The Only Thing Worth Knowing.

Remember how Paul in 1 Corinthians 16:14 said, “Let all that you do be done in love”?  He’s saying, “Let everything which comes forth from your life be accomplished in love,” furnished and equipped by a love which flows freely from the Master to His Apprentice, from the heart outward to others... all others.

Think about it.  Wouldn’t this be a healthy relational dynamic to employ?  Imagine how healing this would be for our own hearts, as well as those with whom we interact daily, if we were to engage them only and always from a position of Love, from a place of wanting what is the absolute best for them in every situation.  To speak these words, to offer these acts— be they kind and compassionate or courageous and convicting— to serve with no thought of being served in return, would be beautiful.  It’s a phenomenal sentiment, grand and glorious in its scope.  The only problem here is, and I would say most of us know this very, very well: You will never love the way Abba intended, with the passion and purpose of the Lord Jesus Christ, until you first recognize and internalize the Father’s love for you.

This is one of the toughest tests and most crucial challenges any Child of God ever faces, man or woman.  Here it is.  Do I really and truly believe in the deepest depths of my heart that God loves me infinitely and unerringly with all my faults, flaws, failures, and follies: just as I am and not as I should be?  Not as I will be one day and not as His Word is shaping me to be, but right here, right now, beat-up and burnt out, broken, battered, and bruised within?

There are at least three stages to this ...and maybe a million in between.  [a] Abba loves us, for He is the Initiator, the Pursuer {1 Jn. 4:8-10}.  [b] We, in return, love and devote ourselves to Him, for we can only respond in faith to His initiation, which is grace {1 Jn. 4:16 and 5:2-4}.  And [c] the Spirit of God begins to pour His love “out within our hearts” so that it can flow to the hurting and heartbroken around us {Rom. 5:5; 1 Jn. 4:19-21}.  It won’t work any other way.  Because you cannot produce Jesus’ love by human effort, you cannot manipulate Jesus’ love to your own advantage, and you cannot fake Jesus’ love with your own ingenuity.  It must be borne from within: as the Spirit of tenderness and of Truth pours it out within our hearts.  What does Paul pray in Ephesians 3?  “That Christ may dwell in your hearts through faith [Katoikeo = ‘live, make His home in, settle down and inhabit’].  And …that you, being set in the solid ground of love, may be empowered... to grasp how wide and long and high and deep is the love of Christ, and to know intimately this love which surpasses mere knowledge— that you may be filled to the measure of all the fulness of God,” vv. 17-19a.  Amen!

In the end, it’s the one thing we must know down in the core of who we are, and know intimately, know passionately, know convincingly— the love of my Abba for me as His Child.  When measured against all other forms of ‘knowledge,’ in fact, and what they’re meant to potentially ‘produce’ in our hearts and lives, it’s the only thing worth knowing.

HJC	Ric Webb  |  Shepherd Heart’s Journey Community 9621 Tall Timber Blvd. |  Little Rock, AR 72204 t +1.501.455.0296 | hjcommunity.org
Heart’s Journey – where the Word and the Spirit are one.