The underlying message of all - Is faith, hope and love

The underlying message of all – Is faith, hope and love

Introduction

The topic in discussion is one that explores the essence of what God is trying to say to His church, and also very importantly the spirit in how it is being said. We can do a major injustice to scripture, the very word of God breathed - to miss what it is saying and how it is saying it (The spirit in how it is said). There has been centuries of study on the word of God, study though can only do so much in understanding who God is. The main purpose of the word of God is to know Him (God) intimately as it is pouring out characteristics, poetry, wisdom and feelings of God’s love towards us. By studying the word of God, to know about Him and failing to get to know Him creates one of the biggest failures to the purpose of the church/bride and body of Christ. The understanding of our place in a world through the word of God, makes one humble, equal with all others and servant along with others to the master and Groom of the bride, and head of the Body of Christ. The message cannot cause divisions in mentality, or cause an erroneous message contrary to the word of God and its intention. Gods message is clear, but we can distort it when we view ourselves above the word and its message to the people; Gods children. What then is the underlying message? It is about 3 things that will last forever for the word of God will last forever. These are Faith, hope and love.

Hypothesis

According to the word of God, 3 things last forever – faith, hope and love. 1 Cor.13:13 Three things will last forever- faith, hope and love-and the greatest of these is love. And Gods word says His word is eternal 1 Peter 1:25”But the word of the Lord remains forever. And that word is the Good news that was preached to you. The hypothesis is then that, Gods word – whether preached, written in letter or spoken is of eternal material and value, and thus must be done in love. It must have a sign of faith, a sign of hope and a prominent sign of love. Jesus the Son of God, arriving on the scene confirms the message of faith, hope and love to all those who must hear it. Luke 4:18 “The spirit of the Lord is on me, because he has anointed me to proclaim good news to the poor. He has sent me to proclaim freedom for the prisoners and recovery of sight for the blind, to set the oppressed free, to proclaim the year of the Lord’s favour. The evidence of faith, hope and love in these words makes it a clear testament of what Gods message is about and the underlying message of His words to the church.

Limitations

There are instances in the bible account where God speaks sternly to His people, His words are those of judgement and discipline – man can evaluate this as a God who is angry and equate it to a serious error of harshness, overly critical and aggressive nature. But we must always understand Gods words, whatever their sentence spells, is done out of a spirit of love and hope. There are scriptures that would incline us to think that it can support a message out of anger and bitterness, but this is not how God speaks to His church. For e.g. Paul said, 2 Timothy 3:16 All scripture is God breathed and is useful for teaching, rebuking, correcting and training in righteousness, so that the servant of God may be thoroughly equipped for every good work. While we use the word that has authority, we must not rob the words authority when using it, the word must sustain its authority. Authority is not ours, it belongs to the word, and the word is God. This ultimately means Christ is Lord over His church, not us and we are to protect and show love to one another knowing that we have only one master above and we are all equal. Therefore in dealing with one another, we must act in a way that we would want to be treated and love in the way we would want to be loved. For no man will treat His body and spirit with contempt.

Body

Defending that the message is love

Let’s take a closer look at “conflict generating” words as described in our limitation and how we can lesson it where love must always prevail. The word rebuke, in Greek is epitimao – which intensifies, properly assign value as is fitting the situation, to correct. These words can very easily be taken as a scape goat for Pastors; shepherds of flocks; to unnecessarily whip their flock, and treat those harshly in a way not fitting for what God intended His message to the church. God rebukes, but it is done out of love, a spirit of compassion – Jesus said in Matthews gospel, “Jerusalem, Jerusalem, you who kill prophets and stone those who sent you, how often I have longed to gather your children together, as a hen gathers her chicks under her wings, and you were not willing” There is nowhere in God’s word that He permits acts of harsh words, biting and devouring one another in the church in the “name of Jesus”. Galatians 5:14-15 “For the whole law can be summed up in this one command:”Love your neighbour as yourself.” 15 But if you are always biting and devouring one another, watch out! Beware of destroying one another”. The incredible beauty of God’s love is that even in our sinful state, He still demonstrates His love – “Christ died for us while we were still sinners’ This undoubtedly means, that even in a bad, sinful, broken state of man God speaks love to us, life to us and comforts us. The word of God to a sinful Israelite nation was to punish, but a discipline out of love, He always underlies His message with a ringing of faith, hope and love. Isaiah 40:1-2” Comfort, comfort my people” says your God. 2 Speak tenderly to Jerusalem, Tell her that her sad days are gone and her sins are pardoned. Ye the Lord has punished her twice over for all her sins.” We can too easily start biting at one another when we start proclaiming ourselves as best and holiest in the church, and without realising it instead of accepting one another’s faults and weaknesses we devour each other. But the constant reminder is that even while we sinners; at our worst Christ died for us. While Christ alone is worthy, who are we then to deal this harshly with another believer? We are in need of the very same grace of God – indeed all have sinned and fall short of the glorious standard of God, therefore all needs God’s grace. The church should not tolerate total rebellion and total disobedience for the Lords holy will, but even as members of the church, the body of Christ we still need to understand that we too have our flaws, weaknesses, imperfect nature – being refined and pruned to the renewed image of Christ. In this spirit how must the church live with each other? We must live with the underlying message of God’s word – faith, hope and love. We must love one another not for only our excellence, but our weakness as well. Paul described this in Colossians 3:12-15 “Since God chose you to be holy people he loves; you must clothe yourselves with tender hearted mercy, kindness, humility, gentleness, and patience. 13 Make allowance for each other’s faults, and forgive anyone who offends you, so you must forgive others. 14 Above all, clothe yourselves with love, which binds us all together in perfect harmony. And let the peace that comes from Christ rule in your hearts. For as members of one body you are called to live in peace. And always be thankful” NLT The message underlying all words God speaks to His people, are filled with love. It gives His people faith and fills them with hope.

