Listen to the broadcast program radio012en.ram (15 minutes)
PROGRAM 12 is transcribed below.
This is based on short articles.
Musical Introduction--"Here is Love" (Jeremy Sinnott's CD "Catch the Fire 3" TACF)
Welcome once again to ComfortForToday.com, named after the website of the same name. Neville and I would love to hear from you; our e-mail address is comfort@comfortfortoday.com.
Today we are going to talk about the importance of loving others with Jesus' kind of love. First Neville will read three scriptures about this.
SCRIPTURES (Neville):
Jesus said:
"A new commandment I give unto you, that you love one another" (John 13:34)
Paul, the first missionary, said that love is even greater than faith:
"And now abideth faith, hope, and love these three--but the greatest of these is love" (I Corinthians 13:13).
Paul also said that love meets all the requirements of God's laws:
He who loves his neighbour has fulfilled the Law (Romans 13:8)
Doreen: I shall now tell you about two incidents in my own life when true love was demonstrated. The first is about a lawyer friend of mine, the second is what a much-loved aunt told me many years ago which I have never forgotten. An account of these two incidents are in articles #397 and #12 respectively on the website under "Short Articles."
The first is about a dream I had recently. I shall read it to you now. It is entitled: "Love--the Greatest Gift."
Last night I dreamed about a friend who died a few months ago. In my dream we attended a large celebration where he and his wife had arrived late. There seemed to be much confusion as they entered with their five unruly children.
As I awoke from this strange dream, a Voice very clearly announced, "There is one of my greatest men!" Somehow I knew this pronouncement included his wife also.
I began to recollect how our lives had intersected. He had been a lawyer in our small town. We attended the same church, and had become acquainted through a "Couples' Club." Also, for several years he and I taught Sunday School as team teachers to a group of teenagers. Every Saturday evening I had gone to their home to prepare the Sunday lesson, but we usually spent most of the time discussing our Christian faith. At that time I had had a conversion experience (which, by the way, was not taught or acknowledged in the liberal church we attended), but my intellectual friend could never quite make that step of faith. His brilliant, rational mind always got in the way.
When my first husband and I separated, he become my personal lawyer even though he and my husband had, up to this time, been good friends. Because of property issues, I spent many days of each week in his office as he attempted to untangle my financial catastrophe. But as each new problem arose, he always seemed to come up with a solution. The Lord was with us. For example, the evening on which I was served with divorce papers, I just 'happened' to have an invitation, without my children, to attend their home for dinner. During the 14 years when I single-handedly raised my four children, I always knew I had a true friend.
When I remarried and moved to another location, I always tried to visit this couple any time I returned to my former town. But I didn't see much of them for many years.
Then about three years ago, our paths crossed again. I received a letter from his wife while they were holidaying in Texas. She wrote that the cancer with which she had been diagnosed many years before had flared up again. Only a short comment at the end of her letter indicated she knew that her time was running out. Soon after that she returned home when I had several opportunities to talk to her in hospital before she passed away. The last time I spoke to her, she accepted the Lord through a "prayer of exchanges" which the Lord had given me especially for her. I hadn't questioned her previous commitment, but I knew that this time she was ready for her heaven-bound journey. She passed away shortly after this. Her husband was devastated by her death. It just seemed that he couldn't live without her!
It was not long until I heard that my lawyer friend was also dying with cancer. Knowing that he had never accepted the Lord as his personal Saviour, I telephoned him at his son's home.
Some time before this, I had written a short legal document which I had never published or given to anyone. It was a blood covenant with Jesus. It was a covenant which best friends sometimes make with one another--touching each other's blood with a vow to everlasting friendship. I asked my friend when I telephoned him if I could read this covenant to him, and if he wished, he could in a spiritual sense, sign his name at the bottom and put on a red seal of Jesus' blood as proof the document had been properly executed. He agreed. As I read to him about the touching of Jesus' blood to his sinful blood, I heard a gasp on the other end of the line. Before I hung up the receiver, I knew his spirit had finally been united to Jesus' Spirit!
