This teaching comes to explain to us why there have been so many problems in our relating. We can call these the problems of waning love, for they all come down to a basic lack of love for each other. Someone has said that at least fifty percent of the problems for which counseling has come have to do with the fact that people are having difficulty with each other.
I can love a brother and he will love me in return, and I can also love another brother and he too will love me; but the two of them do not seem to want to love each other.
Jesus said, … because iniquity shall abound, the love of many shall wax cold. Matthew 24:12. This is the problem area which we have right now.
The love level is the determining factor of how much blessing and unity there is in the Body after the Lord moves through it and sifts it. This means that at the present time, everywhere, there will be difficulty in relationships because there is a need for more love.
If a surgeon removes something which is going to become malignant to the body, there is bleeding just as there is in any operation; and afterwards the body feels weak. In the same way, God cannot deal with the basic structure of His people, even in a time of sifting, without some bleeding in the Body and a weakness which comes to it.
What is needed now is a transfusion of love. The love level is a little low. If we can get fresh love flowing in the Body, we will discover that we do not have as big a problem in relating as we thought.
We never find an hour of sifting in which there does not also seem to be a lack of love. There are many illustrations of this in the lives of the disciples.
When Christ was facing the cross and He needed His disciples to work with Him the most, they were arguing among themselves about who was to be greatest. They were angry because the mother of James and John came to Jesus and wanted a preeminent position for her sons at the right hand and left hand of the Lord (Matthew 20:17–28).
They were arguing over who was going to be greatest in the Kingdom (Luke 22:24). The disciples must have looked at themselves later and thought, “How stupid we were. How were we drawn into that conflict?”
But it seems that we are always concerned about our place and we always feel insecure when God deals with us. When He says that one will betray Him, we too begin to wonder, “Lord, is it I?” (Matthew 26:21–22.) There is no confidence at all in the time of shaking; love is the only thing which causes us to endure (I Corinthians 13:7).
If we really understood I Corinthians 12, 13, and 14, we would understand that we are looking for gifts and striving to prophesy, but our goal and what we are following after is love.
Every one of us faces the problem of having a difficult time loving. In fact, people are often annoyed by those in the Body whom they must work with or have contact with because of their ministry or commission.
But most of us has one relationship in our own life in which we really love another person, and in our eyes this person cannot do anything wrong. Although they do things wrong, this does not bother us because of the love which we feel for them. We can confront them and not let things lie untouched.
We can confront each other, we can argue, we can disagree; but we have such a deep love in our heart for the other person that nothing else matters.
In contrast, we have many other situations where the complete opposite is true. There is nothing that these other people can do which does not upset us, because we are upset with them in general. We take everything they say wrong, almost willingly, as if we had a set predetermination that this person we could never tolerate.
There are many of these relationships; and the ministries are constantly trying to minister to this brother and that brother, because the two cannot get along together. But the leaders can get along with both of the brothers. This is a difficult situation for shepherds, but the solution to it is the effort on the part of each individual to make up his mind that this requires a dedication to love. This is what the Lord spoke as a command: “Love.” (John 15:12, 17.)
“Husbands, love your wives.” Husbands, love your wives, just as Christ also loved the church and gave Himself up for her. Nevertheless let each individual among you also love his own wife even as himself; and let the wife see to it that she respect her husband. Ephesians 5:25, 33. Wives, be subject to your husbands, as is fitting in the Lord. Husbands, love your wives, and do not be embittered against them. Colossians 3:18–19.
There is nothing that the Lord commanded for which He did not make a provision of grace. If He commands you to do something you simply do it; His provision is already there. He doesn’t tell you how to do it; He doesn’t give instructions along with it. It is simple: You do it.
The truth of the matter is that people must come to their own personal decision. They must face that other person and decide in their minds, “I am going to love you. I am going to take down my walls to you and inside my heart I am not going to run from you.” Although you may have to be around that person, you know when you have left him and walled him off. You have thought critically about him, and in so doing you have made a divisive decision.
Therefore, there must be an active, upfront decision on your part to reverse this. Each individual will have to go through all of his relationships and contacts within the Body and reverse this, because it is an area where the enemy has come in with illusion and deception.
The Christ within us is to feed one another and it is wrong that each of us is not able to really feed from that Christ in one another, or to feed others. The Christ within each of us is not communicating because of this one barrier.
