Maybe the O’Jays Were Prophets

Sometimes it’s hard to find the answers to questions, even when God has already provided them explicitly.

It’s important to know God’s top priorities. We’re supposed to do everything in his name, which means we’re supposed to do the things he would do if he were in our shoes, so we need to know what’s important to him.

We screw this up all the time. We talk about being good and so forth. We talk about fasting and prayer and giving. But God has given us a very straightforward statement of his fundamental concerns. Here it is, from the 22nd chapter of Matthew:

But when the Pharisees had heard that he had put the Sadducees to silence, they were gathered together. Then one of them, which was a lawyer, asked him a question, tempting him, and saying, Master, which is the great commandment in the law? Jesus said unto him, Thou shalt love the Lord thy God with all thy heart, and with all thy soul, and with all thy mind. This is the first and great commandment. And the second is like unto it, Thou shalt love thy neighbour as thyself. On these two commandments hang all the law and the prophets.

It all boils down to love, first between man and God, and then among men.

I think about this a lot, because I am aware that I don’t love God or man enough.

Many years ago, I felt God’s love firsthand. Every Christian who is in contact with the Holy Spirit will sometimes sense God’s love; that’s not what I mean. I mean God came to me, where I was, and while he was with me, I felt his love and peace and reassurance, radiating toward me like heat from a lamp. I physically felt it.

I have a certain amount of love for God and for people, in my own right. But when I walk by you in a store, you’re not going to turn around and say, “What WAS that?” That’s what you would do if God himself walked by. You would probably follow him so the feeling wouldn’t leave you.

I believe we are supposed to have that kind of love in us. Jesus’s commandment makes it clear, and there are many references to it in the Bible. But how do you get it? You can’t just decide to love. It’s certainly a good idea to try, but without God’s help, we are just monkeys with good intentions.

We are supposed to develop God’s virtue inside ourselves, but we can only do it through supernatural means. The Bible tells us that prayer in tongues builds God’s character in us, just as a father’s traits develop in a baby in the womb. Prayer in tongues brings us the fruit and the gifts of the Spirit.

The fruit of the Spirit make up God’s virtuous nature, or his “righteousness.” They are love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faith, gentleness and self-control.

The gifts of the Spirit make up God’s power, or what the KJV calls “his kingdom.” They are wisdom, supernaturally imparted knowledge, faith, the ability to heal, the ability to work miracles, prophecy, the ability to perceive spirits as we do natural objects, the ability to speak in unknown languages, and the ability to interpret unknown languages.

Faith appears in both lists, which shows how important it is to God.

If you look at the fruit of the Spirit, you can see that much of the list is related to love. Things like patience, kindness, and goodness are necessary, if you want to love others. And of course, love itself is mentioned expressly.

This suggests that real love is only possible through supernatural impartation. That makes sense to me. Have you ever tried to love God, as you love another human being? You can’t see him. You can’t hear him. You don’t know what he looks like. Can you really say you feel a deep, warm, emotional attachment to him, or that you have a heartfelt desire to do good things for him? It’s easy to feel obligated to him. But can you really love him, the way you might love your father or mother? Be honest, now. It’s not natural. You can be grateful to God. You can respect him. But to love him from the heart? I think it’s beyond most of us.

I thought about this, and I decided to admit I didn’t love God the way Jesus told us to. We’re supposed to be truthful with God and confess our iniquities to him. He knows them anyway. I did what he said to do, and I made a practice of asking him to help me love him as well as other human beings. I felt it was better than pretending everything was fine.

I did this partly because I already knew he could do it. I recall an occasion when I drove to church, and while I was in the truck on I-95, I felt God’s love welling up inside me. The whole night, I felt a heightened emotional warmth for other people, and I know it didn’t come from me. It was certainly better than trying. You can only hold a weight up for so long, and then you have to drop it. It’s much better when God removes it entirely.

Lately, the prayers have been paying off, and the results have been unanticipated.

Last weekend, I felt discouragement. I felt that I was not getting anywhere in life. I wondered if I was committing some fundamental error that was leading me down a blind rathole. What if I was wasting my time? What if I was headed for disaster? I don’t give a lot of thought to planning and calculating, because Jesus told us not to think about our future needs. I wondered if I had taken him too literally.

One night this week, I was lying in bed, and I started thinking about trains. Have you ever slept on a train? Provided it’s a nice train on a smooth track, it’s very peaceful. The sound of the wheels on the track is soothing, like a mother’s heartbeat. You don’t worry about what’s happening around you. You know you’re going to end up where you should. I thought about this, and I realized that walking by faith is like riding a train.

Many times, I have said that praying in tongues “puts your life on rails.” The Bible refers over and over to the guidance of the Holy Spirit, which is enhanced when you pray in tongues. The 37th Psalm says God will order our steps. The 35th chapter of Isaiah says God will provide a highway in the desert, and that a man who walks on it, though he be a fool, will not err.

The Greek word for “faith” is “pistis.” It doesn’t seem to mean “belief,” the way we think of belief. It appears to have more to do with assurance or trust. To me, that sounds like the kind of trust you have when you’re sleeping in a railway car. It is the sense that you are on track, headed to the right destination, free of worry.

Now when I lie in bed, I feel that I am on course, with someone who cares about me steering me to my destination. So love and faith are connected, and so is freedom from fear.

The Bible tells us perfect (completed) love casts out fear. We toss this scripture around, not knowing what it really means. I believe it means two things: first, if you believe God loves you and can be trusted to take care of you, you will not fear for your future. Second, if God’s powerful, complete, supernaturally imparted love for others is in you, you will not be afraid to love others, no matter what has happened to you in the past.

I am starting to feel closer to God, and I sense that this will make it possible for me to love others better. This must have been what Jesus was talking about when he said that a person who doesn’t love others doesn’t love God. The Spirit makes it work both ways.

It’s an encouraging revelation. Anxiety and anger are heavy weights. Everyone wants to be relaxed and confident. Everyone wants to love instead of disapproving. If the Holy Spirit will enable us to reach these goals, think how different life will be. Think how different Christianity will be. We’ll still have a duty to point out and correct sin, and we won’t always be able to agree with others or give them what they want, but we’ll be able to feel love for them even as we reject their ways. Love will be in the forefront of our minds, not the background. That would be a good way to go through life.

It also means that prayer will be less selfish. The more your heart is filled with concern for others, the purer your prayers will be, and the more likely they will be to receive favorable answers.

All the things I suspected about tongues are turning out to be right. It’s paying off, over time. I’m growing like a plant. I can’t become perfect overnight, but I never stop improving. I think this proves my ideas came from God, not man.

It would be nice to be less connected to human squabbles. This is why I resist writing about politics. We get so exasperated by the barbaric behavior and attitudes of our adversaries that we lose sight of the obligation to love them. Conservative morals are superior to liberal morals. No doubt about it. But at their root, good morals come from the Holy Spirit, and they aren’t compatible with a loss of love.

I believe the message of supernatural love is extremely powerful. I think it’s one of the keys we’ve been missing. Spirit-filled Christians have been squawking for years about money, money, money, MONEY. We have forgotten the prime directives Jesus gave us. No wonder our leaders bring so much humiliation on us. They dedicate their lives to using God’s power to serve the flesh. No wonder they fall into scandal and crime.

I look forward to seeing where this leads. We need to get back into the flow of true, lasting power, and this is probably the fastest way.