LOVE

Love

1John 2:7-11

7 Brethren, I write no new commandment unto you, but an old commandment which ye had from the beginning. The old commandment is the word which ye have heard from the beginning.

8 Again, a new commandment I write unto you, which thing is true in him and in you: because the darkness is past, and the true light now shineth.

9 He that saith he is in the light, and hateth his brother, is in darkness even until now.

10 He that loveth his brother abideth in the light, and there is none occasion of stumbling in him.

11 But he that hateth his brother is in darkness, and walketh in darkness, and knoweth not whither he goeth, because that darkness hath blinded his eyes.

The Love of God is not difficult, complicated, or unattainable; the love of God is deliberate, real, and undisguised. When it touches you, you feel it. When it speaks to you, you hear it. When it appears, you see it. It does not take great knowledge to know it; it just takes the desire to want it. As simple as it is, most humans need to have it spelled out for them. Differed hope, lost dreams, broken expectations, and failed relationships are among the many encounters that have numbed the sensory of heart to attain it, or to even have the desire to want it.

This is why John uses the Greek word koinonia to describe the fellowship we are to have with God and with each other. The true Love of God cannot be fully manifested out of “not yet” healed lives suffering from broken hopes, dreams, and expectations.

Proverbs 13:12 declares that, “Hope deferred maketh the heart sick…” There are too many sick hearts in the church today; while needing love themselves, they with sick hearts are trying to manifest the Love of God under the auspice of attending the church of their choice.

We cannot know the Love of God as we should know it until we have been delivered and healed of the devastating episodes life serves. It takes fellowship with God and fellowship with saints who know and have experienced that fellowship to show us what the Love of God looks like.

This is why it is not the name of a church, or even the religious institutional affiliation we ascribe to that qualifies us to manifest the Love of God. It does not matter if we are Baptist, Methodist, Catholic, Pentecostal, or any other name we want to put on ourselves. It is the fellowship we have with God and with each other that defines who we are in Christ Jesus.

There are many religious people in the world that can manifest church doctrine without possessing the conviction in their own heart that produced that doctrine. Doctrine evolves out of conviction as a result of fellowship with God. Therefore, doctrine is not something we own because it has been quoted to us from a list; doctrine is something we live out because our fellowship with God calls for it.

We must understand doctrine does not produce fellowship with God; fellowship with God produces doctrine. Consequently, as we teach doctrine we must somehow impart our fellowship with God to others.

People are not going to understand our convictions until they experience the fellowship causing our convictions. If we do not have fellowship with God, we can teach church doctrine and fail at imparting God to others.

It is not getting people involved in church activities that saves them or bring healing to their relationships; it is when we use church activities with the soul purpose of getting people involved with God that they are saved and healed in their relationships.

It is our fellowship we want to impart to others. The love of God happens and is manifested out of loving and caring relationships as people are drawn into fellowship.

The greater our fellowship is with God the more we have to offer in our fellowship with others. This is why John starts these three letters to the church with the koinonia. Fellowship of redeemed people with the apostles and ultimately with the Father and the Son is the theme of this letter as evidenced in verse three of chapter one: “That which we have seen and heard declare we unto you, that ye also may have fellowship with us: and truly our fellowship is with the Father, and with his Son Jesus Christ” (1John 1:3).

The Greek word koinonia for fellowship here means communion by intimate participation. The word is used frequently in the New Testament of the Bible to describe the relationship within the early Christian church.

The essential meaning of the koinonia embraces concepts conveyed in the English terms such as, community, communion, joint participation, sharing and intimacy. Koinonia also embraced a strong commitment to Kalos meaning “good and good,” or an inner goodness toward virtue, and an outer goodness toward social relationships.

Therefore, koinonia reflects the Christian faith of sharing, relationships, and community. This is also why John includes “which we have heard, which we have seen with our eyes, which we have looked upon, and our hands have handled, of the Word of life” (1John 1:1).

In other words, it is through the means of what we hear, what we see, and what we touch that brings fellowship into focus. John with chapter one brings this to our attention by describing what our fellowship with God should look like. If our fellowship with God is out of focus then our fellowship with others will be out of focus.

 We must first minister to God, to each other, then to the world. It is ministering to God correctly that we are empowered to minister to each other correctly, and ministering to each other correctly empowers us to minister to the world correctly.

This is koinonia in action and it is the commission of the church in action. Our whole purpose is to Love God and to Love people. To Love means to manifest the presence of God that is in us to others. In chapter four and verse eight John declares: “He that loveth not knoweth not God; for God is love.”

This brings us to our text and places it within the context of which John is writing to the church. The same darkness we have with God is the same darkness we will manifest to others, and the same light we have with God is the same light we will manifest to others. We can only manifest what we have.

