Stayed tuned . . .

One television channel is having problems with sending signals. It sometimes gets stuck, like an old phonograph record, and repeats a second or two of the current program, until I change the channel and go back to it. This is not a problem with our TV as it is only that channel, and is doing it on our other sets. However, this reminds me of how I learn. When God teaches me something, if I don’t get it the first time, He tends to keep at me until I finally listen and do what He says, only He is not annoying like that TV!

In today’s devotional, Dr. MacArthur compares the voice of Jesus to radio waves; I can’t hear them unless my radio is tuned to their frequency. He points to this passage:

Whoever has my commandments and keeps them, he it is who loves me. And he who loves me will be loved by my Father, and I will love him and manifest myself to him.” Judas (not Iscariot) said to him, “Lord, how is it that you will manifest yourself to us, and not to the world?” Jesus answered him, “If anyone loves me, he will keep my word, and my Father will love him, and we will come to him and make our home with him. (John 14:21–23)

 MacArthur interprets this as Jesus saying, “I reveal Myself to those who love Me—those whose spiritual receivers are tuned to My frequency. They receive My Word and obey it.”

This passage didn’t fit with the normal Jewish expectation regarding their Messiah. To vanquish Roman oppression and set up an earthly kingdom, didn’t He have to reveal who He is to everyone? But Jesus made it clear that only those who love Him will be able to perceive Him and it is in those that God dwells.

Genuine Christianity is about loving God and others, yet we love God because He first loved us. That seems easy enough yet Satan’s original lie was the suggestion that God does not want the best for us and that lie is still in the human heart. Even Christians hear its echoes when life becomes uncomfortable. Instead of seeing His purpose for trials, the cry goes up to take them away. We easily forget that God uses all things in the lives of those He loves as tools to shape us in the image of Christ.

Being a Christian is not always easy. We are called to love our enemies, pray for those who persecute us, be humble and kind to everyone, and rejoice in trials. Loving Jesus goes beyond imitating Him because all that He is and does is impossible for copycats. To be like Jesus, He must be living inside me. I need His mind and His Spirit, His love poured out and through me. And I need to listen to Him and respond to what He says. “If anyone loves me, he will keep my word.”

And how can I keep it if I don’t know what it says? Jesus may as well have said, “If anyone loves me, he will be reading my book and living accordingly.” MacArthur says this is ‘the very heart of Christianity’ because saying I love God is not it; I need to do what He says. This is evidence that what I say is genuine and has substance.

What good is it, my brothers, if someone says he has faith but does not have works? Can that faith save him? If a brother or sister is poorly clothed and lacking in daily food, and one of you says to them, “Go in peace, be warmed and filled,” without giving them the things needed for the body, what good is that? So also faith by itself, if it does not have works, is dead. (James 2:14–17)

Showing God’s love to others takes many forms. I can pray for them, even for enemies. I can supply material needs, or give encouragement. The NT offers many ways to love. Am I listening and doing? The listening is important because one person cannot do all of it, only the specific actions that Jesus directs them to do. It might be to phone a shut-in. it might be to pray for a country that I’ve never visited. It might be to give money to a cry for financial help, or say a simple “God loves you” to a broken heart or comfort to someone who is sick. Pay attention. Love may be a sacrifice, but Jesus fills any hole it might create.

PRAY: Lord, You are answering prayer in surprising and powerful ways. The enemy doesn’t want me to pray and is hammering me with thoughts of quitting. I feel weak and helpless yet know You are hearing and responding in ways that astonish me. Think You for being here and for working in me to “will and to do Your good pleasure” even in the uselessness that I feel. Thank You for Your Word and for being so specific with instructions in how to show Your love to others. You are utterly amazing. Thy will be done!

READ John 8:31–47 and notice what Jesus says to those who reject Him and to those who believe in Him. What is God saying to me?