Abounding in Love

I came across another illuminating piece by T. Austin-Sparks on a subject near and dear to my surrendered heart: love. It's a rather long essay, so what I thought I would do is cull what I thought were the most important parts of the article and post them here for further meditation.

There are several points Sparks makes in his article, "Abounding in Love," that I have been seeking the Spirit's counsel on over the past several months. The Lord, as always, has been listening to my prayers and waiting for the appropriate time to reveal the truth to me. I love how He works. It's always on His time schedule - not mine. Of course, that is the way it should always be.

In the opening paragraphs of Sparks' essay, we find this passage:

"But with the Lord's coming in view, what is to be the thing which characterizes the Lord's people more than anything else? What is the culmination of the whole process and progress of spiritual things? What is the issue of 'Romans,' 'Corinthians,' 'Galatians,' 'Ephesians,' 'Philippians', and 'Colossians'? What is it all to amount to? You notice in both places where the last things and the last times are most in view - 'Thessalonians' and 'John' - the emphasis is upon love. That is the impressive thing here."

More than anything else, says Sparks, what characterizes the Lord's people is the emphasis upon love. Paul told the Corinthians that without love we are nothing. He told the Galatians that the only thing that counts is faith expressing itself through love.

Spark's continues:

Now this matter of love is the most practical thing that ever we can have to do with. It raises more problems than anything else. But let us look at it firstly in the light of the Lord's coming. If the Lord is coming, what will He come to? I do not think He will come because there are people who have a lot of truth and a lot of exactness in their technique and all that sort of thing. Do not let us disregard the great value and importance of light and truth, of being right according to the Lord's laws and principles; but all that will never satisfy His heart. What He will come to will be that in which He finds His heart satisfaction because of love. Paul, in the first letter to the Thessalonians, prays that their love for one another and for all men may increase. In the second letter he does not pray any longer that it may be so, he gives thanks that it is so; their love to one another does abound exceedingly. And in that context he opens up the matter of the Lord's coming. I do not think we are straining our interpretation here. The Holy Spirit is so consistent in His thoughts."

Once again, Sparks' tells us that what the Lord is after is a heart full of His love. That's the purpose of life - to fill our hearts with God's love and then share that love with others on this planet and in this magnificent universe. It is oh so easy to stay from the narrow path, but we must focus on filling our hearts with His love. We do this via the Cross through Jesus. The Lord leads us directly into the heart of God and His awesome love.

In the next several passages, Sparks' illuminates a few simple truths I have been struggling with for several months. I've bolded the parts below that hit me straight between the eyes of my heart. Sparks says:

"Abound in love one toward another." Love for those of our own company may not be so difficult. But the Word adds "and toward all men." That goes deeper. I have of late felt more deeply and strongly than ever before the force of very familiar words - "Knowledge puffeth up, but love buildeth up" (1 Cor. 8:1), and other words such as "maketh the increase of the body unto the building up of itself in love" (Eph. 4:16). If we are going to be affected by that which is present in other people, all those features in Christians and in Christian work and activity which are repugnant to us, we are going to close up and withdraw in heart and nothing is going to be done in the way of mutual helpfulness and edification.

Again and again the very practical question arises - because of this or that which we meet in another can anything be done, is anything possible? And very often, in the acute consciousness of so much that appears on the surface, we have revolted against it; and then, going to the Lord about it and facing it out with Him, we have been enabled to go on, and something has happened and the Lord has wrought, and we have been surprised, and rebuked for our original offendedness. We have to look through all that to the heart, and be reminded every time that the Lord looks on the heart. We are looking on all this which is largely the result of ignorance, lack of proper teaching and so on, and this can offend us. But the Lord looks on the heart; He sees if there is something deep down under all these preponderances, if there is a real heart love for Himself, and He knows if this is really the endeavour to express that love. There may be misapprehension, there may be ignorance, there may be other causes, but this which offends us is, on the part of those concerned, their way of showing their love for the Lord, and we must not be turned aside - we must get close to them and find what possibilities there are for the Lord. He is going on, He is not giving up; He is making all He possibly can of the least bit of heart love for Himself and for all men. The challenge of this is very practical and very searching for us.

If we are affected by what we meet, by what we see and hear, by that whole world of sense - I am speaking in the realm of Christians now - we shall be put off, give up and decide that nothing is possible. "Love buildeth up"; you find there is something possible, there is some building up possible, more often than you would really believe or imagine, if only you take the love line - not the reserved line of criticism and judgment, but the love line. If there is any possibility at all for the Lord, that is the only way to find it, and you have to do a good deal of digging down, and apply yourself to it with real purpose, to discover whether, after all, there is any genuine, pure heart devotion to the Lord behind all the rest and wrapped up in it. And that 'all' covers a great deal which I will not attempt to detail. If you find that true heart love, you have found your ground of possibility; and for us, dear friends, this is our business, a business to be diligently pursued. It is not a sentimental matter at all, but intensely real spiritual business."