“Then He will also say to those on His left, ‘Depart from Me, accursed ones, into the eternal fire which has been prepared for the devil and his angels; for I was hungry, and you gave Me nothing to eat; I was thirsty, and you gave Me nothing to drink; I was a stranger, and you did not invite Me in; naked, and you did not clothe Me; sick, and in prison, and you did not visit Me.’ Then they themselves also will answer, saying, ‘Lord, when did we see You hungry, or thirsty, or a stranger, or naked, or sick, or in prison, and did not take care of You?’ Then He will answer them, saying, ‘Truly I say to you, to the extent that you did not do it to one of the least of these, you did not do it to Me.’ ” Matthew 25:41–45.
What do we have to do now? What will correct this? The following illustration will show us. When a couple gets married, there is a deep delight in each other before the marriage; yet after they have lived together for a few months, they may even sit on opposite sides of the church. They find that their spirits are not dedicated to the level of love which is required of unity.
There is one unity in battle, but there is another unity in victory. It is one thing to be able to fight side by side against the Canaanites and the Philistines; but the time finally comes for the division of the land, where every man sits under his own fig tree (Micah 4:4), and that is when the problem comes.
We begin to think, “I could stand my brother as a soldier by my side when we saved each other’s lives time and time again, but I do not want him as a neighbor. I do not want to have to live with him all the time.”
The temporary nature of battle helps us to endure it with love; we draw on depths of love. But we do not yet know how much love we will have to draw on to live together in the oneness and the unity that God really wants us to walk in.
Division comes within a church because they cannot pay the price of unity; they cannot pay the price of victory. It is interesting that so many chapters in the Bible with great, deep references to love are tied in with references to the goals and victories of the church. Paul’s message to the Thessalonian church is a significant example of this. He wrote in I Thessalonians 3:12, “Increase and abound in love.” Remember that these Thessalonians really endured the suffering; they went through it (I Thessalonians 2:14). They pleased God immensely in what they did, and their faith sounded out in every direction (I Thessalonians 1:6–8). Yet Paul tells them the same thing, “Let’s increase and abound in love.”
And may the Lord cause you to increase and abound in love for one another, and for all men, just as we also do for you. I Thessalonians 3:12.
It is easy to believe for something which is afar off or even near at hand, but it is quite another thing to have faith for it when it finally arrives. It is like the jitters that are seen at a wedding—the couple realize that they are going to be living together. There is a nervousness and a tension. They want to be married, but they know that in living together they will go through the greatest testing of their love. The greatest testing was not in the courtship, nor in overcoming the hurdles and winning the family over to the wedding. The love which is demanded of a marriage is much greater. The same problem can be seen in the Body right now, with the oneness and with the apostolic company really taking the oversight of the flock. The shepherds are facing the greatest challenges to their faith and love from the brethren with whom they are now going to live.
We must give a great deal of thought to the need of greater love. We have seen that we can have a unity in the battle, but after we have taken Canaan, do we want the man who has fought at our side to be our next-door neighbor? It is one thing to have enough love to begin a relationship, but it is another thing to have that love after you have become one.
The relationship then demands that you be giving to each other and that you be very tolerant of one another’s ways and faults. This is the big test. This is why, when couples get married, they can love each other very much; but after a little while, they find that the love demanded of their oneness is far greater than the love demanded to become one.
At the beginning of our love and our walk with God there is a certain percentage of illusion which we have about ourselves and about one another. The further we go, however, and the more God brings revelation of our need and of one another’s need (which has to be because we are all the answer for each other), the more we realize that our beginning love had a percentage of illusion and a percentage of reality. As we go on, there is a greater awareness of the reality, and there is less illusion in the relationship. This is why we need more love.
Genesis 4:1 tells us that Adam knew his wife and she conceived. It is one thing to have a courtship or a romantic relationship; it is quite another thing to come to know another person so intimately—to live with him and know his faults and problems—that you must draw on the love that will bring forth a real walk with God together in the relationship.
At the beginning of our walk with God, love is simply a spontaneous part of our experience. We love the Lord, we worship Him, and everything is fine. But notice that when Christian maturity is referred to in an epistle, there is a command to love (Ephesians 4:14–16). There is a time that you soon reach in this walk with God when you do not love simply because the natural wonderful response for Christians is to love. Love then becomes the faithful obedience to a command.
“This is My commandment, that you love one another, just as I have loved you. This I command you, that you love one another.” John 15:12, 17.
We can read many Scriptures which tell us to love each other (I John 3:11), to increase and abound in love (I Thessalonians 3:12), and put on compassion (Colossians 3:12–14). All of this because we never have enough love for the next step. There is never enough love within anyone to take the next step in the manifestation of the sons of God (Romans 8:19). This is why Romans 8 ends with such a marvelous declaration of love (Romans 8:35–39). Although I Corinthians 13 is a great chapter on love, we have no greater picture of God’s love than this outstanding passage in Romans which tells us that neither height nor depth, nor things present, nor things to come shall be able to separate us from that love (Romans 8:38–39). These things may test us but they will not separate us from that love because we must abound in it with everything within our heart.
