Foreword

People everywhere, many who are regular churchgoers, wonder why God is not more real to them.  They wonder why He seems so distant -- almost impersonal- more like an invisible force.  That must be the way an ant views a human being.  We are several thousand times their size -- so much larger that they surely must fail to see how real we are.  Unfortunately for the ants, they were not created in our image -- that is, it is not possible for them to share our human qualities.  But that is not the case between us and God.  We have the capacity to be "molded and made into the image of Jesus Christ."  It is His love and our capacity to receive it that makes it possible to know how real He is and actually share some of His qualities.   In the pages that follow, we will explore these possibilities and see how these qualities can tie us together with our Lord in eternal fellowship.  We will see how we can experience that " peace that passes all understanding" as we humbly open the door of our heart to our loving Lord.

Today all over America, to one degree or another, devastation occurs in families and individual lives because all of us tend to offer human love in our personal relationships.   But it is God's love that produces the fruit of the Holy Spirit which is joy, peace, long suffering, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness and self control (Gal. 5:22 & 5:23.)  Any one of these qualities is worth more than any price we could ever pay.  Can you imagine a marriage or any personal relationship breaking down if these qualities are present?  Many people expend a lot of energy in a great show of human love but if they are not giving God's love, the relationship breaks down.  The result is indifference, quarrels, divorce, crime and on the national level, bad foreign relations and even war.  Only God's love works in this life.  If it is not God's love given through His children, it is just not real.  And if it is not real, it becomes a show in which we are the play actors.  People everywhere spend much of their time and energy starring in a play written and directed by themselves.  The play is generally about giving and receiving love -  human love.  The reason humanity gives and receives human love is because most people have not received God's love - we cannot give something we do not have.  It is vital in all of our lives that we receive God's love so that we can love Him back and love those around us with His love.

If you are a Christian, the fact that God gives you His love is not new to you.   What may be new is that you have to accept it (receive it) or it will not become yours.  Suppose someone holds a new watch out to you-- a loving gift.  That watch will never be yours until you reach out and accept it and make it your own.  If you think about it, that is true of any gift-- especially the gift of God's loving forgiveness.  The essence of salvation is receiving God's forgiveness which is part of His love.  So all Christians begin by receiving His love.  But to grow up in the Christian life, we must continue to receive His loving forgiveness because we continue to sin.  When we receive His love, we receive Him because He is love (1 John 4:8).   When we receive him, we can become victorious over sin.  Jesus paid the price for our sin with His life but that was not the end of it - He was raised up (resurrected) by the power of the Holy Spirit.  With His death, forgiveness of sin became available to anyone who asks for it with a repentant heart.  With His resurrection, He provided victory over our future sin -- when we receive Jesus, we receive  His resurrected life which is eternal and very powerful.  His bloody death on that cross and His resurrected life from the grave provide us complete victory over all sin as we receive Him.  When we receive Him, we are "born again" -- not physical birth but spiritual birth -- the very life of God.  With this new life we have the power to do what He wants us to do which includes the power to obey His command to forgive those who have offended us.  when we do that, we are able to receive more of His forgiveness.   The more forgiveness we receive, the more of Him we receive and the more of Him we receive the more we are filled with His Holy Spirit.  The Holy Spirit then gives us the power of His resurrected life (Acts 1:8).  The love begins to appear in the form of spiritual fruit which is part of our lord's plan for our lives.  But all this is possible only as we receive more and more of God's forgiving love.  Then as we begin to return His love, we have a personal relationship with Him.

Some of the things Jesus said about relationships were: "receive Me,", "abide in Me," "come into union with Me as I am in Union with the Father" and then He said that the greatest commandment is "you shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, with all your soul, and with all your mind" (Matt. 22:37.)  That is a very close personal relationship.  It is clear that He wants us to be more than a casual acquaintance -- He wants us to abide in His love just as a branch abides in a vine.  If a Christian, who is a branch, abides in Jesus, the Vine, through a loving relationship, he comes into union with Him and with our heavenly Father.   The branch then produces the fruit of the Holy Spirit -- joy, peace, long suffering, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness and self control.  We then, to a degree, have these qualities in common with God and they become the basis of an even deeper relationship with our Lord (John chapter 15).  It is exciting to know that the God of the universe wants to build us up in His grace to the point that we can be that close to Him.  He actually makes it possible for us to obey the "greatest commandment" as we receive His love.  But there is one thing we must do before that can happen and that is to humble ourselves (Mic. 6:8).  Over and over the Bible says that we must humble ourselves.  In 1 Pet. 5:6 it says:" humble yourselves under the mighty hand of God."