The hope we should have is that we can say what verse eight says: “…the darkness is past, and the true light now shinneth.” Relentlessly it is true, when the darkness in us becomes the past is when the true light can shine in the present.

We do not have to fear the darkness in our past if the true light is shinning in our present. John tells us straight up; darkness is associated to hate and light is associated with love. If we have hate in our hearts toward others then we are full of darkness; if we have love in our hearts toward others then we are full of light.

As it is with God, we cannot walk in darkness and say we have fellowship with God, neither can we walk in darkness and say we have fellowship with each other. Light is the only position in our hearts that positions us for fellowship.

Hate disqualifies us from fellowship while love qualifies us, and the two are equated to light and darkness. Darkness is all about lies, denial, and hidden things; light is all about transparency, truth, and the willingness to work through it.

Love cannot work in darkness, denial, and hidden places, or maybe, it chooses not to. Love is all about light, exposure, and transparency. It is where God operates and is where we as believers must operate; otherwise, we are operating without a net.

THERE IS HERE AND HERE IS THERE

Sermon from Sunday morning three years back

THERE IS HERE AND HERE IS THERE

The Revelation 4:2

And immediately I was in the spirit; and, behold, a throne was set in heaven, and one sat on the throne.

With our series of “THERE IS HERE AND HERE IS THERE” we are looking at two places; here is the place we live in, the natural world of all we can see limited by both time and space, and there is the spiritual world that is invisible and eternal. The apostle Paul instructs us as believers that our sights should be set on the invisible world as evidenced in 2 Corinthians 4:18 “While we look not at the things which are seen, but at the things which are not seen: for the things which are seen are temporal; but the things which are not seen are eternal.”

The Revelation of Jesus Christ given to John by God is a map-quest giving us directions into the invisible world of the spirit. God has directed me to preach this series to give us a greater awareness of these two worlds as being one in the same geographically, and that if we could manage to live out our lives in that awareness; we would become carriers of His presence and His presence would have a greater effect on our here and now as our hearts burn as an eternal candle there in that place, the place where God abides.

The psalmist has said “Thou wilt show me the path of life: in thy presence is fulness of joy; at thy right hand there are pleasures for evermore” (Psalm 16:11). There are pleasures yet for us to experience as we hunger and linger in that place where God abides; a fullness of joy that our absence keeps us from, outside of that place we cannot see beyond ourselves nor see the possibilities of what could be, opposed to what is. Out side of that place we can only focus on what is here and now; that place where God abides takes and reveals to us all that was, all that is, and all that is to come.

It does not take our imagination for us to encounter the here world of all that we see, hear, touch, smell, and taste; nor does it take our imagination to encounter the there world, the world of the invisible. Just because the “there world” is invisible does not mean that it can be any world we imagine it to be; imagination does not negate the “there world” as being valid and real.

The world of the spirit exist whether we can imagine it or not; likewise, the here world exist whether we can imagine it or not. Therefore, the “there world” is not a made up world in our minds; it is as real as this world “here and now” is.

In fact, the world of the spirit cannot be encountered without practical and reasonable access no more than the here world can. For instance, I cannot stand in front of a train moving ninety miles per hour and not expect that it will not run me over destroying me in the process. Nor can I live a carnal life without any acknowledgment that the spirit world exist, then think that I will navigate myself into that world unrestricted; especially, not into the presence of God without it having an effect on how I see God and how I see myself.

This brings us to our text scripture; not any novice reader of the scripture can understand fully the immediacy John tells, when he said, he was immediately in the spirit. This immediacy was followed by many years of spiritual discipline, many years of walking with Jesus in ministry, and as we have noted before, years of being a custodian of Jesus’ mother.

John was a faithful servant to the Lord to receive such an invitation into the place he found himself in; as the apostle Paul, he was seeing things that was not lawful for man to utter as evidenced in 2 Corinthians 12:4.

I want us to note that living in the awareness of this place (the throne room of God) is not the same as standing in that place in full reality. Geographically these two places, “the here and there,” dimensionally intersects between the visible and the invisible. Although geographically we may be standing in both places; dimensionally the carnal world and the spiritual world are not the same.

Consequently, I can navigate through this world without any problem. I know my way out of this building; I know how to get to Cleveland, TN, I drive myself there once a week. Just because we can navigate ourselves in the carnal world does not mean we know how to navigate ourselves into the world of the spirit. We cannot go on to the internet and Google up map-quest, punch in the throne room of God and think it will give us a map that can take us there.

