It began with
a collection of words that all began with the same letter. For some reason, I
like it when the points derived from a Scripture can be expressed in that way.
Perhaps this makes it easier to remember.
Whatever the
case, this morning began with the recognition that all the things I am learning
of the joyful love-relationships of the church leave me with these e-words:
experience, enjoy, and express.
Experience: it
is clear from God’s word that he wants all his children to experience the love
of God that is given to us in Jesus Christ.[1] We
are the beloved children of God,[2]and
God wants us to know it, to feel it, to experience it.[3]
Enjoy: it is
just as clear that our experience of the love of God given through Christ, and
expressed through the apostles and prophets of the early church, is to be
enjoyable. Jesus spoke the truth in love for our joy.[4]
Paul worked for our joy.[5]
John wrote of the apostles’ experience of Christ to bring the church into
fellowship with them and God in order to complete our joy.[6]
Everything given to us in Christ, through the foundation-laying lives and
ministries of the apostles and prophets,[7]
was aimed at bringing us to enjoy the joy that God and his servants have in the
children of God.
Express: in
the same way as branches receive the sap of the vine for their own good, and
pass that sap on to the further reaches of branches, buds, blossoms, and fruit,
so the believer in Jesus Christ receives the love of God in such a way that we
can only continue enjoying the experience if we keep passing it on to others.
There is no such thing as a Christian being loved by God in a dead-end kind of way. The love of God must flow through
our lives to give that non-ending experience of joyful love.
This
three-word (e-word) summary of the joyful love relationships of the church
invited two other e-words to join the fellowship. When we experience, enjoy,
and express the joyful love relationships of the church, we find ourselves both
exulting in the love of Jesus Christ, and exalting the love of Jesus Christ.
Exulting:
exulting in the joyful love of God that is in Jesus and his church is to have
such enjoyable experience of the love of Christ that we personally overflow
with joy. Exulting is something that happens inside us. We feel happiness over
what we have. We feel joy and gladness and delight in what we have. We overflow
with testimony of the love of God. We find ourselves writing and speaking in
long sentences of delight and wonder because we just cannot find enough words
to describe what the joy and love and peace and delight feel like.
Exalting: at
the same time, our exulting experience of enjoying the love relationships of
God and his people cause us to exalt the joyful love of God that accomplishes
such things as this. Paul had been an angry and violent young man who was
intent on destroying the church because he could not believe that this Jesus of
Nazareth could be the Jewish Messiah. However, Jesus grabbed hold of his life
so dramatically, raising him from the dead condition of his sin, and appointing
him to apostolic leadership in the church, that we exalt the joyful love of God
that would do this for such a man as him. At the same time, we exalt the
greatness of the joyful love relationships that come through the love of God
that would make Paul the man who teaches us to love the brotherhood of
believers!
Whether or not
these five e-words make this easier to remember, God’s love brings us into the
most joyful love relationships ever. They are ours to experience, to enjoy, and
to express to others. They are ours to exult in as our own personal place in
the joyful love relationships of our home in Jesus Christ, and they are ours to
exalt as the gracious gift of the God who is love.
For myself, my
journey through God’s word this last couple of months has caused me to
experience the joyful love relationships of God and his people more than ever
before. I find myself feeling greater enjoyment of what I mean to God, what the
whole brotherhood of believers means to the apostles and prophets who became
the foundation for the church, and what we mean to each other in the present-day generation of the body of Christ. I also find
myself desiring to express joyful love relationship to the entire brotherhood
of believers, no matter whether they live in my home, attend my home church, fellowship
in other locations, or suffer in other parts of our world.
The fact is
that my exulting in the joyful love relationships of God and his people is
growing, and so I find myself all the more eager to exalt the love of God
before your eyes, and before your heart, so that you feel the invitation of God
who “…so loved the world, that he gave
his only Son, that whoever believes in him should not perish but have eternal
life.”[8]
© 2015 Monte Vigh ~ Box 517,
Merritt, BC, V1K 1B8 ~ in2freedom@gmail.com
Unless otherwise noted,
Scriptures are from the English Standard Version (The Holy Bible, English
Standard Version Copyright © 2001 by Crossway Bibles, a division of Good
News Publishers.)
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