I'm sure everyone has heard sermons about how big God's love is and how hard it is to understand why a deity would love us so much. Who in their right mind would give up their children and watch people torture them - knowing that this act would redeem the very people causing harm? The bible talks about God's love or demonstrates it , it also talks about a cold unfeeling people not returning that love. Lately I've felt God teaching me about my love for Him.
For a long time I've been wondering about the Holy Spirit and how He works. I've wondered why I don't seem to see much of Him in my life or others around me. I don't think I could honestly say that I've been "filled with the Holy Spirit" like the apostles and early Christians were. Learning more about love seemed to put another piece in the puzzle for me.
I had been thinking of the Holy Spirit being like a fire. A fire catches on to things and can be passed along , but it can also be snuffed out or suffocated. If the Spirit is like a fire, what happens if it is gone? I seem to remember groups of people in the new testament that had received the "baptism of John" and believed but did not have the Spirit. I'm starting to think that receiving the Spirit and receiving salvation may be two different things - sometimes they appear together and sometimes not. So why did some of those Christians receive the Spirit when they heard the gospel for the first time and others not? I think the difference may have been in the teacher - some of them knew about Jesus and some of them didn't. I'm also wondering if people are taught by someone "on fire" do they catch fire as well? and so receive the Spirit?.
Maybe another way to not have the Spirit is to not follow God's commands. I was reading 1 John and came to these verses :
23 And this is his command: to believe in the name of his Son, Jesus Christ, and to love one another as he commanded us. 24 The one who keeps God’s commands lives in him, and he in them. And this is how we know that he lives in us: We know it by the Spirit he gave us. 1 John 3:23, 24
So we need to accept Jesus and love others- esp. brothers and sisters (assuming he is talking about other Christians?)
19 We love because he first loved us. 20 Whoever claims to love God yet hates a brother or sister is a liar. For whoever does not love their brother and sister, whom they have seen, cannot love God, whom they have not seen. 21 And he has given us this command: Anyone who loves God must also love their brother and sister. 1 John 4:19-21
I can't say I've "hated" another Christian (may have gotten close, but repented) but I've defiantly felt "unloving" towards certain groups all of my Christian life. I know I'm not the only one who struggles with an unloving attitude towards different church denominations. I've also not felt love or compassion towards certain groups of non-believers and I see a lot of that reflected on social media as well (key words: gay marriage, burqa, government, anti-vax, homeless person...). So, for a good portion of my spiritual life I have not loved others like God commanded me to.
I think it is ironic that all of my life I remember really wanting to be useful to God - even setting aside art studies to go for nursing (isn't nursing synonymous with mission work?) , but I wasn't useful, because I was unloving and judgmental. Would quenching the fire of the Holy Spirit be disobeying his "love others" command? If a fire is quenched it is cold or just "gone". Is the Spirit like that as well? Is it cold, or gone? I know I am a Christian and I have accepted Jesus , but when learning about the Holy Spirit I'm always feeling like I want more of Him , like I don't have enough. Are there Christians that have simply gotten used to a quenched Spirit? Has anyone really been filled completely?
I suppose a good way to get the "fire" back would be to start to love others - like God does. Part of me resists that. Love is patient, love is kind. It does not envy, it does not boast, it is not proud. It does not dishonor others, it is not self-seeking, it is not easily angered, it keeps no record of wrongs. Love does not delight in evil but rejoices with the truth. It always protects, always trusts, always hopes, always perseveres. (1 Cor. 13:4-7). To love people like that means being vulnerable. It means that I would have to sacrifice things. It means I might get hurt.
After writing the last sentence I realized that the part of me that is resisting this has been hurt deeply before and coldness has been preferable to risk . I want to stay the same , but I also want more , I need more (more of God). How does one start to feel again? I can only hope that, since now I am willing to learn , God will be able to teach me.
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