Just As You Have Heard

8/25/2009

2 John 6 6 And this is love, that we walk according to His commandments. This is the commandment, just as you have heard from the beginning, that you should walk in it. New American Standard Bible

Unfortunately, love is misunderstood by many; love is not what you get, it’s what you give. The love John refers to here is not phileo, the brotherly love of affection; nor is the love spoken of here eros, the passionate love of a man and a woman. The love John speaks of is the love of giving, or the love of submission; that’s the love of the bended knee; that’s the love of obedience.

To love God is to obey Him – that's the tenor of Scripture from the first recorded conversations between man and God in the Garden of Eden. To love God is to submit to His rule and to give Him our hearts completely. To to keep any of it for ourselves is sin.

John says, “This is love…” he immediately links it to obedience.

As love is misunderstood, so is obedience. Obedience finds its life in the death of self, or the cessation of self-rule. Many of the decisions I make today will be those of self-rule. As long as I choose that then I am jettisoning God-rule. John reminds me today that I am to live otherwise – I am to live as I have learned, in God-rule and trust Him to care for me wherever I find myself…

Father in Heaven,

Your love for me is perfect, complete and giving. Everything I have and am is a result of what You’ve given. Is it too much for me to live likewise? I pray for the filling of the Holy Spirit this morning to live in love and to walk appropriately in obedience – just as I have heard from the beginning of my understanding of who You really are – in Jesus’ Name I pray, amen.