How do we Live In True Love?
What does love look like in action? How to we engage in love towards those in your life and those we meet day to day?
The answer that emerges from reading the Bible is this: To truly love people you must disabuse them of the lies holding their mind hostage. You must free their hearts from all agreements they have made with darkness — all false interpretations and conclusions. You must thus have an intimate relationship with truth in order to love, not just have nice intentions.
You must thus go to God to understand how the beloved best needs to be loved, to be contributed to. You need to know what the person needs the most in order to be most effective in love. You have to go to God to get the information, the guidance, the leading in order to position yourself strategically to be of maximum blessing to them.
In the Gospels, we see Jesus doing this constantly with Father God. He was in constant contact with Father God. He was kind or confrontational, always in truth, regarding what each heart he encountered that day specifically needed the most.
A proud heart needs to be broken of their pride, to be disabused of its distortions. A wounded heart needs support. Different hearts needed different things: encouragement, comfort, confrontation, rebuke, etc.. Love must be willing to be tough love in order to be real love. Love will cast aside that superficial “niceness” that society deems acceptable in order to be REAL LOVE, that society finds too disruptive.
What approach do we take with those around us? This requires us to continually seek God for discernment. Are we kind or confrontational? What form of love needs to be expressed, moment by moment, in order to be MOST loving — to accomplish the most good in their life? We can make our guess, we can apply our personality, we can bring whatever insight or psychological smarts we think we have to the situation. But finally ONLY GOD KNOWS their deepest need.
Many never actually love others. At best, they operate from nice intentions and mistake that for love. In this way, American culture is riddled with fake love.
But real love keeps us at the feet of Jesus to receive empowerment and instruction. Love keeps us going to the Person of love, the Source of love — Jesus of Nazareth, now at the right hand of Father God, interceding for us. Jesus is, after all, the One who sent the Holy Spirit to live inside us and connect us to God as our good Father.
“Trust in the Lord God with ALL your heart, and don’t lean on your own understanding. Instead, in all your ways acknowledge God so that God can direct your paths.” (Proverbs 3:5–6 paraphrase)
To the degree we just “lean on our own understanding” we will be BARELY in the ballpark of love, at best. We will end up doing all the wrong things for all the right reasons. Although seeming to do right in our own eyes, the results end up slipping through our fingers. We will be ineffective, wondering why the joy, the harmony, and the breakthrough eludes us.
There is another way this ongoing dependence — this active listening and responding — is expressed in the Bible: We must be YOKED to Jesus — intimately connected, step-by-step. Without being directly connected, flowing and walking with the Person of Love, we will fall short of love (being merely in wishful thinking and not actual virtue).
Jesus said: “COME TO ME, all you who are weary and burdened, and I will give you rest. Take My yoke upon you and learn from Me; for I am gentle and humble in heart, and you will find rest for your souls. For My yoke is easy and My burden is light.”… (Matthew 11:28–30)
Let Jesus BE love in and through you. His love. The kind of love that God is looking for. His love accomplishes real redemption, while your fleshly love is a swiss cheese of unreliability, emotionalism and selfishness. So stay yoked to Him — it is that living relationship connection of faith. Love keeps us confident but humble. Love keeps us flexible. Love is alive and dynamic; it maneuvers for maximum service to others.
The more vulnerable (listening and open) we are to Jesus, the more His heart gets into and transforms our heart, the more we operate from the Mind of Christ, then the more of a force for good, and not merely positive intentions, we can be. And all this is to God’s glory and our joy at being used as a servant in His Kingdom. Say that another way: to truly be a force for good. Miss this and you miss the point of your existence on Earth!
Which kind of engagement produces the most growth and breakthrough in the beloved? How do you love your neighbor? You rely on the Holy Spirit, for active guidance in the ongoing pursuit of serving those around you.
Yes you have Bible knowledge. Yes you have principles and morals and theology. But all of that is actively laid at Jesus’ feet, it is yoked to Jesus, in order to allow the Life of Jesus to flow through you to make a truly positive impact to those you meet.
You live life saying, “Jesus show me what love looks like in THIS situation. What is your will in this moment? What do you want me to discern and do?” Without our obedience to Jesus, we cannot be flowing in true love.
It is in this way that your deep desire to participate in goodness comes alive. It is as you serve others in love that you most experience meaning and purpose. Your heart was always meant for exactly this, this dynamic flow. This relationship of seeking Jesus, being filled from Jesus, and overflowing to the blessing of everyone around you. It is as we grow in this life of love that all the virtuous-sounding words go from something merely abstract and conceptual to a heart fully alive.
The Holy Spirit always points you to the life of Jesus — to the heart and personality of Jesus. You are now far beyond anything religion can teach. You are beyond dogma. You are being truly spiritual for your desire to be good is in active subjection to the Person of Goodness — Jesus the lover of your soul.