Whenever someone encounters a new situation, whether it is working in the Word with someone else, or working with the apostolic company or with a church or with other ministers—whatever the situation—he has the opportunity to begin a new relationship which requires some degree of unity. When this relationship first begins there is always an excitement; you are open to give and to receive because you are anticipating something out of it, either results in the work you do, help or training for someone, or whatever you are believing to accomplish. If you analyze this, you notice that generally a good relationship comes out of it for a while; then suddenly, within a short period of time, the relationship seems to be not as good. This is actually a positive step, but it is a very difficult one for people to understand unless they understand the steps which are necessary to reach the full extent of becoming completely loving and giving to one another in openness.
What you find is that before long the person you are working with annoys you or you have a problem with him. You may even become critical of him, because you are around him much of the time and there are certain things about him which you do not care for. The truth of the matter is that he was the same person when he first walked in the door and you first started working with him as he is now. The only difference is that he has “let his hair down” a little more, he has become a little more relaxed, he is showing himself more; and you are doing the same with him.
Deep in our heart, every one of us wants someone to love us, or, if the word “love” is misleading, to fully accept us so that we can express ourselves at any time and be unrestrained; we can just be ourselves. The ultimate goal in every person’s heart is, “I want everyone to know me and to love me.” In some way you want the full expression of yourself to be totally acceptable; and the ultimate height of delight would be that everyone around you would absolutely love you. That is probably overstated, but there is a deep need in each of us to be loved, accepted, and not restrained or thinking, “Be careful how you walk into the room. Be careful that you don’t say this. Be sure you don’t bring that up.” Perhaps you sense that certain people do not care for one side of your personality, so you restrain your sense of humor or find yourself constantly on guard around certain groups of people.
The delightful thing would be to be totally free at all times with everyone and have everyone accept you. But the problem is that you do not do the same for other people. You want this from other people, but are you also willing to give it to others?
If you will really concentrate on first giving this to everyone, then each person can be totally free to do anything he wants in emotion or in action or in his conversation, in expressing his personality, in expressing what is on his heart. And you can set your own heart never to be offended or to withdraw so that even if there is criticism of yourself, you will accept it. You are laying yourself wide open in this kind of relationship, but if you determine that you will give this in relationships throughout the Body, then we will have the same care for one another (I Corinthians 12:25). You do not have to wait for other people to do this or wait to see it happen throughout the Body. it will never be seen if you yourself do not decide to do it first, without caring whether it is ever done for you in return. If everyone would move in this Word, then all of us would be doing this for each other.
Everyone must have the chance to be free—I am talking about true liberation and freedom—but I have noticed that the more free you become, the more love your brother must have for you. The freer you are, the less illusion you project. But relationships often thrive on illusion, and they are tested by reality.
When you get to know a person who becomes free, free to express himself, free to talk to you, and who loves you enough that the fear of you is gone, then you will have to have enough love for him, also. The more freedom a man has, the more his brothers must love him.
There is an old expression, “Let your hair down,” with which we can create a Kingdom Proverb: When you let your hair down, others will put walls up. This is because people do not want to have to cope with the reality of another’s true expression. The fact is that in everyday life people usually have to create an illusion in order to be acceptable.
Men and women are somewhat alike in this way, but women may express it more in their personal appearance. We say that they “fix up,” they put on their makeup, or do one thing or another to their appearance before they will go out the door. They seem to know that others will have difficulty accepting them as they really are, so they suck in their stomach, wear a flattering dress and put on makeup because they do not want the world to scorn them. If the world could see them as they are when they get up in the morning, looking frowsy and crabby and everything else, then people would not have an illusion of them. But when God brings us to the place of such love that that love has perception and revelation with it, we will be crying for more love because we will see one another as we really are.
For we know in part, and we prophesy in part; but when the perfect comes, the partial will be done away. For now we see in a mirror dimly, but then face to face; now I know in part, but then I shall know fully just as I also have been fully known. I Corinthians 13:9–10, 12.
As I move into this freedom, I am freer before people to be a normal, natural person. Those who relate to me do not have to have an illusion or image of me. We don’t have to be some great saint in people’s sight. All we have to do is bring a Word from the Lord and proceed to live a normal human life before them so that they know we are just like everyone else.” One of the greatest revelations you can ever have is a revelation of yourself—that you are just one more of the brethren and you are the same as they are.
