Live in Love
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"...I urge you to live a life worthy of the calling you have received. 2Be completely humble and gentle; be patient, bearing with one another in love." Ephesians 4:1-2 NIV
Nothing is perhaps as challenging for us as to show God's love to people in our life at all times. Thankfully, God helps us live in love. He gave us the scriptures, which tell us how Jesus lived the model life of love. He gave us the Holy Spirit to tutor us each day on how to love even to the most unlovable people in our life.
Why is it so important that we live in love? There are several reasons why living in love is important. Here are a few of them:
- It is God's will: All of the commandments are summed up by love. Jesus explained that the two most important commands are to love God with all our heart, soul, mind and strength and love our neighbor as ourselves (Matthew 22:36-40). God is love, and as sons of God (Galatians 3:26) we are to do our Father's will by living in love. Paul wrote, "Be imitators of God as dear children, and walk in love, as Christ also has loved us and given Himself for us..." (Ephesians 5:1-2 NKJV).
- Love helps us connect with God: John wrote: "7Dear friends, let us love one another, for love comes from God. Everyone who loves has been born of God and knows God. 8Whoever does not love does not know God, because God is love. 9This is how God showed his love among us: He sent his one and only Son into the world that we might live through him." (1 John 4:7-9 NIV)
- Love is critical to our role in the body of Christ: Love builds up the body of Christ so that it functions properly in harmony and effectiveness. The body of Christ "grows and builds itself up in love, as each part does its work" (Ephesians 4:16 NIV).
How well do we understand what true love is? Paul wrote a practical description of love in 1 Corinthians 13:4-8 NKJV:
"Love suffers long and is kind; love does not envy; love does not parade itself, is not puffed up; does not behave rudely, does not seek its own, is not provoked, thinks no evil; does not rejoice in iniquity, but rejoices in the truth; bears all things, believes all things, hopes all things, endures all things. Love never fails. But whether there are prophecies, they will fail; whether there are tongues, they will cease; whether there is knowledge, it will vanish away."
From this passage, we can see that love is:
- Patient,
- Kind and tenderhearted (Ephesians 4:32).
- Forgiving (Matthew 6:15; 18:34; Mark 11:25-26)
- Rejoicing with the truth
- Always protecting, trusting, hoping and persevering
- Faithful
We also see that love is not:
- Envious
- Boastful or proud (see Philippians 2:3-4 & our page on pride)
- Delighting in evil
- Rude
- Self-seeking
- Easily angered
Practical Exercise: Here is an exercise to apply the above points on love to the relationships we have.
- Use our
PDF formatted document
, or take a sheet of 8"
X 11" paper - Holding the paper sideways (landscape), make a table with 13 columns and 13 rows
- Label the far left column "role and/or relationship" and then label each of the columns from left to write as follows: patient, kind, forgiving, rejoicing in truth, always protecting/trusting/hoping/persevering, faithful, envious, boastful/proud, delighting in evil, rude, self-seeking and easily angered.
- Write in your roles and/or relationships on each row in the far left hand column. Examples could include: spouse, parent, daughter/son, sibling, co-worker, boss, church, neighbor, and stranger (in public).
- For each relationship, evaluate your love in each category in the columns. For any areas that you need to work on, simply write “NW” and then annotate a brief phrase identifying the work needed. For example, if I were prone to be rude to other drivers when out in public, I would put “NW” and “driver courtesy” in the block pertaining to strangers.
- Take this table into prayer before the Lord. For each item, confess your shortcomings / sins involved in each relationship. Ask for the Lord’s forgiveness. Finally, ask the Lord to help you show his love in that relationship. A sample prayer for this could be: “Heavenly Father, I confess that I have not shown love to _________(name) in the following ways: ____________(list). Please forgive me for these sins. Father, I want to show your love to this person. Please fill me with your love and guide me in loving them as you do. Thank you, Father! In Jesus’ name I pray, Amen.”
Obstacle
to living in love: Lust
As you went through your relationships in the above exercise, you probably
noticed how your love had been tainted by sin in your life. In my recovery
from sex addiction, I discovered that one of the major corrupters of love was lust.
Lust is basically a
combination of delighting in evil and self-seeking. In fact, lust and love are complete opposites (see lust vs. love). Where
love is giving and selfless, lust is consuming and selfish.
Pornography uses pictures to convey powerfully false messages that try to persuade us that lust is love. The more we look at the porn, the more we lose the ability to discern the difference between lust and love.
