The previous e-teaching was titled “Dislocated Joints in the Body”. It was about the significance of connection and function.  I was encouraged to hear that some of you are now reconnecting back to the Body safely.  I’m so proud of you.

Today, we will begin Part 1 of an e-teaching series titled “Functioning in Love”. 

The Lord not only wants us connected and functioning in His Body, but doing so in love.  This requires us to pursue both love and function together:

Pursue love and eagerly desire gifts.. – 1 Corinthians 14:1

Pursuing love begins by laying a solid foundation for what love is. Otherwise, a faulty foundation will lead to a poor build & high and unexpected costs later.  Our solid foundation for pursuing love is knowing Christ’s love first. That’s today’s teaching objective.

Christ’s love is made known by the Spirit

First and most importantly, Christ’s love is not known by the intellect but by the Spirit.  A small child could know it in greater measure than the world’s most brilliant theologian.  God designed it this way.

It is only the person of the Holy Spirit who can open our eyes to see Christ’s love for what it is. Only He can give us the power we need to grasp it and experience it.  To encounter it, the Spirit takes Christ’s love and pours it into our emotions, will, desires, & mind (Romans 5:5).  He desires to infuse it into our innermost part of who we are.  Jesus said to His disciples:

“He (the Holy Spirit) will glorify Me, for He will take of Mine and will disclose it to you. – John 16:14

When the Holy Spirit discloses Christ’s love to us, we get blessed and Jesus gets glorified. Before continuing, I believe the Holy Spirit wants to do this for you right now wherever you are.  Would you like Him to?  If so, let us ask the Father together:

Heavenly Father, I pray that you will empower << Test First Name >> with inner strength through your Spirit. And may << Test First Name >> have the power to understand how vast your love is for << Test First Name >>. May << Test First Name >> experience the love of Christ, though it is too great to understand fully. Then << Test First Name >> will be made complete with all the fullness of life and power that comes from God.  In Jesus’ name, Amen.  – (reference Eph 3:14, 16, 18-19)

With the Helper with us, let’s continue. Christ’s love is made up of two parts.  There is:

1) Expressions of it
2) A pattern to it

His expressions of love are how He shows it.  His pattern for love is the way He shows it. Let’s look at the His expressions.

Christ’s Expressions of Love

His expressions of love are three-fold: they are descriptive, personal, and demonstrative.

Christ’s expressions of love are descriptive.  These are its attributes listed in the scriptures (1 Corinthians 13 & others).  Because His love is so vast, the scriptures (written in earthly languages with limited words) don’t fully describe it. The scriptures simply paint a picture of the shoreline of an endless ocean.

Christ’s expressions of love are personalized.  Like a Valentine’s Day card, He personalizes His love. When you receive it is like no one else’s name is on it but yours.  He expresses it to you individually, even if it was being expressed to a billion others at the same time.  This is not done recklessly, but with great precision, focus, thoughtfulness, & intentionality toward you.

Christ’s expressions of love are demonstrative:  While the scriptures describe Christ’s love, Jesus Himself expressed it with action.  We have no recordings of Jesus saying to anyone “I Love You” while on earth. Yet, anyone who encountered Him was overcome by love.  This is because He demonstrated it so well. 

Every demonstration and miracle of power today is Christ’s way of saying to someone “I love you” with His actions.  He never demonstrates His love in the same way twice. It is always unique according to the need at the moment. His demonstrations of love are unpredictable, but His pattern for love is predictable. 
Let’s learn now about His pattern.

Christ’s Pattern for Love

A pattern is someone or something set before one for guidance or imitation.  Christ reveals to His pattern for us to imitate.  It is (in this order):

(1) He sees needs
(2) He meets needs
(3) He exceeds the needs of others for their highest good

Now, let’s look at His expressions and pattern of love as they occur together at a high level.  In the next e-teachings (Parts 2 & 3), we’ll uncover more truths about Christ’s love.

Example 1: Christ’s Love in His ministry

1) To better see and understand needs first-hand, God (the Word) came to earth and put on flesh.  Being fully human enabled Him to understand and truly empathize with us (Hebrews 4:15).  Although sinless, our daily struggles were His also.  He experienced exhaustion, hunger, sadness, thirst, and the pain of betrayal.  He also experienced the joys of friendship, laughter, music, dancing, food, family, & community. His physical senses also enabled Him to enjoy the earth that He made (Colossians 1:16). He seemed to love gardens, water, & the mountains.

