Which side of the playground?
There is one thing that you can say about God and that is that He is a great teacher – He understands that we need to learn how to be the people that He wants us to be, and He doesn’t simply make demands and expect us to muddle our way there on our own. That’s why so much of the bible has a certain logic about it – principles are laid out in a logical fashion, with one principle building on another.
I said in the previous section that there was only one pre-condition that God has for us to be ready to for Him to give us the gifts of the Spirit – we’ve got to have love. And at this point I draw a big line down the middle of the playground and ask everyone to take a side…
There are some people that are naturally “loving” – they have a disposition towards helping people, and have a caring nature. Loving people isn’t really that hard. All of you can go over to one side of the line.
Then there are those people that finding loving people difficult, maybe even impossible. People just aren’t lovely. Loving people involves a level of vulnerability that you’re just not about to buy into. Caring for people is a chore. All these people should shuffle over to the other side of the playground.
Now there is a group (probably the majority) that has a foot on both sides of the line, and this is probably where the majority are – capable of exhibiting love and care to some people, but definitely not everyone.
So does this mean that only people that have moved to the “loving” side of the playground will be capable of receiving the gifts? Everyone else goes into the “too hard basket”?
This is where we might have to throw away our concepts of love and start again from the beginning – find out what love really means, without all the hype and dogma and emotion that has been associated with love.
What love looks like
This is going to be a bit back to front – I want to start by talking about what love looks like, rather than what love is (I’m saving that up for a surprise!!)
The best starting point is over in 1 Peter 1, where God shows us what love looks like.
1 Corinthians 13:4-8 Love endures long and is patient and kind; love never is envious nor boils over with jealousy, is not boastful or vainglorious, does not display itself haughtily. It is not conceited (arrogant and inflated with pride); it is not rude (unmannerly) and does not act unbecomingly. Love (God's love in us) does not insist on its own rights or its own way, for it is not self-seeking; it is not touchy or fretful or resentful; it takes no account of the evil done to it [it pays no attention to a suffered wrong]. It does not rejoice at injustice and unrighteousness, but rejoices when right and truth prevail. Love bears up under anything and everything that comes, is ever ready to believe the best of every person, its hopes are fadeless under all circumstances, and it endures everything [without weakening]. Love never fails [never fades out or becomes obsolete or comes to an end.
What are we looking at here? Simply put, God’s given us a copy of the “spiritual licence test” and given us the answers to the test – He’s told us how love will be exhibited in our lives (if we’ve got it). This bit of scripture is what God tests us against before “signing off” that we are ready to receive the gifts. Isn’t that great? Or do I sense hesitation in some people! If you’re like me (you poor soul) then your answers might be something like “Actually, no that’s so way not great” or “Can I please have another test?” or maybe you’re thinking there’s a way to “cheat” on this test?
I mean, at first glance, the test is impossible! And you’re right – it is an impossible test, created by a God Who likes the impossible. And God is basically saying that He expects us to pass it? He sure is – and He wants us to pass with flying colours.
I hate tests!
You’re not a fan of tests? You think that tests are basically a teacher’s way of legally inflicting pain and anguish upon you, now that public floggings and institutionalised torture has more or less been outlawed? If someone mentions the word “test” you break out in hives and find yourself hyperventilating? Am I getting the impression that you think tests are not fun?
I teach post-graduate law at university, and as part of my role as a teacher I regularly put my students to the test. My teaching style is highly practical – I want students to walk out of my course with the capacity to apply the learning. The course is not simply an academic exercise – it is meant to be useful to them and to their prospective clients.
There are a few important principles that I apply when it comes to testing:
- Firstly, I am not testing my students because it’s fun for me to watch my students experience pain – I am testing them to make sure they “get it”. I can bang on in lectures for hours, but the test ensures that the student has heard and comprehended what I’ve said, and also understood how to apply that learning;
- Secondly, the test is absolutely about applying the principles under pressure – when they have to appear in court for real, with everyone watching and someone’s future livelihood at stake, they have to be able to work under the pressure of the court’s expectations, their client’s expectations, and society’s expectations;
- The test can never fully simulate what will happen in the real world – there are certain things that we can only contrive and “mock up”. We can’t have real plaintiffs with real injuries, real car accidents to create those injuries, real surgeons who have conducted real operations….it would just become too expensive for the university! But we can give the students enough reality to make it useful.