Can you see the power in what Sparks' is saying? Everything of importance in Christ revolves around love and the heart. So many people, including yours truly, get distracted by things that prevent us from focusing on what the Lord is focused on: A heart full of God's love.

Last spring, the Lord brought me in touch with a women who was searching to get back into Oneness with Jesus. The love I had for this women was off the charts and I didn't even know her. I couldn't not explain what my heart felt for her, but it was very real and overpowering at times. All I knew is that the Lord hooked us up for a purpose, and I obeyed His instruction.

After a few friendly "getting to know you better" conversations, I asked her to take out a piece of paper and write down all the things that described her heart. I had her examine her own heart and tell me what she saw. She did that and returned a day or two later with a list of over 30 things that described her heart. When we went over that list together, it was abundantly clear that her heart was disconnected from God's heart. There was little if any Spiritual fruit in her heart. Once she saw the problem with her spiritual condition, she knew what she had to do. She needed to have a spiritual heart transplant. She need to go to the Cross and have the Lord transplant His love into her surrendered heart. It was only through this process that she would find her way back home and become one with God's heart. The Cross is the real spiritual place where our hearts and our love become one with His heart and His love. We must open the door and walk through the door of death via the Cross to enter into full rest (peace) with the Lord. The Cross is the gateway to the heart of God. Jesus is living proof of this fundamental truth.

I apologize for the short detour, but I felt the Spirit moving me to illuminate Sparks' essay through a recent experience. Let's continue with the article. Sparks goes on to say:

"Love - not the presence of a lot of understanding and teaching and truth, and not the absence of all sorts of things - is the governing matter with the Lord. It is not that He Himself in His heart accepts the wrong things, but He sees through them, He sees differently from ourselves. There are two statements about David made in the Scriptures - made from two different standpoints. Speaking of David, the Lord said to Samuel, "Man looketh on the outward appearance, but the Lord looketh on the heart" (1 Sam. 16:7). That meant that the Lord's look upon David's heart was one which was favourable. But when David went to take bread to his brethren in the army his eldest brother looked at him and said, "Why art thou come down? ...I know thy pride, and the naughtiness of thy heart..." (1 Sam. 17:28). Here we have God's look and man's look. We have to be very careful concerning the standpoint from which we are looking upon people before we judge them by the outward signs."

The governing matter with the Lord is love - not the presence of a lot of understanding and teaching and truth, and not the absence of all sorts of things.

Sparks' continues:

"You can see there is no hope of building up unless there is love - and love for all men. You and I ought to be greatly concerned with this matter of building up. Oh, God only knows how much of spiritual increase and building is needed! It is a paralysing situation that faces us if we look at our own limitations. I am sure nothing is going to be done unless we have a very large heart to look over and in and through and beyond, refusing to be held by the thing that is glaring at us, striking us and hurting us, and reaching through to that which is true in the heart."

There is no hope of building up unless there is love for all all men. Love your enemies, the Lord said, and love your neighbors. But first and most importantly, love God. Everything flows from loving God.

Sparks' concludes his illuminating essay with this passage:

"In the light of the Lord's coming, it is very important to be well instructed and to have all the light that the Lord can give us, but never let us think for one moment that light and truth and teaching are inevitably the building factors, for there are many people with a vast amount of truth and light who are not very large spiritually; they are very small, shrunken and closed up. It is love that builds. Moreover, it makes differences in those who exercise it, it brings them into rest. Truth alone may bring a strained look into the face and eyes. Love ought to bring into the countenance some suggestion of quiet strength and restful confidence. Look again at those closing verses of Romans 8 - "Who shall separate us from the love of Christ? Shall tribulation, or anguish, or persecution, or famine, or nakedness, or peril, or sword? ...Nay, in all these things we are more than conquerors." Look at the things in question - the ultimate things so far as our lives are concerned. No, none of these things can separate us from the love of God. Well, let us sit down in the armchair of His love and be at rest, and then get to work. You cannot work unless you have a background rest, and rest does not spring firstly from truth. It comes from love, God's love. Whatever else He gives us and adds to us, may the Lord make us a people who are characterized supremely by this love for one another and for all men."

If you find it difficult to process all that Sparks is saying in this essay, please don't get discouraged. Ask the Lord to illuminate the truth to you. In His time, He will.

May your heart be increasingly filled with God's love.

Agape,

Steve

(Note: For those readers interested in reading the entire piece, click on the article title in the first sentence of the second paragraph above.)