My
friend Jim Spivey wrote in his blog that he is entering his third half of life,
and perhaps the “third half of life” is the place where we shake right and
wrong for God’s way. Or where dualism and dichotomy give way to the “third
option.” Perhaps the first half of life is us trying to do things our way; the
second half being us “trying” to do things God’s way with all those efforts are
still contaminated with self, and the third half being that place where we have
surrendered all control to allow God to do with us as He pleases. And if God is
to do with us as He pleases the undoubtedly that is to fulfill Christ’ new
commandment of loving one another as He has loved us. Perhaps the third half of
life is walking in the discovery of His love.
It
is here, in this place of discovered (that is a VERY intentional word
“discovered.”) love that I personally believe the power of God comes to a
minister to be a regular part of Christ’ ministry through them. We can taste
this power before love, and in the discovery process; but I believe there is a
place after discovered love that the power of God is to be walked in. What joy
it must bring to not only experience Christ love, but to walk in it with His
power effecting the world as we go.
I
think this is what T Austin-Sparks was writing about this when he said, “The thing which we all feel
the need of, perhaps more than anything else, the thing which the church of God
needs more than anything else: power. The declaration is made by the Lord
Himself, ‘Ye shall receive power when the Holy Spirit is come
upon you... by My Spirit, saith the Lord of Hosts.’ If, as is so much the case,
we are conscious of powerlessness, of our weakness, and of the weakness of the
people of God generally, of the church in this world, it is useless to bemoan
the weakness and deplore the lack of power; the need is to inquire why
it is, to discover the causes, the reasons, the meaning, for evidently it is
not the Lord’s will. It's contrary to His own declared intention for His
people.”
Having
grown up in the full gospel, charismatic, evangelical side of Christianity I am
very familiar with Christians pursuing the power and gifts of God. Sadly, I am
equally familiar with what could easily be characterized as a lack of love
within those same congregations. If, as T Austin-Sparks suggest, we
"inquire why" there is no power will; we find the absence of
love? I think this is why Paul when talking about love begins with, “If I speak
with the tongues of men and of angels, but do not have love, I have become a noisy
going and clanging cymbal. If I have the gift of prophecy, and know all
mysteries and all knowledge; and if I have all faith, so as to remove
mountains, but do not have love, I am nothing. And if I give all my possessions
to feed the poor, and if I surrender my body to be burned, but do not have
love, it profits me nothing.” Do we have the order of our Christian pursuits backwards?
Love
needs to come first… then the gifts. Perhaps this lack of love was what Jesus
was referencing in Matthew 7 when He said, “Many will say to Me on that day,
‘Lord, Lord, did we not prophesy in Your name, and in Your name cast out
demons, and in Your name perform many miracles?’ And then I will declare to
them, ‘I never knew you; depart from me…” “Love” is not the answer… to love as
Christ loved is. We can concoct all manner and notion of what “love” is, but to
know Christ’ love we must be in relationship to Him. Then… after love… I think
there is a fullness of Christ. After love I believe there are the “greater
works” Christ speaks of. We ask, and nothing happens. Have we asked without
first knowing Christ’s love? Are we the embodiment of what James wrote when he
said in Chapter 4, “You ask and do not receive, because you ask with the wrong
motives, so that you may spend it on you pleasures.” All the while knowing that
love… Christ’ love… “does not seek its own.”
Selah
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