GUEST COMMENTARY

Jay Ferris

(Jay is a prolific prophetic writer, a friend of Don Atkin)

GOD’S LOVE, THE SUPER GLUE OF HIS CHURCH

We need to share an understanding of the love of God, without which no understanding of the Kingdom of God can work.

The greatest love that was known was a love that might possibly lay its life down for its friends. That is not the love of the gospel. On the cross, God redefined love. The new definition, same word, "agape," now meant a love that had laid its life down for its enemies (Romans 5:10).

A love that is good for friends is conditioned on friendship. A love that is good for enemies is conditioned on the Love of God. God is love. "This is how we know what love is, Jesus Christ laid down his life for us." Under what circumstances? While we were His enemies. His love for us was not conditioned on anything that was in us. It was conditioned on who He is. Our ability to love our enemies is conditioned on the prior love of God, "We love because He first loved us."

A love that is good for friends is good enough to go to "church," it is not good enough to be the Church.

"Greater love than this has no man but that he lay down his life for his friends," is not true any longer, because the Man who said it, laid down His life for His enemies. That was and is a greater love. That is the love of the Gospel.

This is most likely what the Prophet Isaiah was speaking about, "So will he sprinkle many nations, and kings will shut their mouths because of him. For what they were not told, they will see, and what they had not heard, they will understand."

No one had ever seen this kind of love before the cross.

A love that is only good for friends is not good enough to save enemies. When The Lord revealed to me that He died for me, not on my best day, but on my worst day, I asked Him, "How is this possible?" He responded by saying, "The day I said, 'I love you,' I nailed my expectations to the tree."

He went on to say, "... and if you are going to love the way I love, you will have to do the same thing, nail your expectations to the tree."
This is the kind of love with which He builds His Church. Anything less will only build division.

He also showed me that horizontal trust is nothing more nor less than the hope of fulfilled expectations. If I try to build relationships with others based on horizontal trust, I am bound to be defeated in every relationship. You see, the unique thing about God's kind of love is that it is able to love those who are bad, and if they can believe it, it changes them (Romans 1:16).

This is the foundational miracle of salvation, to believe that God loves you so much He gave His life for you on your worst day. If you can believe that, The Life of Jesus will save you from the inside out (Romans 5:10).