We begin to see that the person we are having difficulty with is the same person as he was, and he has probably always had the same problems, but now they are a little more evident.
The more we go on in love, the more we find the truth of I Corinthians 13. We are moving into that love, and now we will know even as we are known (I Corinthians 13:12). It takes a lot of love for you to be known by others and to accept that they love you, and for you to love someone else when God gives you a deep perception of him.
There can be nothing greater than the demand which is before the whole Body right now in our present victories, in the present oneness and relationship which we have—the demand that we cry out to the Lord for more and more love.
We have watched God move through what love we have had, but we notice that the people who have been sifted out are the people who were most critical and most harsh in their judgments, who wanted to impose their artificial standards on everyone else. These people are gone. Who is left? Only the “Joes” and “Jills” who wanted to serve God and love God, who were not trying to appear religious to anyone; they were just trying to live for God and love Him with all of their heart.
If you analyze all of this, you will see why people judge one another. You judge others because you are unwilling to accept them as they are. If you had enough love, you would see their problems and try to help them change. But if you do not have enough love even to accept them as they are, you judge them. You would not judge them; you would minister to them—if you really loved them.
You have to realize that when you judge other people there is a response deep within them, in their own spirits. Your judgment of them shuts them off. You actually walk away from them; you sever them from yourself. You can say, “Well, I don’t really judge; I don’t care what that person does.” But you can sense when you close off to someone. The truth is that you have walked away from him; you did not have enough love to face him or to stay open to him, so you judged him.
One man claims that he has withdrawn because he really loves me. How foolish! If he loved me, he would not move away from me. If he loved me he would say, “You may have problems, but I will stay right here and help you. I will never leave you.” But instead, his judgment is based upon the fact that he cannot stand to bear reality in another brother with faith for him. How will we ever reach perfection if we think, “Now I will associate only with people who are perfect.” What a lonely man you will be, because no one will accept you either. If you do find some people who are perfect, they certainly will not accept you.
You will have only a meaningless existence of going from one friend to another, and your friendships will never last long. As soon as you start to get a little bit close you have to move on, because in the next deeper layer the imperfections start showing, and yours show also. The truth is that you do not want to show your own imperfections.
The beginning of perfection is the revelation of imperfection.
How can we know what is perfect? How can we know what righteousness is except that the Lord first teaches us something about what sin is, and teaches us how we miss the mark? How can we know the Church which is without spot or wrinkle? (Ephesians 5:27.) Ephesians 5:26 tells us that it is made so by the washing of water by the Word.
Ephesians 4 deals with all of the great ministries which God gives, but Ephesians 5 talks about husbands and wives; it describes the way Christ loved the Church, and the way the Church is to love Christ. It is all based upon deep love—love that has as its objective the purity of relationship without spot or wrinkle or blemish or any such thing (Ephesians 5:22–33).
You can see someone’s need, but the day you become critical of that person, it means that you do not have enough faith and enough love to see his need and yet stick right with him. This is the whole name of the game; it is exactly where we are.
We will find the greatest revival, the greatest restoration, the greatest anointing, and the greatest release into the Kingdom when this truth right here is perceived by the people. And if we do not take hold of this truth, we will find that we are continually ready to bite and devour one another (Galatians 5:15). Continually, there will be friction.
There has to be friction when there is not enough love, because without love, the irritating quality of your faults with which no one helps you, and your brother’s faults with which you refuse to help him, produce friction. It has to be that we perceive not only the lofty goals in God for one another, but we also perceive in one another where we are in the attainment of those goals. And we have a steadfast love for each other which says, “I will not only believe for that goal to be accomplished, but I will believe God to help remove the impediments to it which exist right now both in myself and in my brother.” That is what the Scripture means: Submitting yourselves one to another in the fear of God. Ephesians 5:21.
I think it would be wise for every person in waiting on the Lord to make an active exercise of going through each of his relationships and analyzing what he honestly thinks about each one, and what he is actually doing with it. The Lord desires truth in the inward part (Psalm 51:6), and there must be a determination within you to be really honest about yourself before the Lord. If you do this in seeking out how you honestly feel about a person, you can decide whether or not you have turned away from him at some point in the relationship, and you can usually name the time when you did it.
Have you noticed how many commands in the Scriptures back this up? We are to speak the truth in love to one another, and love is to be without hypocrisy (Ephesians 4:15; Romans 12:9). The Word goes on to deal with these things, because the one thing God wants is openness and honesty in love. There is nothing in the world more difficult than to be honest. Almost everything we know of human love depends upon a certain measure of illusion and mystery. Romantic love was the strongest when women were dressing in long dresses right down to their heels, and since people have become more nude, they now have free sex without love.
