2017.12.24_Jesus Loved Them to the End

God is love. Our faith is in acknowledging that He loves us. When a mother reprimands a child, the child may doubt the mother’s love. But just like a gentle touch, reprimanding her child is another way of expressing her love. In like manner, by focusing on the law, we can easily misunderstand God’s will since He gave the law to mankind. However, we must also realize that the foundation of the law is love.

The Son of God is the sole heir of God’s love. It is for His Son that God created all things. Hebrews 1:2 says, “God has in these last days spoken to us by His Son, whom He has appointed heir of all things, through whom also He made the worlds.” No one is worthy of God’s love apart from the Son, not even the angels in heaven. Angels are made to be ministering spirits and they are not the recipients of love. Therefore verse 5 says, “For to which of the angels did He ever say: “You are My Son, Today I have begotten You”? And again: “I will be to Him a Father, and He shall be to Me a Son”?”

Amazingly enough however, we have become the children of God worthy of His love, although we have many flaws and are weaker than the angels who serve God. Although the Son is the primary focus of God’s love, today we have become recipients of God’s love because God called our souls to His Son, Jesus Christ. Jesus said, “All that the Father gives Me will come to Me, and the one who comes to Me I will by no means cast out.” (John 6:37) God has given all things to Jesus, including the souls of men, and Jesus knew that it was the Father’s will that not one soul that the Father had given Him would be lost, but that they would live on the last day.

John 3:16 says, “For God so loved the world that He gave His only begotten Son, that whoever believes in Him should not perish but have everlasting life.” They who believe in Him and accept His love, God will keep their soul to the end. On the other hand, whoever rejects God’s love will be rejected by God in the same way that God destroyed the entire human race except for Noah’s family.

The opportunity to accept God love does not last forever. If a man rejects God’s love while he is alive (while still in his body), he will become a demon. Although the Bible records many accounts about demons, people fail to recognize the reality of the spiritual realm because they think of them as metaphors. Demons are not metaphors but real beings with personalities. Anyone who believes in the name of Jesus can experience this phenomenon when they cast out demons. Anyone who doesn’t want to become a demon and experience eternal desolation must accept God’s love while he is still living in the flesh.

The thief who was crucified with Jesus was a violent criminal, but he accepted God’s love at the last moment, and Jesus said to him, “Assuredly, I say to you, today you will be with Me in Paradise.” (Lk 23:43) On the other hand, Judas Iscariot, who followed Jesus for three years, came to a horrible end. Jesus loved him until the end, but Judas did not accept His love. Rather, he accepted the devil’s idea and he hung himself. After his spirit left his body, he would have become a demon, and eventually been cast into the abyss.

These days, many people take their own lives. There are many factors that influence someone to contemplate suicide, but the fundamental reason is failure to recognize the love of God. A brooding hen will sit on her eggs for about twenty days. I have witnessed a hen brooding on her eggs for twenty-eight days. She refused to give up even after the eggs were no longer viable. God’s love towards us is like that. Jesus once said. “O Jerusalem, Jerusalem, who kills the prophets and stones those who are sent to her! How often I wanted to gather your children together, as a hen gathers her chicks under her wings and you were unwilling.” (Mt 23:37)

Jesus loved His disciples until the end, but Judas Iscariot ultimately perished like an unhatched egg. In fact, he tried to prove Jesus’ innocence. The other disciples didn’t even do that. The problem was that he tried to do it his own way. He trusted the Roman court. He was convinced the justice of the Roman legal system would exonerate Jesus. When Jesus’ guilty verdict was pronounced, he was shocked and declared His innocence but Judas could not alter the outcome. Overcome by remorse, he hung himself.

Judas Iscariot’s biggest problem was that he did not regard Jesus as the Son of God. To him, Jesus was just a great philosopher. Of course, it is not easy to recognize an ordinary person as God. Nevertheless, we believe that Jesus is the Son of God because we believe that He was conceived by a virgin, and by extension we believe that He is Immanuel, or ‘God with us’. The fact that a virgin who had never laid with a man had conceived was illogical and defied all the commonly accepted wisdom of the world. But we accept it by faith. By faith we can be certain that God loves us because we acknowledge that Jesus is the Son of God, and that He has purchased us with His blood.  But not even God can help those who repeatedly reject His love. God cannot impart the His love to someone who continually refuses it.

When Jesus spoke about His death and resurrection, Peter said, “Oh no, Lord! This will never happen to you!”But He turned and told Peter, “Get behind Me, Satan! You are an offense to Me, for you are not mindful of the things of God, but the things of men.” When Peter judged the things based on his own perception and tried to hinder the work of God, the Lord treated him as if he were Satan.

In the church today, people who consider themselves intellectuals tend not to adjust well to a spiritual life. When they see people praying fervently in tongues or casting out demons, they criticize it saying, “only ignorant people lead a spiritual life this way” and they discount it. Or they may try to cover up their own shortcomings by saying, “I don’t care about speaking in tongues. I will ask for a better gift.” We must remember that we should not rebel against God’s work.

When David entered Jerusalem dancing before the Ark of the covenant, Michal, Saul’s daughter and his wife, accused David of uncovering himself in the sight of his slave girls like a vulgar man. But David said he would be even more undignified than that and celebrate before the Lord. After that, David did not lie with her, and she had no children to the day of her death. Instead, David made the son of Uriah’s wife the successor to his throne. What matters to God is not knowledge or wisdom, but faith. (2 Sam 6:16-23)

We should carefully consider what Jesus said to Peter: “Get behind me, Satan!” What would have happened to Peter if he had died in that spiritual condition? Judas Iscariot’s mind was filled with the thought devised by the devil, of whom Jesus said, “Have I not chosen you, the Twelve? Yet one of you is a devil!” (Jn 6:70). It is most likely that he would have become a demon. Just as all mankind was accursed when Eve accepted the thought from the devil in the Garden of Eden, once a man accepts a thought from Satan, his spirit will face a treacherous ending regardless of his spiritual experiences or sincerity in the church.

We must accept the love of God. We must not let our souls become demons. I once witnessed a child who had died in a car accident enter into his mother who was at his funeral. As the mother was weeping uncontrollably, she began to speak with the child’s voice, complaining about the unfairness of his death. The child had become a demon and was speaking through his mother’s body. It is difficult for many people to accept the existence of demons since they are not visible. However, demons are real; they are spiritual beings that can enter into human bodies and influence their actions and behavior.

Jesus said, “As the Father loved Me, I also have loved you; abide in My love. If you keep My commandments, you will abide in My love, just as I have kept My Father’s commandments and abide in His love.” (Jn 15:9-10) And, “This is My commandment, that you love one another as I have loved you.” (Jn 15:12) Jesus is emphasizing that, just as He has loved us, we must love one another. This is Jesus’ new commandment.

Those who have received God’s love must keep the new commandment. The main part of keeping the new commandment is loving the Church. Anyone who loves the church loves the souls that make up the church. The church has poor people, rich people, educated and uneducated people. Whatever our station, our love transcends all these things because the love of God indwells us. We shouldn’t merely say we love one another, we ought to love the church like a mother cares for a young child.

Let us accept the love of God! Let us not be like Judas Iscariot who, even after following Jesus for three years, ultimately rejected God’s love and perished as a result. Instead, let us be like the criminal who was a thief all his life and yet entered into Paradise. Let us receive the love of God! God sent the Holy Spirit to consolidate His love in us and so that we could enjoy love more abundantly. Let us not reject the love that God has already poured out upon us, but rather let us receive as much of His love as we can!