When this man was later moved to a hospital some distance from my home, one day I felt I must see him. I drove on a highway I never dare drive on, and a distance further than I usually drive. I felt I must see him at all costs!
He was by now in intensive care, his lungs filling with fluid, and literally dying. I was allowed in only because his daughter 'happened' to be at the door of the intensive care unit. When I went in, he just clung to me and wanted to put his head on my shoulder. I prayed with him, asking only for peace. Because I felt assured of his eternal destiny, I too had peace. Within a few days he died.
But the dream I had last night and the Lord's message about the greatness of the man was more than his signing of the blood covenant. It was more than the confusion at the celebration party which represented his confusion. His greatness was not because he was a brilliant and kind lawyer.
Love. That was it. His love. All the years I had known him he and his wife had shown true love to a single parent without the means to pay for his legal services. The account I received for his weeks and months of work was, as I remember, $150. He had served his church and community out of love.
This morning I remember that although my friend's faith was always very small, he had the greatest gift of all according to I Corinthians 13. He had love, which the Apostle Paul said is even more important than faith.
I know where he and his beloved wife are today. They are with Jesus. ---------
That is the end of the first article, now I shall tell you about the second one, number 12 on the website.
I had been feeling guilty about the wonderful help I had been receiving from my sister and brother-in-law over a period of several years when my children were small. I mentioned to my aunt that I just couldn't take anything else. Then she made two very wise remarks. One was that it takes more grace to receive than it does to give. This I have not included in the article, but the second word of advice was this: "Don't worry about it, just do the same for someone else. That's what makes the world go 'round." The article I am about to read to you is about this kind of love, a love which gives with no thought of return, only that we can give it away to others. It is God's kind of love called "agape love."
I shall now read article #12 from the website.
After a long illness or a time when our world fell apart, there is someone whom we feel we would like to repay for their many visits, the flowers, the casseroles and so on. But somehow as we think of all the things we might do for them in return, everything seems an inadequate repayment. We suddenly realize there is just no way we can ever repay that person. A wise aunt gave us advice about how to repay them, "Don't worry about it, just do the same for someone else--that is what makes the world go 'round."
As we ponder God's love to us, the same principle is true. God gave up His Son, Jesus Christ, to die on a cross in order that our sin might be cancelled. How can we ever repay Him?
We could never repay our kind friend and we can never repay Jesus. But there is something we can do. We can give His love to someone else. Jesus loves us, we love Jesus, and in turn we love others. The overflow of love seeps into the world around us and others learn to love too.
In listing the spiritual gifts, the Apostle Paul points out they are all useless without love. "If I speak in the tongues of men and of angels but have not love, I am only a resounding gong or a clanging cymbal" (I Cor.13:1). He is saying that even if we have received the baptism of the Holy Spirit but don't have love, the spiritual language of prayer won't be adequate in itself.
Even if we give ourselves up in martyrdom for Jesus, if not done in love it is worthless. Faith, hope, and love are all important to God, "but the greatest of these is love" (I Cor.13:13).
God's love is different from human love with its selfish motives, and is essential to accompany all the other gifts of the Spirit.
"Let us love one another, for love comes from God" (I John 4:7). That's what makes the world go 'round!
---------I trust that these two incidents in my own life have helped you understand how important true love is in God's eyes. When Jesus was asked which commandment is the greatest, He said it was to love God, and love others as we love ourselves (Matthew 22:37-40). Doing this is even more important than faith as you will recall Paul said in I Corinthians 13, verse 13.
Let us pray:
Lord, we ask that you bless everyone listening to this program today. We ask that your love will flow like a mighty river over this entire northern area of Canada, bringing with it a great revival of the Christian faith. May grace, mercy, and peace from God the Father, God the Son, and God the Holy Spirit be with you all both now and forever. Amen.
Let us now listen to John Martin's prayer "Lord, I Only Want to Love You" as recorded by Shaun Hayward at the Community Pentecostal Church, Beaverton.
"Lord I Only Want to Love You"