Removing the lust obstacle: We CAN deprogram our minds from lust and relearn love. This may seem impossible, but with God's help it is possible! Here are two basic steps we can take:
- Connect with God and ask for healing: When we connect with the source of true love, we'll receive power to bring our thoughts under control and restore a healthy perception of love. The most basic way to connect with God is to have a daily quiet time with him and remain in touch with him via prayer throughout the day (Ephesians 6:18). We certainly should ask God for help in purifying our mind of all the evil things we've filled it with. A simple prayer for this is:
"Heavenly Father, Please help me get control of my thoughts and bring them into obedience to you. Please wash my mind with the blood of Jesus and purify my conscience of all my past sins. Father, please restore a healthy understanding of love in me. Please teach me how to give and receive love in a Godly way. Thank you, Father! In Jesus' name I pray, Amen."
If you pray that prayer (or one like it), you can take confidence that God will answer your prayer and help you through the Holy Spirit. Be patient, though, as the mind purification process usually takes time and persistence in staying tapped into God. The Holy Spirit will give you the power to change (Romans 8:11,13; 1 Corinthians 6:14).
- Load our minds with God's word and obey his commands: Loading our minds with the Bible is vital to our forward progress in cleaning up our thoughts. The Bible gives us definitions of love and many practical applications to help us in recovery. Daily Bible study in our quiet time is good place to start. The Holy Spirit will guide us in re-learning love and uprooting the lust-based thinking by reminding us of the word. We must respond by obeying the Holy Spirit's promptings. Jesus said, "If you love Me, keep My commandments" (John 14:15 NKJV).
An analogy I like for this is the Kool-Aid analogy: If you were to take a pitcher of Kool-Aid and place it under the kitchen faucet, it takes time to dilute the Kool-Aid with the water. As you continue to add pure water, the Kool-Aid continues to dilute. Eventually the water in the pitcher is pure and all the Kool-Aid has been removed. This is how our minds are purified with the word of God. The word is like the pure water added to the pitcher. The Kool-Aid is like the residue of sin in our minds - the evil thoughts and memories of sin that stain our minds. As we continue to add God's word to our minds daily, the residue of sin is washed away. Our minds are restored to purity.
- Stop responding to lust-based impulses: This step could be the most difficult of the three, however if we have been faithful in doing the first two, it should not be that difficult. The problem with lust is that it usually finds a home in our heart because of the pleasure it has brought us in the past. We hold on to it like a pet. We protect it, we feed it and we allow it to live in our hearts. The Bible tells us that the lust must go. Paul wrote, "But put on the Lord Jesus Christ, and make no provision for the flesh, to fulfill its lusts" (Romans 13:14 NKJV).
Don't feed your "lust pet"! Lust must be starved to death. If you feed it, it will grow stronger; if you don't feed it, it will die. We can ask God to show us just how ugly our pet sin is - as he sees it. With that revelation, we'll likely have no qualms about putting it to death!
Practical Exercise:
- Take a moment in prayer to ask God to reveal the lusts that you are sheltering in your life.
- List the relationships in your life and ask yourself, "Am I harboring lust in this relationship?" and "Am I making provision to feed my lust in this relationship?"
- Circle any of the relationships that you answered "yes" to the above questions
- Next, write down your daily activities, habits and hobbies. For each item, ask yourself "Is this activity feeding lust or making provision for lust in any way?" Circle any that your answer was "yes" for.
- Take your circled items to prayer before the Lord. Confess your sin and ask forgiveness for it. Ask the Lord to empower you and guide you in evicting the lust from every area. A suggested pray for this is: "Heavenly Father, I confess that I have harbored lust in my life in the following relationships: ____________(list), and in the following activities___________ (list). Please forgiven me for these sins. Lord, please help me to detest lust as you detest it. Please empower me and guide me in evicting lust from each of these areas of my life. Thank you, Father! In Jesus' name, Amen."
There may be other areas where lust is hiding in your life that you have not yet discovered. Thankfully, the Holy Spirit is gentle and patient with us. He will bring things to light in our life as we are able to deal with them.
Personal Application Questions
- What are the two commands that sum up all of God's commands to us? (Matt. 22:36-40)
- Who is our role model for "imitating God?" (Ephesians 5:1-2)
- How does a lack of love affect the spiritual health of the body of Christ (1 Corinthians 12; Ephesians 4:16)
- What are some of the ways lust has infiltrated your life and affected the relationships you have with people?
- What are three steps we can take to remove lust from our lives?
Next Page: Love Your Spouse