Here is the revelation that is shaping my life today – important issues should never be prioritised over the importance of love. We become frauds of the Kingdom when we are more concerned with issues and behaviour than we are with the sacrificial expression of love.
Luke 11:42 TPT
[42] “You Pharisees are hopeless frauds! For you are obsessed with peripheral issues, like paying meticulous tithes on the smallest herbs that grow in your gardens. These matters you should do. Yet when you unjustly cheat others, you ignore the most important duty of all: to walk in the love of God. Readjust your values and place first things first.
Observation
Oh, the church of today you are hopeless frauds. You are obsessed with issues of sexual orientation and who marries who. Now it’s not that these matters don’t matter, but it’s the way you go about them ignoring the most important for the peripheral. The most important is “to walk in the love of God.” When you separate, when you dispel, when you finger point, when you judge and condemn, then you are hopeless frauds. “Readjust your values and place first things first.”
The way peripheral issues are dealt with must be the way of love. There can be no division. There can be no condemnation. There can be no cruel judgement that destroys the other person. There can only be the expression of God’s love. This must rule every word, every action, every conversation. The peripheral issues must never supersede the essential of life – walking in and walking out the love of God always, to all, in every circumstance.
Rightness seems to supersede love. The defending and enforcement of the letter of the law as per “my” interpretation is allowed to trump love. Despite every imperative of scripture both in the letter and in the incarnational life of Jesus, clearly declaring, living and in love demanding, that love reign supreme, we still sacrifice God’s love on the alter of ‘right’ behaviour, ‘right’ doctrine, ‘right’ adherence. Entire movements, parts of the body of Christ, will not even share a room together because of their differences in interpretation of the letter. It is hopeless fraudulent behaviour. No wonder the world won’t join, our behaviour is pharisaical, religious, and abhorrent to God himself – hopeless frauds! Can we ignore our behaviour any longer? Will we repent and return to love?
We must resign ourselves, sacrifice ourselves, non negotiably posture ourselves, as lovers of everyone. This must be the imperative that holds the place of priority. Only when we are walking in love and unity do the conversations of our interpretations of the letter have a place for discussions in love. Then it is not to convince and win over but to love upon. Exclusion because we see things differently must never be the stick we use to transform others to our letter interpretations. All manipulations of stick and carrot are destroyed in the imperative of love. We must choose to be lovers or to be hopeless frauds, we simply can’t have it both ways.
Application
Love. Love. Love. Love.
Response
Thank you that you killed religion, sorry that we resurrect your foe. Thank you for the imperative to love and rightness. Thank you that love is the only means to right living. The letter does not bring this life, only your love being expressed through me brings life to me and others. Thank you that you confront us with brutal honesty, for we have been blinded by our defence of our interpretation of your ways to the imperative of love. Open our eyes a new. This life of love is beautiful, make me a lover like you.
Meditation
Mediate – the most important duty of all: to walk in the love of God.
Consider:
What issues do I attend to, and prioritise, at the cost of love?
Is there anyone, or a group of people, that I am out of love with because of my perceived opposition to the issue.?
JOURNEY DEEPER
