighbour the way you have been loved. You see you can only really love yourself when you have been loved by the purest of love, the uncaused, never changing, unfailing in all circumstances, self-giving love of God. When you get loved like this you go love like this. This is the fulfilment of the “royal law.” But it is not a law that is obeyed from a manipulation of fear, it’s a natural law – like what goes up must come down. Be loved then you will be love. If you encounter heaven’s love then you love like heaven, and when you don’t then don’t try harder, get loved deeper.
Sometimes, maybe often, the church has sent people under the law of love to love others but has not sent them to the lover in order to be filled to fulfil the law. You get filled with love personally, before you fulfil the law of love, try it any other way and the love you give will not be the love of heaven, it will be a get love not give love. You will love your neighbour to fulfil the law, your love is now not heaven love, it’s motivated by law obedience, that is I ‘get to fulfil the law’ so that’s why I love. This is getting love. You cannot legislate love. We know that God knows that, the law is natural law – get loved be love. It’s the natural overflow of giving one’s self in love the way I have been loved when you get loved by the lover of Heaven.
Application
Clearly, get loved. Stay loved. Keep drinking in the intimacy of heaven’s love, then go and be me, the loved-up me ready to reflect the way I have been loved on anyone in my orbit of love relationships.
Response
Thank you that the only law you have is the law of love, and it’s not a threatening demand to be obeyed but an overflow of what you want for me, that I would rest in your love. Thank you that I fulfil the law from a place of becoming the true me, not trying to be a different me. There is no threat only a guarantee, be loved and be love. Thank you for this love life, I love life when this is my life.
Meditation
Meditate – Your calling is to fulfil the royal law of love.
Consider:
When I hear ‘love your neighbour like yourself,’ what is my response?
Do I think that my work of love gets me loved, or do I live in the overflow of being loved?
JOURNEY DEEPER
