FORGIVE OR HELL - Mike Peralta (best fantasy books to read .TXT) 📗

The Greatest Is Love

So the greatest gifts are faith, hope, and love. Love is what gives the motive to help someone in need. This includes any gifts given by the Holy Spirit to help the person. In addition to the motive of love is the gift of faith. Without the gift of faith you will not be able to believe God for the help that is needed. You may want to help but without the faith to receive God’s help then love alone can only go so far. So faith is very important. It puts you in the position to combine your faith with another person so that he or she can get the help that God so eagerly desires to give.

Closely associated with faith is the gift of hope. Hope puts you in the frame of mind and attitude to desire the best for the other person. It puts you in the frame of mind to encourage and look to God for the help that is needed. Hope is a very powerful gift to have. As great as faith and hope is, the greatest of all is LOVE. Truly love the other person. This is the very thing that moved God the Father to sacrifice His Son for our salvation. Love is also the very thing that will move us to do what we can to help and bring blessing to those people that God has placed in our life to help and love.

1 Cor. 14:1 Follow the way of love and eagerly desire spiritual gifts, especially the gift of prophecy.

More Than Any Other Gift, Eagerly Desire To Love

In 1 Corinthians Chapter 14 Paul goes on to emphasize that we should eagerly desire spiritual gifts. He goes on to give practical counsel on how to properly operate in these powerful Holy Spirit given gifts (also in Chapter 12).

Most importantly Paul keeps re-emphasizing that we should always operate in love. Follow the way of love. This means not to neglect the way of love just because you are excelling in spiritual gifts – which are not to be despised. The Holy Spirit keeps reminding us of this so that we do not get puffed up in pride – because of the spiritual gifts that God enables us to operate in. Without love, operating in spiritual gifts can be dangerous.

Out of love for others God may help someone in need by a gift of the Holy Spirit - a word of prophecy, a healing, a miracle – but the minister God operates through may do so for impure motives. But God’s word does not return void. Because of God’s love, God may operate in spite of the minister He uses. This is an endorsement of His Word – not of the minister. So be careful.

It is very important to operate in spiritual gifts with genuine love. Otherwise we risk operating in pride which, as already mentioned, is a dangerous thing to do.

A Study in 1 John

As is well known the Apostle John emphasizes the commandment of love in his epistle of 1 John. Let us study some from 1 John Chapters 4 and 5.

1 John Chapter 4 (ESV)

1 Beloved, do not believe every spirit, but test the spirits to see whether they are from God, for many false prophets have gone out into the world. 2 By this you know the Spirit of God: every spirit that confesses that Jesus Christ has come in the flesh is from God, 3 and every spirit that does not confess Jesus is not from God. This is the spirit of the antichrist, which you heard was coming and now is in the world already. 4 Little children, you are from God and have overcome them, for he who is in you is greater than he who is in the world. 5 They are from the world; therefore they speak from the world, and the world listens to them.

6 We are from God. Whoever knows God listens to us; whoever is not from God does not listen to us. By this we know the Spirit of truth and the spirit of error. 7 Beloved, let us love one another, for love is from God, and whoever loves has been born of God and knows God. 8 Anyone who does not love does not know God, because God is love. 9 In this the love of God was made manifest among us, that God sent his only Son into the world, so that we might live through him. 10 In this is love, not that we have loved God but that he loved us and sent his Son to be the propitiation for our sins.

Comment: Notice verse 1 John 4:8 which says, “Anyone who does not love does not know God,” This is a very serious verse because it means that regardless of whether you gave your life to Jesus in the past, if you are not loving others then you do NOT know God. And you cannot validly claim to be God’s true child.

11 Beloved, if God so loved us, we also ought to love one another. 12 No one has ever seen God; if we love one another, God abides in us and His love is perfected in us.

Comment: According to verse 12, if we love others then God really does abide in you and that same love will make you perfect (mature and complete) in Christ.

