Loving God

Fellowship with God fills our conscience & mind, with knowledge & attitude of God thus influencing our thoughts, behavior, deeds.

Deeper the fellowship – more like Him we become.

The whole concept of creation revolves around the concept of love- love of God and our love for Him and for each other and Jesus is the very epitome of that Divine love. “By this we know love, because He laid down His life for us. And we also ought to lay down our lives for the brethren” (1 John 3:16). Love is an emotion and the basis of this sentiment is the heart of an individual. A man’s being comprises of his spirit, soul and the body- which are enclosed in concentric circles with the spirit being in the innermost, soul in the centre and body the outer  covering circle. The three are interlinked to each other and the spirit is what was breathed into Adam and cannot be corrupted by any evil. The spirit is the only channel of communication that a man has with God and at baptism, it is this part which is regenerated and planted with the seed of the Holy Spirit.

Before understanding the love of God and our reactions it is important to consider the inner relationship and functioning of a man’s these three parts. At the time of creation of Adam, all the three parts of Adam were in consonance with each other. Out of the three parts of the spirit, conscience joins the three parts of the soul to be one- the heart. Thus conscience gets influenced through fellowship with God and in turn creates a positive impact on the three aspects of soul.

(Illustration Idea from the book “The Economy of God” By Bro Witness Lee)

Conscience has an inbuilt storehouse called sub conscience. In the Garden of Eden Adam was created with a blank canvas and God through daily fellowship planned to fill his conscience with a Divine and holy imprint while filling his mind with pure thoughts of love and godly virtues. Satan incited disobedience and filled the conscience and mind of a man with sinful thoughts through separation from a holy God. The spirit of man due to sin became subdued and body overpowered the soul leading to sinful living with body lusts becoming predominant. At birth certain characteristics are inbuilt in a man through the genetic structure of a man and sinful man inherited the conscience filled with a sinful nature. A child does not need to be taught to tell a lie, it is inbuilt.

At baptism the promised Counselor, the Holy Spirit joins the spirit of man and the seed of the Tree of Life, Jesus Christ, is sown. This brings in a change in man that the so far inactive spirit, held virtually in bondage to the soul and body, is freed and reacts to sinful living by displaying the evil on the screen of the mind. Since the conscience provides a background of massive storehouse of information, it impacts the mind also to crave and search for such Divine knowledge and wisdom, for which the indwelling Holy Spirit leads and provides revelations where required.

Matthew 13 has Jesus explaining the parable of the Sower, where the seed that is scattered is the Word of God. Jesus is the Tree of Life and with the Holy Spirit, He enters our spirit as the seed planted in us. This seed is nurtured through regular fellowship with the Word and only then does a deep root emerge for a sustained relationship. The worldly distractions, tribulations and persecutions suppress this relationship and the seed either does not take root or gets crushed without bearing any fruit. The Lord emphasizes on our remaining in Him to bear fruit, for He is the vine and without Him we can never experience the glory that He wants us to see. Regular fellowship impacts the conscience and mind leading to the choking of sinful desires causing the alignment of our will to the Will of God.

All along Lord Jesus stated “I do nothing of My own” but as directed by God the Father Himself. Jesus did not have a sinful nature and His conscience was filled with the impressions of the Father only and all the knowledge of His mind related to the Divine knowledge. Thus He processed all worldly information also through the filter of Divine perspective only. His basic storehouse of knowledge being pure and holy, Jesus’ thought process also had to be holy and pure. It was through His personal experience of sinless living that He could command that even a wrong thought is commission of sin. Thus with regular fellowship with the Lord Jesus through the guidance of the indwelling Holy Spirit, one fills the conscience and mind with Divine substance to have a pure thought process.

The great commandment given by the Lord is “To love the Lord your God with all your heart, with all your soul, with all your strength and with all your mind” (Luke 10:27). We inherit a sinful nature at birth and our conscience, mind and soul are inundated with information of similar nature throughout our lives. In such a scenario, is it possible to follow the above commandment and the other “To love your neighbor as yourself”? Once we accept Jesus as our Savior and Lord, He blesses us the gift of joining His family, as a son of God. This entitles us to seek His help in our daily fight with sin and to turn our heart towards Him every moment of our life. We are promised all help by Him and He is ever ready to do so.

Seek His help in loving Him through a daily fellowship routine and getting changed into His image and likeness to reflect His glory to others.