It is not possible for our hearts to receive anything or anybody if we have not first humbled ourselves.  it is true that receiving another's love promotes humility but we must have a measure of humility to begin a loving relationship.  In the Bible, born again believers are called the bride of Christ -- so the physical example that God has given us is marriage.  In this life, marriage is never consummated unless the bride receives the physical love of her husband.  In trusting humility, she receives him and they come into union with each other.  That is exactly what Jesus wants for us.   We, the bride of Christ, are to come into union with Him as He is in union with the Father (John 17:21).  This, of course is spiritual union but the principle is the same -- union that is physical or spiritual, if it is genuine, must begin with humility.   Humility is absolutely necessary to receive God's love but He would never pressure us to be humble.  If today you were forced to be humble, you would become a robot because you would no longer have a will of your own.  I think you will agree that it is not possible for a robot to enter a loving relationship.  Receiving love from another is something we must will to do in our heart - we must put aside the love and concern we have for ourselves to make room for the love of another.  God's love is all around us all the time -- if we make room, He will surely come in.

You may ask: how can I control this ego of mine and humble myself so that I can receive God's love.  In his classic book, The Imitation of Christ, Thomas a' Kempis puts it like this: "Never desire to be singularly praised or loved; for this belongs to God alone, who has none like Himself.  Neither desire that anyone's heart should be taken up with you; nor be you much taken up with the love of anyone; but let Jesus be in you and in every good man."  That is the exact opposite of the desire of the ego.  Every one of us since the fall of Adam want to play God on our own private stage.  Our ego doesn't want to be dependent on anyone, it wants others to be dependent on us.  But there is only one who is not dependent on anyone and that is God.  We want to be praised and loved as somebody special even to the extent that others hearts are so taken up with us that they will be so dependent on us that we will be "like God."  Satan tempted Eve and then Adam with the idea that they could be "like God" (Gen. 3:4&5).  If we were like God, then we would be alike or equal to the One who created us.  The truth is: we were created in the image of God (Gen. 1:27).  We are to be a reflection of Him - to be more and more like Him.   That is far different than being equal to Him.  We live in a society that compete among ourselves to be somebody special.  In the course of that competition, it is decided who will lead and who will follow.  The followers commit themselves to the leaders expecting to be part of a group that is "something special."   Even though they are followers, they are part of the rebellion against God that began with the first man Adam.  They satisfy themselves with the idea that they are part of a group that is special ("like God") and therefore they are somebody special.  This desire to be singularly praised and loved simply must be controlled in our lives because singular praise or special praise and love belong to one person and one person only - God.

Most of us lacked humility when we began our new life in Christ.  For years I was totally lacking in humility -- I simply modified my thinking and my behavior and began producing my own stage play.  Much later, I began to understand that we are a new creation and that old things are to pass away and all things are to become new (2 Cor. 5:17).  If we continue to modify our old sin nature instead of controlling it, we will still have that desire to be "like God."  As long as we allow that desire to remain, we will actually be God's competitor and not His subject.  he is the King and if we want to receive the love of the King, we must humble ourselves.

As we humble ourselves, our faith rises and we become more dependent on God.  We are then able to give up the desire to control people and circumstances which had been necessary to gain the status of somebody special or part of a special group.  Life then becomes more real and we see ourselves in a new and better way - not fearing what men may say but striving to please God who loves us so.  It is said that a humble person does not stoop smaller than he is; he stands at his real height seeing the reality of how small he is compared to God.  When he humbles himself, he does not have to put on an act anymore because he has the real thing.  He, of course, is opposed by those who do not have the real thing and experiences some form of persecution -- such as a loss of friends.  Jesus said: "if they persecuted Me, they will also persecute you."  But humility causes us to begin to fit into God's Kingdom and into the purpose He has for our lives which is fellowship with Himself.  In trusting humility, we can open the door of our heart to Jesus Himself and consummate our spiritual marriage to Him through a real, personal, loving relationship (Rev. 3:20).

Simply put, any relationship is an exchange of love - the giving and receiving of love.   Our Lord makes this exchange possible through the power of His love that He offers us continually.  The Bible says that we can love God because He first loved us (1 John 4:19).  Jesus holds His love out to us 24 hours of every day - He is that available.  We can receive His love anytime simply by humbly opening the door of our heart.  Then through the power of His love, we have the strength to overcome our old sin nature and love Him back.  Because He loves us first, we are able to do our part and complete an exchange of love.  This exchange of love is similar to human relationships, but it is so much more.  We, the branches, out of this union with Jesus, the Vine, can now produce the the fruit of the Holy Spirit -  joy, peace, long suffering, kindness, etc.  It is these qualities that tie us together with our Lord in eternal fellowship.  Through this close personal relationship, we can have loving companionship and that peace "that passes all understanding" now and throughout eternity - that is something to shout about!