The less illusion that there is, the more difficult it is to have a good sustained relationship on a human level. But divine love has just the opposite quality. The more of God’s love that there is, the more we can be transparent to each other and know that we will neither accept nor reject a person on the basis of his faults or problems. But neither will we be accepted nor rejected because we have certain problems and needs. Rather, as the Word says, we are accepted in the Beloved (Ephesians 1:6). We bask in the love of God and we become channels of it so that we can really love each other.
We have no right to exist and be calling ourselves God’s remnant if we are not willing to enter into enough love to be that remnant. We have to sustain one another by our love.
Love must be that adhering quality within the Body, because revelation tends to repulse. It turns you away from another person. This is why many a person with the gifts of discernment has become very critical, saying, “I see something wrong with this brother and another thing wrong with that sister.” When this happens your love is not keeping pace with your revelation; you have discerned more than you can handle. Pray that God gives you enough love that when you do see a person’s need, you see it to help him and to have faith for him. God does not reveal things to you about another brother for you to slaughter him. He is revealing things about that brother so that you become a blessing and a help to him.
Even the ones who really love the Lord, and who honestly want to follow the Lord’s command to love, say, “I love,” with a religious concept and a religious attitude in their hearts and minds about it. They say, “I love this brother; I love that sister. I really love them.” People can come to you and say, “I love you,” but you know when there is no connection to you in their heart.
The truth is that this person is not really being honest. He is commanded to love so he says, “Oh, yes, I love because God tells me to love” (John 15:12, 17). He is not being honest enough before God to say, “I am supposed to love, but in my own heart I do not even like that person.” The truth he should face is that this is a religious facade and the highest level of religiosity. He has tricked himself into believing that he really loves.
If you ask these people to give of themselves, they absolutely will not do it unless there is a bolstering to their image (Matthew 23:5–7). They would give their body to be burned (I Corinthians 13:3) if all the media were there and if someone would build a monument to them and acknowledge the whole thing. I have watched this over and over again and I see why the Lord says, “Love. When you give, do not let your left hand know what your right hand is doing” (Matthew 6:3).
You should not feed your ego by what you do. What you do must be an expression of an overwhelming love. I John 3:18 tells us that we are to love not only in word but in deed; there is to be an active expression of it.
One of the best keys to appropriate this love would be to change the four-letter word “love” to “give,” because love is the giving of yourself. Change “I love you” to “I give you what I am and what I can do,” because there is no love without this giving. God so loved the world that He gave His only begotten Son (John 3:16). He gave everything dear. You cannot love without giving.
That is the truth. Try it for a period of time and then check your feelings about it; because when you say, “I give,” then you must also have an active inward part where you know that you are wide open. You are ready to follow someone around if you have to, just to serve, just to do anything, to say, “I give myself.” To give yourself is a very active expression of love.
There is a beautiful illustration of this in the Scriptures. Paul wrote to the Corinthians concerning the people of Macedonia who gave … not as we had expected (Paul had expected them to give money) … but they first gave themselves to the Lord and to us by the will of God. II Corinthians 8:5. “Whatever God’s will is, we are yours.” We have to realize that God has given us to one another as a possession. Just as God says that we are His heritage (Ephesians 1:18); by the will of God, by the testaments, the covenants of God, we also become a heritage to one another. God has given His Son to us in order that we can give ourselves to each other. That is really the bottom line of the Kingdom. There will not be any Kingdom until there is the giving of ourselves to one another.
For you were called to freedom, brethren; only do not turn your freedom into an opportunity for the flesh, but through love serve one another. For the whole Law is fulfilled in one word, in the statement, “You shall love your neighbor as yourself.” But if you bite and devour one another, take care lest you be consumed by one another. Galatians 5:13–15.
In the end time all men will know His disciples by their love for one another (John 13:35), because it will be an accomplished activity which the world does not understand. We have had to be trained in this love step by step. The Word has been coming for years on never throwing up a wall to a brother, always keeping the door open to him. That is the same as staying open to him yourself. You could open a door next to you and let someone walk through that door while you stay totally closed off and walk away. That is not what the Lord is talking about. You have to keep yourself open so that people are able to come and flow through you and be one with you.
This is what Paul told the Corinthians also, “My heart is open to you; I entreat you—be open to us also. We have not restrained you; you’ve restrained yourselves.”
