My friend shared about what he was learning and his fascination with numerology and God’s order. I listened to understand his perspective, then I felt a caution arise in my heart.
I responded:
As much as I like nuances, and am intrigued by patterns and subtle meanings… its important that we don’t over emphasize these things. Don’t get caught up with mental fascination, focus more on internal emanation… Emanating the Father.
In sports the professionals practice the fundamentals. Most of their efforts are placed on free throws and layups… dribbling and passing. They master the fundamentals and practice the fundamentals more than the trick shots, fanciful movements and half court shots.
Jesus spoke primarily about our inner state and how we treat each other… our love or lack thereof. His goal was to align with the Father and love as the Father loved. Tongues, prophecy, and more will cease. But love will remain. The fundamentals remain.
If we would spend more time practicing the fundamentals we would see incredible changes in our life. We don’t necessarily need more information or more revelation. We need more application of the basics that emanate who the Father is, so we can say like Jesus, “If you’ve seen me, you’ve seen the Father”
In 1st John the love of God is brought to maturity (perfected) in us thru acting in love. It is the action of giving that affects the soul in such a way that as Peter mentioned, our soul is purified thru obeying the truth. It is more blessed to give than it is to receive, as Jesus said, because you are changed thru your giving. The intent is to express love so readily, thoroughly and consistently that, “As He is so are we”. That there is no need to fear judgment or correction, because we look like Jesus. People will know that we are Jesus’ disciples by our love. Paul said to desire earnestly the expressions of the Holy Ghost, then he spoke of a more excellent way… that is to love. All the giftings don’t profit us if we don’t express them thru love. The goal is to look like the Father.
Next on the topic of love, I addressed the vast difference between peace making and peace keeping. We are called to make peace not keep peace. There is a large difference between the two. One addressed the offense between two parties to bring reconciliation. Peace keeping, actually glosses over the issue and doesn’t deal with the problem.
We are called to be kind not nice. Nice can be cruel. Kindness is challenging. When we act in kindness with the other person’s best interest in mind, we come face to face with any fear we may have of how people will view us or respond to us or what we may say. We may need to say things that may be hard to say or receive. Niceness avoids conversations that are challenging and difficult. But this is different than love. Niceness is more about self perseveration than it is about love, honesty and truth.
We have choices every day to act in love or our of fear. We choose how we will treat the person next to us. In 1st John, if we say that we love God but hate the person we can see we are a liar.
1 John 4:20 If someone says, “I love God,” but hates a fellow believer, that person is a liar; for if we don’t love people we can see, how can we love God, whom we cannot see?
How do we treat people? How do we treat ourselves?
If you want a dramatic change in your life… master the fundamentals. Be reconciled with God and focus on reconciliation with people you know. Emanate the Father and His love. Don’t get caught up or distracted with mental fascination, intently give yourself to practicing internal emanation.
We don’t graduate from the fundamentals, love will always be.