Roger Himes, The Gospel Coach

NEW TESTAMENT GOSPEL

LIFE CHANGE DYNAMICS

Experience total life transformation! 

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5^th Gospel Life-Change Dynamic:

Jesus Gave A New Command:

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“Love Others

AS I Have Loved You”

 

 

 

This life change dynamic is about the greatest commandment vs. the new command of Jesus. The law of God is of course very important, and especially the 10 commandments. But we must understand the law, and the purpose for which it was given. It was not given for us to live by, but to show us we could NOT live by it, and to lead us to Jesus.

The Old Testament is about the LAW of God, while the New is about the LOVE of God. It is about how to love God and how to love others. The Old is about obeying the law of God, while the new is about obeying the gospel of God (Rom 10:16).

The gospel of Jesus is about two things: (1) believing the gospel of the Kingdom of God, and (2) loving others as he loves us. As you will come to see, BELIEVING and living the gospel is what empowers us in how to love God, and in how to love others. Nothing else can.

 

The Greatest Commandment

It is preached that we must love God with ALL our mind, heart, soul and strength. Then you have to love others as yourself. These are Jesus’ words in Matthew 22:38-40. He was asked for the greatest command under the LAW. He said to: (1) love God with ALL your mind, heart, soul and strength, and then (2) love others as you do yourself.

But don’t miss something about this passage! We are told it was a TRICK question from a LAWYER about the LAW! Jesus was not asked for a statement of the truth of the gospel, — but for a statement of truth under the law of God. I repeat what scripture says often: the law was not given for us to live by, but to bring us to Christ!

 

The New Command

Late in his ministry, Jesus said he came to bring us a NEW command: “Love others AS I have loved you.” He repeats this twice in John 13:34 and in John 15:12. It is only knowing the love of God that shows us how to love others. And it is the new command of Jesus that shows us how to love others: by first receiving his love. We only truly love others in the love of God when we know his love for us — his incomprehensible, unconditional love for us.

 

Seven Deadly Sins

We should know WHY the seven deadly sins are deadly. First, what are these seven deadly sins? Here is a list of them: 1. wrath (anger), 2. greed, 3. sloth (laziness), 4. pride, 5. lust, 6. envy, and 7. gluttony.  (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Seven_deadly_sins). Catholics lists these a ‘cardinal sins’ or ‘capital vices.’

Notice that all of these seven deadly sins originate in our self-centered thinking – they are not big, visible, external sins that everyone can see: murder, adultery, theft, etc. But what they do is they focus on US, and our bad thoughts about people and life, and these are what cause us to do some of the big, visible, external sins that everyone sees. It is OUR self-centered greed, anger, pride lust, envy, laziness and gluttony that causes us to sin.

And SIN and LOVE are contradictory – they are opposites. You don’t know how to love others, or how to love God, if your inner thoughts are these seven vices. You can’t love others, including God, if your thoughts are all about you. Also, law is the strength of sin (I Cor 15:56). The law demands what is impossible. We see this in Matthew 22, above. If you love God with ALL your heart, mind, soul and strength, what do you have left to love anyone else with? See the impossibility of the law. No one could live by it (Acts 15:10).

 

How To Love Others With God’s Agape Love

Jesus spoke of love born under the law in Matthew 22. Therefore, he was speaking of human love, not divine, agape love. When he spoke of the new command of love in John 13 and 15, he was speaking of God’s divine, agape, unconditional love. Human beings cannot love with God’s divine love. We can only love with human love.

So, Jesus’ new command instructing us how to love others was also an impossible command. But in this instance he was telling us to love others – AS he loved us. In other words, we should love others with the same unconditional, divine, agape love that he loved us with. I call this ‘USED LOVE.’ After we have lived in the unconditional love of God ourselves, then we should share that same love with others. “You have freely received, so freely give.”

See it: knowing how to love others is not OUR responsibility. It was our responsibility under the law, and of course everyone failed. Now it is our response to HIS ability: (1) we accept and live in his love, and then (2) share the same love we have been given with others.

We see the most beautiful picture of this in I Thessalonians 3:12: “The Lord make you (1) increase and (2) abound in love one toward another.” The word ‘increase’ is a PERSONAL word. It means to personally become fat, and even obese in the love of God. It means to increase like air in a balloon, until you become so full that you pop. Then, the word ‘abound’ is a PUBLIC word. It means to gush out, or spill out onto everyone else around you.

Now notice whose love it is you love others with. It is God’s love: “The LORD make you increase and abound in love” The new command of Jesus as to how to love others says to love others “as I have loved you.” In the gospel, the love spoken of is God’s love, not human love.

 

The Key To the New Command of How To Love Others

The key to the new command of Jesus as to how to love others is not found in the command itself. I actually consider this to be the second command of Jesus, not the first. The first was his very first words that he spoke after spending 40 days with Satan in the wilderness. We’re told Jesus came into Galilee preaching the gospel of the kingdom of God: “The time is fulfilled, and the kingdom of God is at hand. Repent and believe the gospel” (Mark 1:14-15). If this isn’t a command, I don’t know what is.

