God’s Love - Both Sides

Allow me to show you something here if you will about the love of God: “When Jesus had lifted up himself, and saw none but the woman, he said unto her, Woman, where are those thine accusers? hath no man condemned thee? She said, No man, Lord. And Jesus said unto her, Neither do I condemn thee: go, and sin no more” (Jn. 8:10:11). Now, in contrast look at this: “Ye fools and blind: for whether is greater, the gold, or the temple that sanctifieth the gold? … Ye serpents, ye generation of vipers, how can ye escape the damnation of hell? (Mat. 23:17,33). What you see in these two passages of scriptures is the very same holy Spirit of God in Jesus, dealing with two kinds of people in a completely different manner. The woman who was taken in adultery by the scribes and Pharisees was dealt graciously with by Jesus after all of her accusers were sent shamefully away by him. This woman had been brought low by being caught in an overt act of sin, and was obviously ashamed; and grace was drawn forth from Jesus by her humbled state. In the second passage above, Jesus skewered the scribes and Pharisees with godly anger and contempt because they stubbornly resisted and refused the immeasurable degree of God’s love, holiness, and truth that Jesus manifested to them. That is what their lofty state of religious pride brought out in Jesus, because that is the way God felt about it. When someone manifests the reality of the Lord Jesus Christ to those around them, by means of that same holy Spirit of God dwelling in them in divine love, power, and wisdom; there will be and HAS TO BE an effect on those who see, hear, and feel it. Whatever that effect is will determine how God will lead his representative to deal with those who are effected. And I’ve got news for you my friend: God’s Spirit has never changed. Not even a little bit. If you walk in the Spirit, and you speak by the Spirit, people are effected by it; whether it be for their good or for their bad. It’s really very simple: "Wherefore he saith, God resisteth the proud, but giveth grace unto the humble” (Jas. 4:6). In regard to the humble, the scripture says of Jesus in prophecy, “A bruised reed shall he not break, and the smoking flax shall he not quench” (Isa. 42:3). In regard to the religiously stubborn and unrepentant, the scripture says this about the word of God: “Is not my word like as a fire? saith the Lord; and like a hammer that breaketh the rock in pieces?” (Jer. 23:29). And that brings us back around to Jesus, who gave us the same understanding about God’s reaction to both the humble and the stubborn: “And whosoever shall fall on this stone shall be broken: but on whomsoever it shall fall, it will grind him to powder” (Mat. 21:44).

One of the greatest tests of faith for those who will endure the time to come will be whether or not they are able to recognize God’s Spirit working through those whom God appoints to lead the way. Those who do not learn the full spectrum of the love of God, will NOT be able to discern the Spirit of God when servants of God are moved to rebuke the stubborn spirits of the religiously self righteous who are determined to hold to their empty guns rather than to humble themselves to God’s evident power and truth in those who possess it, and be blessed thereby. There is not one single servant of the Lord in the Bible who ever blessed or dealt graciously with those who resisted and trampled on the word of God that was revealed to them and spoken by them. Yes we have examples like Stephen, who with his dying breath prayed for those who stoned him; “Lord, lay not this sin to their charge” (Acts 7:60). But that was just AFTER he had told them in no uncertain terms or tone, “Ye stiffnecked and uncircumcised in heart and ears, ye do always resist the Holy Ghost: as your fathers did, so do ye. Which of the prophets have not your fathers persecuted? and they have slain them which shewed before of the coming of the Just One; of whom ye have been now the betrayers and murderers: Who have received the law by the disposition of angels, and have not kept it” (Acts 7:51-53). Stephen knew that he was signing his own death warrant with those words, but he loved the word of God that was committed to him from heaven more than anything or anyone, and it wasn’t going to be any other way with him. So it is today, and so will it be in the finishing of God’s work in the earth before the second coming of Jesus Christ to this world. “Jesus Christ the same yesterday, today, and forever” (Heb. 13:8). To add to that: “For it is God which worketh in you both to will and to do of his good pleasure” (Philip. 2:13). He is still the same my friend, and it is still him who works in and through those who are obedient. And the same Spirit of God still “gives grace to the humble,” and that same Spirit still “resists the proud.” Always has, always will. As I say so often, nothing ever changes. Amen.