13 By this we know that we abide in him and he in us, because he has given us of his Spirit. 14 And we have seen and testify that the Father has sent his Son to be the Savior of the world. 15 Whoever confesses that Jesus is the Son of God, God abides in him, and he in God. 16 So we have come to know and to believe the love that God has for us. God is love, and whoever abides in love abides in God, and God abides in him. 17 By this is love perfected with us, so that we may have confidence for the day of judgment, because as he is so also are we in this world. 18 There is no fear in love, but perfect love casts out fear. For fear has to do with punishment, and whoever fears has not been perfected in love.

Comment: Again it is repeated that, if you love others, God abides (lives) in you. Also what is extremely significant is that we can look with confidence on the day of judgment. This is an astounding statement – to be given a reliable word (from the bible) about what your judgment day will be like. On the other hand, if you are not loving others then this means you will suffer great loss on judgment day – even the loss of your soul to Hell.

Believe God. Judgment day is not something to be taken lightly or ignored until later in life. For you do not know the day God will require your life from you – or the day Jesus comes back to rapture His saints. We should all be very careful to prepare for that Day. And we prepare for that day in the way we live and treat others everyday of our life.

19 We love because he first loved us. 20 If anyone says, "I love God," and hates his brother, he is a liar; for he who does not love his brother whom he has seen cannot love God whom he has not seen. 21 And this commandment we have from him: whoever loves God must also love his brother.

Comment: How do we know if we love God? How do we know we are really saved? That we know God and are known by God? The only way to know for sure is if we love our brothers. If you don’t love your brothers then according to verse 20, you do not love God. If you find yourself not loving your brother (or sister) or even hating your brother or sister. then you are not right with God.

If this is the case then immediately go before God and repent. And then go to your brother and make amends. Forgive him or her from the heart. “But you don’t know what he did to me.” Even if I did and everyone else did also, God’s command to you will not change. Love your brother or sister. Forgive your brother or sister. God’s commandment is very clear.

1 John Chapter 5 (ESV)

1 Everyone who believes that Jesus is the Christ has been born of God, and everyone who loves the Father loves whoever has been born of him. 2 By this we know that we love the children of God, when we love God and obey his commandments. 3 For this is the love of God, that we keep his commandments. And his commandments are not burdensome. 4 For everyone who has been born of God overcomes the world. And this is the victory that has overcome the world--our faith. 5 Who is it that overcomes the world except the one who believes that Jesus is the Son of God? 6 This is he who came by water and blood--Jesus Christ; not by the water only but by the water and the blood. And the Spirit is the one who testifies, because the Spirit is the truth.

Comment: How do we love God? According to verse 3 it is by obeying God’s commandments. Which ones? All of them. Keep all of God’s commandments – both Old and New Testament. (Remember, as He said, Jesus did NOT come to abolish the law.) Remember God will help you obey them all. Whatever God commands, He enables you to do. The Holy Spirit will guide you in how to obey all of God’s commandments. This is true love for God. And it is not a burden. It is a joy to obey God in all things. God’s presence is so near when you are obedient. And in God’s presence you will always sense joy. You will sense God’s voice and His guidance, and His direction, and His love.

In addition to sensing God’s presence, by obeying God you will be able to overcome all sin. You will overcome the world. Why? Because the Holy Spirit will give you real practical effective guidance in overcoming all sin. By faith – by believing – how the Holy Spirit is guiding you, you will get every step you need to overcome any and all sin. It is such a joy to overcome all sin and thereby please God ! And blessed you will be, even getting to see God. “Blessed are the pure in heart, for they shall see God.” (Mat 5:8)

7 For there are three that testify: 8 the Spirit and the water and the blood; and these three agree. 9 If we receive the testimony of men, the testimony of God is greater, for this is the testimony of God that he has borne concerning his Son. 10 Whoever believes in the Son of God has the testimony in himself. Whoever does not believe God has made him a liar, because he has not believed in the testimony that God has borne concerning his Son. 11 And this is the testimony, that God gave us eternal life, and this life is in his Son. 12 Whoever has the Son has life; whoever does not have the Son of God does not have life. 13 I write these things to you who believe in the name of the Son of God that you may know that you have eternal life. 14 And this is the confidence that we have toward him, that if we ask anything according to his will he hears us. 15 And if we know