2) He met needs as He walked on the cobblestone streets in Jerusalem and traveled among Galilee. Peopled flocked to Him by the hundreds. Like a crowded emergency room on a Saturday night, oftentimes dozens of hurting, sick, and diseased people would step over each other out of sheer desperation to get to Him for healing and relief. Their needs, no matter how destitute or grotesque, in no way repelled His love for them. Rather, because of His love, He was attracted to them. His words of life addressed their most practical challenges.  His hands contained immeasurable power but He used them with the utmost gentleness to touch and heal people’s bodies.  After He ministered to them, He would often embrace them lovingly as a father would his child. He met needs many did not know they even had.

3) He exceeded needs.  Jesus often ministered to the same person many times. Having a treasury allowed Him and His team to meet people’s basic needs also – food, water, & clothing. His love was full of both power and practicality.  Seeing needs, meeting needs, & exceeding the needs of many for their highest good. With the help of the Holy Spirit, This was Jesus’ earthly ministry hour by hour, day by day, & week after week for three and a half years straight. 

Now let’s zoom out even higher and look at His expression and pattern together at its greatest. He started it in the very beginning.  It took Him thousands of years to finish it.

Example 2: Christ’s Love at its greatest

As God was walking in the garden one day, Adam and Eve hid (Genesis 3:8).

1) Christ saw the need.  By the serpent’s influence, his venom of rebellious sin had gotten into them. This did not separate the Father’s love for them, but rather their life in Him. Eventually, the venom of sin in them would result in the complete destruction of their souls and eternal separation from Him.  Driven by His love, the Father had a plan.  It would meet their great need for life again and everyone else’s who would get the same venom of sin in them. Like the sneak preview to a movie, God revealed part of His master plan.  Talking to the serpent, He said:

And I will put enmity between you (satan) and the woman, and between your seed and her Seed; He shall crush you on the head, And you shall strike His heel.” Genesis 3:15

Anderson translation: One day, I (the Father) will send a man born of a woman.  He will destroy the venom of sin and your power to unleash it.  As He is doing this you will be inflicting pain on His body.

He, Christ, stepped in and made an agreement with the Father from the very beginning of time to meet our greatest need by destroying sin and the power of the serpent. As thousands of years pass by, the Spirit revealed many other previews along the way.  He did this so that when it happened, the world would know it was the Father doing it. Here is one from 740 BC:

But He was pierced for our rebellion, crushed for our sins…- Isaiah 53:5

2) Christ met the need  When the fullness of time had finally come (around 4 B.C.) Jesus of Nazareth, the man born from a woman’s seed, steps onto the stage.  With His entry, world history becomes divided (BC and AD). Following His earthly ministry, Jesus begins giving His life.  While His heels and wrists are getting pierced through for our rebellion, the serpent’s skull (authority) is getting crushed on a hill called the place of the skull (Golgotha).  Satan had failed to connect what God had said to him in the garden (Genesis 3:15 referenced above) and what he was doing to Jesus.  While lifted up, Christ operates outside of time. He reaches into the past, present, and future and gathers together every ounce of venom of sin (including Adam’s) and begins placing it into His own physical body:

He Himself bore our sins in His body on the cross… – 1Pe 2:24

Christ met the need by using His own sinless flesh as a vessel to receive our individual sins and used His own blood to destroy its power over us. It was as if He was injecting into Himself venom from billions of serpents – which came from you and me. One cannot imagine such pain. After fully embodying it, He cried out, “it is accomplished!”, and died. Then, He rises three days later.

He’s asking: << Test First Name >>, can you see how much I loved you?  I took your venom of sin so you could have life – now and forever.

