Apostle of Love
"This is how we know what real love is: Jesus gave his life for us. So we
should give our lives for our brothers and sisters. Suppose someone has
enough to live and sees a brother or sister in need, but does not help. Then
God's love is not living in that person. My children, we should love
people not only with words and talk, but by our actions and true caring.
This is the way we know that we belong to the way of truth. When our hearts make
us feel guilty, we can still have peace before God. God is greater than our
hearts, and he knows everything. My dear friends, if our hearts do not
make us feel guilty, we can come without fear into God's presence. And God
gives us what we ask for because we obey God's commands and do what pleases him.
This is what God commands: that we believe in his Son, Jesus Christ, and that we
love each other, just as he commanded. The people who obey God's commands
live in God, and God lives in them. We know that God lives in us because of the
Spirit God gave us." (1 John 3:16-24 NCV) [1]
The apostle John is known as the apostle of love. The reason is how many times
he uses the word "love" in his gospel and epistles. He saw love in action
because he was so close to Jesus all during his ministry. It is believed that
John was the disciple that Jesus loved more than the others.
In the Scripture above, John said that we have seen the greatest love that
anyone can give. That is the giving of a life. Jesus gave his life for us. He
suffered a cruel death but more than that, he took all our sins on that cross.
That is the greatest love of all. If He was willing to do that for each of us,
why can't we give what we have for others to show His love to them? If we
truly belong to Jesus Christ it is really His love working through us. We can
stop the flow of love, though. We can look at others and think that we don't
have what they have and think that we can't give to help anyone. We are too busy
with our own families and work that we don't have time to help anyone else.
There are things that we can do to show God's love to others that don't take
much time, though. We just have to be open to the leading of the Holy Spirit to
know what to do and when to do it. It might just be giving a smile to a person
who has had a bad day.
John later in this Scripture tells us how we can know that we are children of
God. We must believe in Jesus Christ. That doesn't mean just believe that He
existed but that He is who He said He is and trust him for your salvation. Then
if we do this, then we will want to show our love of him by following his
commandments which includes doing to others what you would have them do to you.
Frances Ridley Havergal wrote one of her most famous poems while she was in
Dusseldorf, Germany. She had gone to Germany to do some specialized study. While
there, she saw a copy of Sternburg's great painting: "The CRUCIFIXION." The
title above the picture was, "All this I did for thee; what has thou done for
Me?"
Inspired by the probing question, she wrote her famous poem, "I Gave My Life for
Thee." But she was not happy with the poem and threw it into the fire, but a
draft blew the paper out of the fire and onto the hearth. Feeling that this
might have been Providential, Miss Havergal took the slightly-scorched paper,
folded it, and sent it to her father in England.
He composed a tune to match the words and had it published. However, the tune we
now use with this superb poem was written years later by P. P. Bliss, an
associate of D. L. Moody. The tune he wrote is now the one we use with this
great song: "I gave my life for thee, what hast thou done for Me?" [2]
by Dean W. Masters
dwmasters@earthlink.net Owner
of the Masters List:
http://shaned.net/mailman/listinfo/masterslist_shaned.net
Unedited redistribution approved
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[1] The Holy Bible : New Century Version , containing the Old and New
Testaments. 1991. Word Bibles: Dallas, TX
[2]Tan, P. L. 1996, c1979. Encyclopedia of 7700 illustrations : [a treasury of
illustrations, anecdotes, facts and quotations for pastors, teachers and
Christian workers]. Bible Communications: Garland TX