Our mouth has spoken freely to you, O Corinthians, our heart is opened wide. You are not restrained by us, but you are restrained in your own affections. Now in a like exchange—I speak as to children—open wide to us also. II Corinthians 6:11–13.
Everything will be limited or it will be free depending upon how we stay open to one another. This is what we are talking about—keep that door open!
This open love is an unusual phenomenon in human life in this era, because the world has not experienced it. They do not know how to be open to each other and they would not even begin to do it if they did, because it leaves them too vulnerable. Yet there must be something which holds the world together, and that is always a selfish motivation. For example, what holds a band of musicians together? Well, it is a way to make a living; or they like to play music, and this is a chance; or they are expressing themselves. Each has a few solo parts, or he is the lead musician, or it is his band, or something; but always it is an ego trip. It is a self-service. They feel some satisfaction or another with themselves and this feeds their self-image.
In contrast, we are trying to produce people in the Kingdom who are held together by a dedication to love; because it has to be a dedication. We pointed out that you begin with enough love to get by; but when your eyes are opened to the real facts of spiritual growth and the difficulties of the cross, then there must be a dedication to love. Love then becomes an obedience which God lays before you over and over again. You say, “There is only His commandment: Love one another.”
For the whole Law is fulfilled in one word, in the statement, “You shall love your neighbor as yourself. Galatians 5:14.
John repeated this again and again. “Here is the commandment; this is what we heard from the beginning. It is the same old commandment, but it is also a new commandment; yes, and what we have heard from the beginning: Love one another.”
Beloved, I am not writing a new commandment to you, but an old commandment which you have had from the beginning; the old commandment is the word which you have heard. On the other hand, I am writing a new commandment to you, which is true in Him and in you, because the darkness is passing away, and the true light is already shining. I John 2:7–8. For this is the message which you have heard from the beginning, that we should love one another. I John 3:11.
He would not move away from this one thing: Love one another. If you do not face that you are commanded to do this, you say, “If it isn’t in my heart, I can’t do it.” But this love which we seek will come by obedient fulfillment.
The more you walk with God, the more careful you will be of every step you take. I noticed this in something we did with a precocious young girl who was romantically inclined. She could hardly wait to get married; almost anyone would do. “I just have to find a husband and get married; I want to have little babies.” One of the best things for that girl was to let her work in the nursery and start changing the little babies’ diapers, feeding them when they cried, and so forth. We let her have a period of perhaps six months to a year of nursery duty, and that girl changed in her attitude. She was no longer anxious to find a boy, get pregnant, and have a baby. She knew what it would mean; she knew what a little baby would be like to take care of. When a young girl is starting to reach womanhood, the thing to do is put her in a nursery or somewhere so that she understands what babies are all about, what feeding the baby will be like, what diapers will be like, and what a tremendous chore it will be to take care of that baby.
This is the quality that we find in some of the old-timers in the churches now, and when I say “old-timers,” I am talking about some who are young people, too. They know what it is like to work in the Word. “Oh, we want to work in the Word.” Well, realize that it will be a lot of work and a thankless job, because you reach the place where God no longer says, “Would you please do this?” He says, “Do it. Love one another.” And when you reach this level, the glamour is gone. Glamour is nothing more than illusion and when the illusion is gone, there is only the cold, hard reality.
Love must be great enough to rejoice in that reality more than beginning love did when it had a glamorous illusion. We always need more love. We never have enough love for the next step.
Let’s face it; God is requiring a deep exposure of our hearts, and He has exposed a lot in this walk. But the truth of the matter is that when you say, “Lord, I love You. I am dedicated; I will do anything You want me to do,” then God says, “All right, expose your inner soul.” And you say, “No, I don’t want to do that. I really will do anything You say, Lord, but I don’t want to expose the depths of myself.”
You pray, “Chasten me, Lord. Deal with me. Let me go off in the desert and then You can spank me. Deal with me, but hide me, Lord.” There is something religious about that: “I went off in the mountains and I prayed and God dealt with my soul. And I came back and now notice how spiritual, how religious I have become.” It is more realistic for you to let God deal with you right in the sight of the people. In the Bible God did not discipline His prophets behind the scenes, did He? He never said, “I am going to hide all of Peter’s sins and David’s sins, and hide My dealings with them.” There is one thing that God always does—He lets everyone in the family see. And He chastens you right in plain sight of all your brothers and sisters.
The religious cover-up comes when you do not want to be given to the Lord to this degree of exposure. That is when you say, “Oh, I went up on the mountain and the Lord met me.” Maybe you did indeed do that once, but that is not always what God is doing today. Instead, there is a multitude of people down here in the valley to whom God is talking. So, it is easy to find the religious person who is doing something a little bit different than what God is doing with His whole Body.
