The Channels of Love

God so loved the world that He gave His Son that whoever would believe would not perish but have eternal life. When the Son in a similar way gave His Spirit to dwell in us who believe He was planting His love within us. The gospel of John focusses on the Father’s love in giving His Son and the Epistle of John focusses on the Son’s love in laying down his life for us (both, interestingly describe the love in the third chapter and the 16th verse: the Bible is full of these kind of little perfections!) But in either case a divine love is being planted in our hearts through faith. It all begins for us with the sowing of that love from a heavenly realm, a realm beyond this world. In fact that is one of the renderings of the verse in John’s epistle which reads, “Behold what manner of (otherworldly) love the Father has bestowed upon us…(1 John 3rd Chapter) As that seed is nourished there within us as we are spending time in God’s presence, and in fellowship, and meditating upon His word, it progressively grows larger and fills us so that it begins to overflow, first to our own selves and then to others. (In another sense it dies as seeds do before they burst forth with new life even as Jesus did on the cross before resurrecting.) Remember how Jesus had told the expert in the Law that the two greatest commandments were to love God with all your heart and your neighbor as yourself? Our love for ourselves is an integral part of our love for others, it can’t be skipped over as though it is too selfish. You are God’s first gift to you and I am God’s first gift to me, and it’s right and necessary for us to be thankful. (Matthew 22 v. 37-40) Remember also how James in his epistle wrote that when we are functioning in that commandment and loving another as ourselves we are fulfilling the ROYAL law? (James 2 v.8) He meant that when we truly love another as ourselves with that love that God has planted in us we are actually behaving like kings and queens, princes and princesses. This is how we are destined to behave, and when we do behave this way we are most like ourselves as we were created to be.
Some new people moved into our condo community recently and I noticed how they didn’t even acknowledge us as they passed by. I knew I had to introduce to them a higher standard that was already operative among us and begin to go out of my way to greet and acknowledge them. It was our way of saying, “Look, in this community we make eye contact and notice and value one another’s presence. We have learned and adopted some of the ways of true royalty here, let us share them with you.” As this kind of love continues to be expressed, the hardest of hearts tend eventually to soften. As the love is poured in from day to day, time to time it begins to reach a point of overflow like the one from which it sprang, and when that happens it usually begins to be returned, even if in the smallest of ways.
The love of God is shed abroad in our hearts by the Holy Spirit as it says in Romans 5 v.5. Five, it could be pointed out as a reminder, is the number of grace in Scripture. Then, 12 verses later in that chapter, follows a wonderful verse which finishes by saying, “—how much more will those who receive the overflow of grace and the gift of righteousness REIGN in life through the one man Jesus Christ.” (my capitals) This is still another of those verses that reminds us of that royal, kingly quality that can characterize our daily conduct through our relationship with Jesus Christ, the King of Kings and the Prince of Peace. It begins to rub off on us, so to speak, as we allow His love to flow to and through us!
The brother from whom I first heard a version of this message believed that it ended here and I understand why. He had the revelation from God that when we are loving others we are actually also loving God. I think the same could be said of our love for God’s natural creation, it is still another way of loving Him. So for him there were these four channels of heavenly agape love: overflowing from God to us, overflowing from us to ourselves, overflowing from ourselves to others, and overflowing finally from others back to us. But in order for this cycle of love to be complete I like to add this 5th channel (and we’ve already talked about the centrality of that number 5) of ourselves returning this love in fervent overflow directly back to God from whence it came, in fulfillment of that command in Deuteronomy chapter 6 verse 5. “Love Yahweh your God with all your heart, with all your soul, and with all your strength.” Notice that soul implies mind. We are not honoring God by blanking out our minds as is the practice of some religions. Rather we are learning to focus our soul’s thoughts and affections more and more on the truth and personality of the Word of God, which has the effect of expanding our minds and hearts and increasing our love and intelligence. In our obedience, in our thanksgiving, and song, and praise, and various forms of heartfelt worship, we are doing exactly that. This otherworldly love from God is continually cycling with greater and greater abundance through our relationships to ourselves, our environment, our neighbors, and back to God to the glory of the Father, the Son and the Holy Spirit