Our GPS is the Word of God and the patent name is not Tommy, it is Jesus. You see, although John says he was immediately in the spirit does not mean that immediacy took place without a disciplined life of the spirit. This is why I say it takes as much practicality to navigate into the world of the spirit as it does in this carnal world; practical rules of engagement that must be adhered to if we are to move from one place to the other.

Would we like to see what John saw, would we like to visit the same place John visited? Then we must begin where John began. We too must be willing to drop our nets (profession,) our pleasures in this life, even our comforts as he did to learn spiritual navigations.

Jesus said, “24 If any man will come after me, let him deny himself, and take up his cross, and follow me.

25 For whosoever will save his life shall lose it: and whosoever will lose his life for my sake shall find it.

26 For what is a man profited, if he shall gain the whole world, and lose his own soul? or what shall a man give in exchange for his soul?

27 For the Son of man shall come in the glory of his Father with his angels; and then he shall reward every man according to his works.

28 Verily I say unto you, There be some standing here, which shall not taste of death, till they see the Son of man coming in his kingdom” (Matthew 16:24-28).

Thinking with the carnal mind, one cannot see any of those folks seeing Jesus coming in His kingdom. In fact, we think this will not take place until after what we call the rapture. Nonetheless, the reality is, Jesus said, “There be some standing here, which shall not taste of death, till they see the Son of man coming in his kingdom.”

Jesus does not lie nor did He lie. There was some standing there that saw Him work the works of the kingdom daily. Jesus did come in the power of the kingdom, even before He died on the cross, arose from the dead, and ascended into the heavens.

For instance, Jesus also said to some of those that were standing there at another time, “But if I cast out devils by the Spirit of God, then the kingdom of God is come unto you” (Matthew 12:28). Dimensionally Jesus knew how to bring the there into the here; it was bringing kingdom power from there to here. When Jesus took authority over demons, cast them out and wrought healing in the mind of the demoniac concerning the possessed life he lived. Jesus had come in the power of His kingdom.

The carnal mind could only see the difference in the way the man conducted himself; the spiritual mind could see more than that. The spiritual mind can see how kingdom power from heaven delivered that man of his possession, and that the difference in his actions was a result of the intersecting power of the spirit bringing the kingdom of God into his messed up world that was controlled and tormented by demons.

This is why Jesus instructed us to pray: “9 Our Father which art in heaven, Hallowed be thy name.

10 Thy kingdom come. Thy will be done in earth, as it is in heaven.

11 Give us this day our daily bread.

12 And forgive us our debts, as we forgive our debtors.

13 And lead us not into temptation, but deliver us from evil: For thine is the kingdom, and the power, and the glory, for ever. Amen” (Matthew 6:9-13).

In this prayer Jesus shows us three spiritual disciplines that brings His world into ours. Those three disciplines are:

1. 11. Give us this day our daily bread. This is simply a daily diet of the Word of God.

2. 12. And forgive us our debts, as we forgive our debtors. This is simply living a lifestyle of forgiveness.

3. 13. And lead us not into temptation, but deliver us from evil: For thine is the kingdom, and the power, and the glory, for ever. This is simply finding the way of escape provided to us by God from the temptations that pull us further away from the presence of God and the reality of that place.

These are three spiritual practical measures that teach us how to navigate our way into the world of the spirit. We must develop a passion and hunger for the Word of God daily, not just when we are going through a crisis and need the answers to get out of the crisis. The Word of God must become our daily bread, food for the soul and instruction for the spirit.

We must learn how to assimilate the Word of God into becoming the living organism of our character until it becomes both our walk and our talk in living out our lives.

It is a scientific fact, we become what we eat; likewise, in the spirit we become what we ingest. Our spiritual diet has everything to do with both our spiritual abilities and inabilities.

Beyond the discipline of the ingesting of God’s Word; we as believers must learn the art of living above and beyond offense. We must learn the art of forgiveness and reconciliation. Forgiveness is the vehicle taking us into spiritual navigations.

In other words, we cannot navigate our way into the spiritual things of God when we carry offense on our shoulders. We cannot find our way into the spiritual things of God when we fall prey to bitterness and twisted resentment towards people who have hurt us, abused and taken advantage of us.

There is no where in the CPS of the scripture that we take “Grudge Avenue” into the throne room of God. When we walk through the door that leads into the heavens we must let go of everything that is weighty and that hinders our love from reaching out to the God of love.

He says how you can love me who you have not seen if you cannot love those whom you do see. The dimensional intersection leading us into the spirit is plugged by unforgiveness.

There is nothing that escapes the presence of God. Everything happens in the throne room of God; the earth is His footstool that the Scripture say sets upon nothing. Geographically we are there, dimensionally outside of the spiritual we are not.