See that it is the gospel of Jesus is what EMPOWERS us with the ability to live life in the way God desires us to. We cannot do live it ourselves. It is the gospel that is the power of God in us because of his imparted righteousness (Rom 1:16). It is the gospel that causes good fruit to grow from us, which includes the ability to love (Col 1:5-6). It is the gospel of Jesus that fulfills the word of God in us (Col 1:23-25).

The gospel is the FUEL that allows us to live the Christian life better by accident than we ever could on purpose. The gospel of Jesus is his great gift to us. The gospel is the greatest thing this world has ever seen. But we must believe it and live it for it to be active and alive in us. It is what shows us how to love others, and of course how to love God.

The gospel floods us with the love of God. Living in law precludes this.

We Can Live In Divine Dimensions

Human beings can traffic in divine dimensions with the power of God to propel us. “The gospel is the power of God.” Jesus says that without him we can do nothing: “The branch cannot bear fruit of itself, except it abide in the Vine” (John 15:4-5).

If we come to see our absolute, total need for the gospel, then we see its power go to work in our lives. We see it begin to fulfill the word of God in us (Col 1:23-25). We know it’s not OUR ability, but GOD’S ability in us. We merely respond to him. This is why the third gospel life change dynamic dealt with separating ourselves to the gospel and becoming totally absorbed and saturated in it (Rom 1:1).

If we choose not to ‘sell out’ to the gospel, then we preempt the power of God in our lives and settle for our human power alone. Our only choice is (1) to live life God’s way, or (2) to choose NOT to live life God’s way.

God doesn’t demand us to live in the process of the gospel. But he does demand that we live in it in order to experience his power! The gospel is what produces his power both in us and through us to others.

In Mark 1:15, Jesus commands us to ‘repent and believe the gospel.’ When we repent of all other beliefs, and truly separate ourselves to the gospel, then all of life changes – including our ability to love others. Until we take Jesus at his word and repent and believe the gospel our focus is only HOW TO LOVE OTHERS – and HOW TO LOVE GOD.

The law of God, and particularly the 10 commandments, form our worldview and we try to glean from them the ability to live the Christian life. We all fail (Rom 3:10, Acts 15:10). You see, God’s law is addressed to our flesh (Heb 7:16, Rom 7:4). The first, Old Covenant was a covenant of FLESH. The gospel is a covenant of SPIRIT, and thus Hebrews 11:39-40 speaks of the better new thing God has provided for us. I Peter 1:10-12 says even angels, and the prophets who wrote about it could NOT understand it.

Sadly, most Christian today do NOT understand it either!

 

Where Is Your Starting Point?

If you are not living the truth and power of the gospel, your starting point is YOU. If you are living the gospel, then your starting point is GOD.  Thus Paul says his lifelong ministry was the gospel of the grace of God (Acts 20:24).

The gospel of Jesus is like a river that never stops flowing. It is the power that fuels everything in the Christian life. Thus like everything else, the gospel takes on a synergistic power – centrifugal power of its own. Thus Paul calls it ‘the power of God.’ The new command is born in this synergistic power, and it is what propels us in how to love others.

Under any form of law, principles or precepts, your starting point in love is YOU. “YOU love God with all YOUR heart, mind, soul and strength, and YOU love others as yourself.” This is the nature of law.

In the gospel, the starting point is GOD. “A new command I give to you: love others – AS I have loved you” – ONLY AS YOU KNOW MY LOVE FOR YOU FIRST. Belief in the gospel is what allows us to know the love of God – that he loves us as much as he loves Jesus himself (John 17:23).

Jude says to keep yourself in the love of God. In Ephesians 3, Paul says to stay ‘rooted and grounded in the love of God.’ The gospel allows us to experience God’s love for us at the deepest depths – to increase and become obese in it – and then to abound over to others with that same love. Like everything else in the Kingdom, it’s a PROCESS: the process of the gospel. I’ll quote it again: “Without me you can do nothing.”

After Moses’ death, God spoke to Joshua. The same words he spoke to Joshua also apply to us today, except that we’ve had a change in covenant, and so I’ve changed the first five words so that this applies to the gospel of our New Covenant, and not to the ministry of death and condemnation of the Old:

The Gospel of the Kingdom shall not depart from your mouth,
but you shall meditate in it day and night,
that you may observe to do all that is written in it.
Then you will make your way prosperous, and you will have good success.

‘How to love God,’ and also ‘how to love others’ are frequent thoughts of ours. Our first inclination is to go to the law of God, and especially to the 10 commandments. Why? It’s because our natural inclination is legalistic, and our thoughts are first about US.

But the love OF God is actually the place to start, and it is found in the gospel. It is in the gospel of Jesus that our Lord reveals his NEW COMMAND: “Love others AS I have loved you.” I’m planning an E-book on “The Love of God.” We are empowered to love others – like we never could in any type of natural means – by the gospel. It is the synergistic force that brings all things together, including the ability to love.

 

                                                                                               Roger Himes, The Gospel Coach