- There is no single right answer – there are many roads to the correct conclusion and result. The path that a student takes depends on their personal experiences, their personality types, and their understanding and perception of the challenge set before them. No two practice trials runs the same way, and two students may get identical marks by attacking a problem with high differentiated methods
I’m making an important (and potentially highly controversial) point here, and in doing that I’m thinking about what love looks like when we’ve got it. The testing that we are experiencing at the moment is not the real world – it’s like the practice courts that I run at university where students get to act as lawyers in made-up criminal and civil trials. Similarly, your “trials”, the experiences that you are having at work, at home, at church, etc., are just tests to make sure you “get it” – because the real stuff is yet to really take off.
The “love testing” God is giving us right now is just to get us to our “P” plates – we’re not quite ready for the full force of “reality” to hit just as yet. God is going to let us experience some of the things that are going to happen once we step outside, but it cannot ever fully simulate what will happen in the future.
Right now we are being tested so God can get us on the road – the testing that comes later is more geared towards “perfecting” us.
1 Peter 4:12 Beloved, do not be amazed and bewildered at the fiery ordeal which is taking place to test your quality, as though something strange (unusual and alien to you and your position) were befalling you.
So how do we pass the impossible test?
It would not make sense that God would set what appears to be an impossible task before us and not give us some direction on how we deal with the situation.
A summary of where we are at:
- We want to receive the gifts of the Spirit
- We won’t be able to handle the gifts of the Spirit if we don’t have love
- When we look at how love is exhibited, we realise that it's an impossible task
- God is intending to test our love to make sure we understand what love is and what is means to have it – He is not testing us to cause us pain, but to make sure we “get it”.
BUT we have established that God wants us to live in a state of impossibility, where we aren’t bound or held back by what’s “possible” in the natural realm.
To that end, welcome to the Love Principles!!
Love Principle #1 – You’ve got to have love to exhibit love
Undoubtedly, this statement is a contender for the “Captain Obvious” Comment of the Year. But it makes sense – how can you show the characteristics of love if you don’t have love in you. Clearly it’s impossible.
Love Principle #2 – “Loveless” is the same as “Useless”
Let me flick this around – if you’re not displaying these characteristics of “what love looks like” then you don’t have love. It doesn’t matter how long you’ve been a Christian, and it doesn’t matter what church programs you’re involved in or the position you hold or the money you give – you don’t have love.
What’s the implications of not having love? Check out 1 Corinthians 13, which says that a person that is not exhibiting love is a “noisy gong” or a “clanging cymbal” – in other words, a grating, tuneless noise – useless in fact!
Love Principle #3 – Love is the end of the road
This is a big one! Let’s start with 2 Peter 1 where we read about the fruit of the Spirit, and how one fruit comes before another.
2 Peter 1:5 For this very reason, adding your diligence [to the divine promises], employ every effort in exercising your faith to develop virtue (excellence, resolution, Christian energy), and in [exercising] virtue [develop] knowledge (intelligence), and in [exercising] knowledge [develop] self-control, and in [exercising] self-control [develop] steadfastness (patience, endurance), and in [exercising] steadfastness [develop] godliness (piety), and in [exercising] godliness [develop] brotherly affection, and in [exercising] brotherly affection [develop] Christian love.
The bible kind of lays out a logical build up from one fruit to another – for instance, you can’t effectively have steadfastness unless you’ve got the self-control that precedes it, and the knowledge that precedes that, etc.
Love comes at the end of the line, and there’s a really good reason for that. Love is actually the essence of God’s personality, and when we allow the Spirit to work through us, we are actually displaying elements of God’s personality.
It follows that when we truly display God’s personality in us, we are relocating from the natural to the spiritual.
(MORE TO COME ON ALL THIS)
Love Principle #4 – Love isn’t “thing” – it’s a “being”
It is for the reasons stated at the end of Principle #3 that I say that love is absolutely not natural – in fact, it is impossible to even think about displaying the characteristics of love unless we are becoming “spirit-first”, with the Holy Spirit working with us.
Love is not a thing – it’s not an emotion or even a characteristic – it’s a state of being. In fact, it might be said that we don’t exhibit love as much as “be” love.
This raises the issue of how we look at the spirit part of our lives – that part of our make-up that we want to become the most prevalent. I am proposing that we need to strive for our spirits to “BE LOVE”.
Love Principle #5 –
Love Principle #6 –
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