There is a spirit to our message

The message we speak can not only be mere empty words, words can proclaim Jesus is Lord, but with our words a spirit is carried with it whether it is genuine and from the Lord, passages like 1 Cor 12:10 and 2 Cor.11:4 describes the weight of our message in the right spirit.

1 Cor 12:10 “…He gives someone else the ability to discern whether a message is from the Spirit of God or from another spirit NLT.

2 Cor.11:4 “You happily put up with whatever anyone tells you, even if they preach a different Jesus than the one we preach, or a different kind of Spirit than the one you received, or a different kind of a gospel than the one you believed” NLT.

The message is so simple, in that it is not ours it is Gods. And the Holy Spirit is the one who must speak through us. We complicate the church when we interfere with what God wants to say to His church. And every time we speak, we must allow Gods spirit to enter our hearts and mind once again. The Holy Spirit speaks a soft message. We must incline ourselves to listen. The human heart can easily deceive, and present a message different to the one we received from Christ the Head of the church Himself. This is the responsibility of those who speaks as a representative of God.

Colossians 3:17 “ And whatever you do or say, do it as a representative of the Lord Jesus, giving thanks through Him to God the father.

The heart and mind is the habitat for the spirit to control, it is for this reason that God wants us to render our hearts. For it is in it that we very easily conjure up our own ideas, selfish grudges and no form of peace.

Proverbs 23:26 “My son, give me your heart and let your eyes delight in my ways” NIV

Jeremiah 29:13 “You will seek me and find me when you seek me with all your heart” NIV

Joel 2:12 “Even now” declares the Lord, “return to me with all your heart, with fasting and weeping and mourning” NIV.

2 Chronicles 34:27 “Because your heart was responsive and you humbled yourself before God when you heard what He spoke against this place and its people, and because you humbled yourself before me and tore your robes and wept in my presence, I have heard you, declares the Lord” NIV.

It is with these scriptures that we can know God needs our part in rendering our hearts for His spirit to use us. We know that however we can tend to fight or resist the Holy Spirit. It is important though not only our words, but our hearts and spirit of God within us carry through in our words/messages from God to His people.

Faith, hope and love cannot be mere empty words, but the spirit of God must move in it to make it impact people’s lives.

The message is for everyone and for building up

The church of God must undergo edification, but in all this it must be built up. The building up entails, reaching the full number of elect. And full preparation of the bride. The message does not need to be softened and reduced with power to not offend anyone, or please people rather than God. However, the message must search dying hearts, hopeless generations and people starving for the “Bread of life”. Naturally people as the parable of the sower describes will be filtered out, and this with no intent to make the law of Christ burdensome – they are just people whose hearts wants to hear a message their aching ears want to ear. Therefore, we do not need to come out like Pharisees with our message, presenting ourselves to the world as modern day Pharisees stating we are holier than thou – Gods word is pure enough and sensitive enough to reach who it must reach and filter out the wicked generation. Indeed this can be done without our influence in making the law a strict set of rules, which shows no love and deals harshly with souls of men. God however needs us to build up His church and prepare His bride.

Isaiah 62:5 “As a young man marries a young woman, so will your builder marry you; as a bridegroom rejoices over his bride, so will your God rejoice over you. ” NIV

Revelation 21:2 “ I saw the holy city, the new Jerusalem, coming down from heaven from God, prepared as a bride beautifully dressed for her husband ” NIV

1 Corinthians 3:9 “For we are Gods fellow workers, you are Gods field, Gods building.” NIV

1 Corinthians 3:10 “By the grace God has given me, I laid a foundation as an expert builder, and someone else is building on it. But each one should be careful how he builds.”

It is also in light of the text from Jeremiah, when God spoke to Him His prophecy and message, “Will build up some and break down others” God’s word is a searching light, and it protects the upright in heart but easily destroys the wicked. We must be built up and prepared, because the King is coming for His bride/church and on that day symbolic of a wedding feast we will be spotless and pure without blemish washed by His precious blood. And it is the blood of Christ that means, “Hope” to us believers and exemplifies the unfailing love of God and produces more and more faith.