A wall is very carefully put up to guard and protect something which is buried, and that wall can be a very necessary thing. There may be a girl who is a little precocious or a little bit lustful. She may be a perfectly beautiful girl, but she knows that she cannot take down certain walls because she would be vulnerable in her weak areas. The perfect thing would be for her to take that wall down and immediately allow God to purify and cleanse that area so that she does not have to keep the wall up. There are two ways. The lesser way is to have the protective wall, and that is excellent. But we can reach the place where we have no walls, where we are able to dissolve those walls. You cannot simply open the door to your vulnerable areas, but you find a way in God through repentance and cleansing by which you are freed from that vulnerable area, no matter what it is.
Some have a vulnerable opening in their lives because by faith they have taken down a wall and determined that they are going to be rid of this thing that they have had to keep intact or keep under control at all times. We should take a look at what is really happening in people’s lives, not to judge them but to stay open and help them through this phase as fast as they can get through it. We should help them into repentance so that they can be changed and purified in their lives. They will become different people. We will see such personality changes in people when they become free from something which they had to completely overcome in their personality or thinking or emotions. They become expressive in every way, knowing that they no longer have to worry about what they can be trapped into if they are vulnerable.
That is almost overstated, if people were to follow that advice literally. They will have to follow it literally, but it must also be progressive. You have to keep some walls up while you are working on other walls coming down; you take each particular phase slowly, gradually, and carefully.
What troubles me are not the people who honestly are trying to take down walls and cope with their problems, but those people who have no walls up because they do not even see that they have a problem. They do not see that they have to change. They do not see that they are just hurting people with what they are doing. They look at all the good that they are doing and do not realize how much of it they are undoing. They do not realize how many people are tolerating them in love in certain problem areas which they have.
These fools have no walls up because they do not even realize what they are doing to others. For instance, perhaps you work with someone who feels that it is his prerogative to crash down on everyone else simply because he feels like crashing down. The problem in this case is not the walls, but rather someone who needs to be buried under a wall if he does not stop hurting other people. He does this many times unconsciously or without concern; he does not care if he does hurt them. In the name of freedom, in the name of being a person, this person in effect says, “I have the right to be me even if it kills everyone else around me and I am the only person left on earth.” That is absolutely the wrong attitude; it is another extreme.
Nevertheless, what the Lord is looking for in changing our lives is that whether a person recognizes or does not recognize that he has a certain problem within himself, once it has surfaced, it has to change. This is when we confront him. If the person is grieving over what has surfaced, that is excellent because then he can stay before the Lord and be changed. But in order for this to happen, confrontation is usually required from others.
Many people have waited for the truths and principles of confrontation. We need to review these because if we practice them with a great deal of love and a cool spirit, we can eliminate a lot of friction. The friction comes because people don’t know any better. People are usually very sensitive, and they can’t imagine why anyone would ever be critical of them.
The amazing thing is that the person who is often the greatest offender is the one who is the most efficient. It would be easy for us to create offenses, yet all the time be living just to minister the Word to people. But you see, one thing in your life, even a mannerism, could be offensive. A long time ago the Lord spoke that the raising of an eyebrow potentially could turn someone away. Be very careful that you do not give occasion to offense, because you are going to speak a Word that cuts people deeply but if they see something wrong of your own human spirit in it, they can be wounded deeply.
That is a good explanation of why some of the sheep are dying in areas where the leaders, instead of bringing a pure Word, have not yet been able to divide their own spirit from the ministry which they project over the people.
We do not want to minister yourself to the people. That is a deadly thing and should be recognized as a very definite caution before the leaders. The reason that we meditate upon the Living Word is because it is pure and people are fed by it and not restrained; they grow under it.
The truth is that the leaders will not face in truth before the Lord whether they are actually serving God on His terms or on theirs. They are keeping their activities and thinking totally untouched. The sad thing is not so much that they will not respond to a brother’s criticism, but that they will not accept even a correction, or an on-course correction. The sad thing is that they are not accepting the Lord dealing with their lives by being flexible and open. This is where judgment will come, because God is not allowing that.
Let me explain something else, too. Some of these brothers get into trouble because they want to be God in His expression from the beginning to the end of a Christian’s life. But in I Corinthians 3:6 Paul tells us, I have planted, Apollos watered; but God gave the increase. He continues, “This is so that you do not think too much of any one, because each one is to do his own function.”