When we allow ourselves to be drawn away and enticed by our own lust, let alone by the temptations thrown at us by the enemy; the warp zone between “here and there” is broadened and we are walking the wide path Jesus said the majority walks.

This is why Jesus has instructed us to pray as such that His kingdom may come and land in our being so all that we are and do out of our being is where He is. These are practical disciplines that must become apart of our being. After all, if it is not in our being to be as such, then we simply cannot be.

If it is in our being to crave the Word of God, in our being to practice reconciliation through forgiveness, and in our being to eschew all evil, the immediacy of being in the spirit or to be caught up in the spirit becomes as practical as breathing is to live in this world.

Therefore, positioning ourselves in the practicalities of spiritual disciplines transports us into the “There world of God’s Kingdom.” Gabriel brought God’s Kingdom into Mary’s world; Gabriel said, “I am Gabriel, that stand in the presence of God; and am sent to speak unto thee, and to show thee these glad tidings” (Luke 1:19).

It was not what the Seraphim’s did that made them holy Seraphim’s; it was where they were that made them holy. It was where Gabriel came from (…I am Gabriel, that stand in the presence of God…) that made Him a holy being with a holy mission.

Where are we coming from? Where are we? We must long to be in His presence, not in a church (religious) setting way; we must live in His world that we may bring His world into this world that is in need of His world.

I remember many old saints in my child hood that brought His world to church with them. They did not go to church to be in His presence, they lived in His presence daily, and when they stepped into the sanctuary so did His presence.

We assemble ourselves together with the saints that we may share with each other what we got out of His presence during the week when we were not with each other. You may have gotten something I did get and I may have gotten something you did not get; we are not going to get from each other what we got if we do not at least bring it with us when we come together.

So, let us get up all in there so we can bring there into here. Let us get up in there so we can bring His presence to those that are in need of His presence and what it brings. It would be good to say as Gabriel said; I come from standing in the presence of God.

Those throne beasts have eyes from without and from within. If we stand in the presence long enough as they have, we will grow eyeballs in places we did not know we could have eyeballs. We will have what I call circumference vision; standing in God’s presence gives us the ability to see in all different directions from without and from within. Being in His presence gives us revelation into things concerning His presence in this present world and the world to come, He is the God of “our was,” “is,” and our “is to come.”

Here is there and there is here.

The Artist

The Artist God is the artist painting the portrait of our lives; we are the paint and He is the artist. It depends on how we work with Him as He works with us as to the outcome of the portrait. It would be good for us to understand that God is working something in us that is worth far much more than the moment. All that we have encountered thus far and compounded upon all that we will continue to encounter in this life is the brush strokes of God in our lives; yes, God working in us is the artist painting a picture that can only make since after the full picture has been completed. Consequently, there are some strokes upon the canvas of our lives that make no sense at all, but when connected with other strokes; the artist brings together every event both joyful and hurtful to say something, to say what He and He alone can see in us. This is why our destination is not as important as the journey itself. God is not as concerned with what we are trying to accomplish as He is with the process it takes to get us to the other end of it. It is in the process that the relationship with us is cherished and that the journey has its worth. For example, I have never been one with the desire to see the sights to be seen across America; to me, one mountain is no different than another, one city than another or one monument than another. My wife Ramona has been the one with the desire to see these things. Even though I have had no desire to see these things I have enjoyed every mountain, every city, and every monument; simply because, I have enjoyed the journey with Ramona. She has had enough excitement for the both of us. It has been the joy in the relationship that these events have meant anything to me. Her joy became my joy, her excitement over these things has become mine; the journey with her has been more important to me than the objects in the journey. Likewise, the events in our lives are no more different than another to God; it is the process that has taken us through the events that means something to God, it is how the process has affected us that God is moved in His heart. God just wants us; God wants to be with us, He wants to experience us as we experience Him. "Deep calleth unto deep at the noise of thy waterspouts: all thy waves and thy billows are gone over me. Yet the Lord will command his lovingkindness in the daytime, and in the night his song shall be with me, and my prayer unto the God of my life" (Psalm 42:7-8). The deep way down inside of God calls for those things that are deep down inside of us. He longs for us to taste the journey, to experience the artist in every stroke; to feel the emotion behind the intention of the heart as the brush reveals what He sees in us. Only God can reveal who we are and make sense of why we are in this life. He is both the author and finisher of our faith. "Wherefore seeing we also are compassed about with so great a cloud of witnesses, let us lay aside every weight, and the sin which doth so easily beset us, and let us run with patience the race that is set before us. Looking unto Jesus the author and finisher of our faith; who for the joy that was set before him endured the cross, despising the shame, and is set down at the right hand of the throne of God" (Hebrews 12:1-2). Pastor Joseph Robinson