Do everything in love. 1 Cor 16:14 (NIV)
GRACE – PART 3
Now that the cycle of sin-nature is interrupted in you, when someone hurts you through their own state of being, rather than respond from your own sin-nature, you can respond with the provision of grace deposited on your life.
Love becomes the force in motion. It is an action as a result of a new state of being.
If hurt is the result of sin-nature then love is the result of a grace nature.
Mother Teresa says, “If you judge people (action as a result of sin nature) you have no time to love them (action as a result of grace nature)” – Please note that I put some notes in brackets that are not Mother Teresa’s quote. It gives it great context though doesn’t it?
You can see how God’s redemptive plan through Christ cuts the power of a sin state of being. In fact, it obliterates it. It then empowers us to live free from the entangling mess that sin-nature emblazons our relationships and interactions with, which in-turn helps us free others from the same tangled and imprisoning web.
When we’re free from it, rather than see people through the eyes of judgement and condemnation (for which there is none in Christ Jesus – Romans 8:1) we only see people with love. We only see them with their divine-potential glistening in our eyes. Our agendas disappear and we look for no recompense or evidence that some change may happen. The deposit of grace in us bubbles like a furious spring; a well of refreshing water and we just give.
To quote Mother Teresa again “It's not how much we give but how much love we put into giving.”
Love becomes our M.O. and we hand it out without holding back.
Jesus ate and spent time with people who were not socially acceptable, for instance tax collectors and prostitutes. It was controversial at the time, but He was setting a new standard of love. Love that would interrupt an old state of being and introduce a new one.
Who are the controversial ones within your sphere that you can interrupt their state of being with love?
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