What then is Apollos? And what is Paul? Servants through whom you believed, even as the Lord gave opportunity to each one. I planted, Apollos watered, but God was causing the growth. So then neither the one who plants nor the one who waters is anything, but God who causes the growth. Now he who plants and he who waters are one; but each will receive his own reward according to his own labor. I Corinthians 3:5–8.
Let a man regard us in this manner, as servants of Christ, and stewards of the mysteries of God. Now these things, brethren, I have figuratively applied to myself and Apollos for your sakes, that in us you might learn not to exceed what is written, in order that no one of you might become arrogant in behalf of one against the other. I Corinthians 4:1, 6. For through the grace given to me I say to every man among you not to think more highly of himself than he ought to think; but to think so as to have sound judgment, as God has allotted to each a measure of faith. Romans 12:3.
Paul was laboring to present every man perfect in Christ (Colossians 1:28–29), but different ones had given certain input to the Corinthian church. This is the thing which stifled many of the churches: They reached a place which they could not handle, because they had spiritual mothers trying to be fathers, or a spiritual brother trying to be a father or a father trying to be a little brother. I know that sounds ridiculous, but the pastor often insisted that he had to be everything, all the way through. His was the final word of counsel; he was the one who made all the decisions. He was the one who knew exactly what everyone needed every minute of their lives. How ridiculous!
One thing which I have learned about my ministry is that by revelation I start many things very creatively; they get an initial thrust and you see their course. And then while I am thinking, “My, this is good,” someone else comes along with something which gives it another thrust. This is true in the recording of music. I start working for a certain sound and as I work to produce that sound, the musicians who know music much better than I do, who know their instruments and what they can do, start putting into it. When the sound comes out, it is Body ministry. It is going to require all of this before we reach the perfect thing.
This is also what is happening in our walk with God right now.
God is not letting anyone be everything, but He’s insisting that everyone be something. This is where we are. No one can be everything but everyone must be something.
This is bringing everything out until people who have hidden in their passivity must now come forth.
“Come out, come out, wherever you are!”
“But I can’t come out; I’m half naked.”
“We clothe you!” (Matthew 25:35–40.)
“I can’t come out; I’m wrapped in grave clothes.”
“Well, Lazarus, come out anyway; we’ll unwrap you” (John 11:43–44).
It has to be understood that this is going to take a great deal of love. Sometimes it takes more love to let someone wash your feet than it does for you to wash feet. Sometimes you have to come and submit yourself and say, “Look what a mess I am; I’m dirty.” Your brother will say, “That’s all right, I have a pail of water here; I’ll wash you.” You have to see that this stage is going to take a great deal of love.
In addition, the ones who are taking on too much or are trying to minister too many things which God really did not ordain will have to back off in certain areas. They cannot be offended that God is saying, “You are not to do everything, but everyone is to do something.” And when He says, “This is the one thing which you are to do,” they must follow His guidelines. They must listen right now because in this change the most important thing is their obedience so that they see what God is doing for them in this step and they are not offended. There are some who may be saying, “My kingdom is being taken away from me.” The truth is that God is taking their kingdom away from them and they are being brought down to become just a little person and to do what is necessary in their ministry.
We do not realize that even in a good sense God perfects by simplifying. An illustration of this principle can be seen when a child has learned a little bit about playing an organ. So after a church service, he wants to climb up on the organ and irritate everyone with the outlandish things he plays. We do not want him to do that. But what can we do? We take him to the playroom, get him two blocks, find another child, and the two of them can sing and keep time together with the blocks.
Every one of us could search our hearts and wonder, “Am I as important as I should be?” And the real question is not, “Are you as important as you should be?” but, “Are you too busy to do the things which you should be doing?” That is the bottom line.
Ask yourself, “Do I have enough love? Do I have enough dedication to the Lord to do the thing I am really supposed to do? Or will I insist on doing busy work that will be ‘important’? Do I want someone to say how wonderful I am because I am doing this or that? Or do I really want to do what God wants me to do with perfect love for everyone who comes along? And when people make contact with me, they find that I have no walls to them. I am giving and I am also freely taking what I need.”
Freedom is not just a state to be defended. Freedom is maintained with a great deal of love and diligence in discipleship.
The greatest need on each new level is for more love. As the gifts of perception and power increase, the love behind them must increase also.
The battle is temporary, but the love He works in us abides.
As a relationship grows, so must the love grow also. A little love can begin a relationship; true oneness requires much more love.
“Love me and accept me” is the same as “I love you and accept you.”
Only with perfect love can we endure knowing one another even as we are known.
Greater perception and revelation prompts the prayer for more love and faith.
We never have enough love for the next step.