The Father expresses His love with gifts

Jesus was the greatest gift from Heaven because He met our greatest need. But, God wants to give us more gifts!  His is beyond lavishly generous! A gift is a special expression of love from one person to another.  Valentine’s day teaches us how God gives His gifts to us. When they come down from Heaven (James 1:17), they are always: good (James 1:17) & cannot be unearned (Romans 4:16). For example:

(1) Loving spouses will never give a poisonous snake in a box on Valentine’s day.  God’s gifts are always good and will never hurt us. (2) Loving spouses will never demand house chores be done in exchange for a gift (at least mine hasn’t…..yet). If they did, the gift would no longer be a gift but a wage earned. God’s gifts are always free and cannot be earned. 

God’s grace is Him offering to us His good & unearned gifts of love.  All He asks in return is that we believe what He says they are and receive them.  That’s it!  This is what makes His grace so amazing.

3) Christ Exceeds the Need 

After one receives the gift of life from Christ to meet our greatest need, to exceed our need He wants to give to us the gift of the Holy Spirit’s fullness (as our first ‘birthday’ gift!).  When we first receive Jesus, we first receive the Holy Spirit.  When we receive this gift, we receive for the first time the Holy Spirit’s fullness.  There is a big difference. The gift of Christ brings us life.  The gift of the Holy Spirit’s fullness brings us life more abundantly (John 10:10). Like the gift of chocolate, receiving this gift allows us to taste of God Himself, His love, and His power to come (Hebrews 6:4, Acts 1:8).

One can be a believer (and for a long time) and never received and tasted this gift. Yet, this gift was so important to early church leaders they helped believers receive it immediately after their new birth (Acts 19:1, Acts 8:14-16, Acts 9:17, Acts 10:44, Acts 8:14-16, Galatians 3:14, 2 Timothy 1:6). It was the first gift the disciples received from Heaven (Acts 2:1-4) after they also believed (see John 20:22 for when the disciples first believed in the gospel).

The Lord promises He’ll give us the gift of the fullness of the Holy Spirit if we ask for it (Luke 11:13).  After the Apostle Peter received it from Heaven, He then told others about it:

“Peter [said] to them, “Repent, and each of you be baptized in the name of Jesus Christ for the forgiveness of your sins (the first gift to meet our need); and you will receive the gift of the Holy Spirit, For the promise is for YOU (the second gift to exceed our need) .…as many as the Lord our God will call.. – Acts 2:39 NASB

God’s Call to Action

Knowing about Christ’s expressions and pattern for love, what is now God calling us to do?  Three things. Can you guess them?  First, He is calling us to see our need –  that we have been bitten by sin and need healing & forgiveness for life now & forever. Second, He is calling us to believe that Christ met our need by taking our sin dying on the cross and rising again, just like the scriptures predicted. His work has been universally applied. Our work is to individually believe it. Third, He is calling us to receive the promise of the Holy Spirit’s fullness who exceeds our need.

If you are sensing Him call you today, you can respond right now wherever you are.  Begin with a focus on Jesus. Whether standing, sitting, or kneeling, respond by praying this with full sincerity:

Prayer response

Receiving Christ’s Love Gift #1 – Life and Life Forever

Lord Jesus, I see that I too have been bitten by sin and need to receive your healing and forgiveness from it. I believe this is a gift of Love from You and I cannot earn it. Thank you for taking my sin upon Yourself and dying for me.  I believe you rose again and are now in Heaven as Lord.  I now turn from my sin and receive You and your gift of life everlasting.  Thank you Jesus for showing your great love for me and meeting my greatest need!

Receiving Christ’s Love Gift #2 –  The Holy Spirit’s fullness

Now Jesus, with expecting and exciting faith, I am asking to receive your other gift of love today – Life abundantly. I ask that you send the fullness of the Holy Spirit down from Heaven upon me.  I want to fully taste of You, Your love, & Your power. I receive this now with open arms raised high.  I give Him full access to all I am, all I have, and every part of my life. Thank you, Lord, that I am receiving your wonderful gift of love right now.

For as long as necessary, just focus on receiving and breathing with your eyes on Jesus. He always gives the gifts He promises.

I pray the Holy Spirit has opened your eyes to know Christ’s love better today.

To function in love starts by laying a solid foundation for how Christ loved us.  In future e-teachings, we’ll build upwards from here, God permitting.

Until then friends, may the love of God, the fellowship of our good friend the Holy Spirit, and the grace of our Savior be with you today and throughout this week.

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