“Understanding Love”

Bond of Men. written by gary gray January 2012

What is Love? As men we are always seeking true love, but what is love? How do we give it? How do we share it and when we find it…do we really understand it? Understanding love has been an ongoing development through trial and error for most men, including myself personally. For decades, we may have gone through life trying to find true love through self-seeking, noncommittal intensions, overall for things that really don’t matter and that can be detrimental. Often we may believe that we have found it, but then lose it, or it fails us. I’ve struggled with it, but recently I have had an opportunity to be blessed with clarity; clarity and wisdom that I have been seeking years for. What has helped me understand true love for someone, but also accepting being truly loved by someone, has been broaden; broaden by walking in the spirit of my Lord and Savior Christ Jesus. In this short story, you will find Bible verses that have inspired me and other men that I have worshiped and praised God on a daily basis; The Bond of Men (a Men’s Ministry Group) has been a strong spiritual connection between me, my brothers of Christ and the Holy Spirit. We encourage one another, worship together, pray together, support each another through tough moments and it has blessed me with more wisdom, wisdom that I am truly excited about! This has given me power to move forward during tough times and continually being thankful for All times; but most importantly, it has given me the ability to understand Great Love, God's Love.  Everything in this short story has strengthened my love for my kids, family, and brothers of Christ.  My heart has been touched deeply; therefore I just wanted to share the blessing with each and everyone who takes the time to read “Understanding Love”. 

What is Love?  Even as a young boy growing up experiencing love was different in many ways. Yes we loved our parents dearly as our parents loved us. We loved our sisters and brothers (most of the time anyway), but as we got older, wiser and more mature, we have had a natural progression to seek for a deeper love. I truly believe that there are multiple magnitudes of love. All of us men have experienced a volume of love of some form or another, from loving our friends and family, our first love and even following in love with our soul mate. All of these can range from one end of the spectrum to the other. What’s a shame is the fact that some of our brothers haven’t found true love and some may think they never will.  I just pray that God or someone from Gods Kingdom will touch their hearts and souls to come to Lord Christ Jesus; and they could experience and understand what I have become to understand more clearer each and every day; along with other brothers of Christ Jesus. We have been experiencing the most powerful and constant love ever, the love of God. God is Love. Whoever lives in Love, lives in God and God in him. (1 John 4:16) 

Whoever does not love does not know God, because God is love. (John 4:8) This is love: not that we loved God, but that he loved us and sent his Son as an atoning sacrifice for our sins. Dear Friends, since God so loved us, we also ought to love one another. No one has ever seen God; but if we love one another, God lives in us and his love is made complete in us. (John 4:8-12) Until we understand God’s Love…do we really understand love and how to love? Guys, if you are confused that’s okay…I was for the longest time. There is hope! The Bible describes “love” as this: Love is patient, love is kind. It does not envy, it does not boast, it is not proud, it is not rude, it is not self-seeking, it is not easily angered, it keeps no record of wrongs. Love does not delight in evil but rejoices with the truth. (1 Corinthians 13:4-6) This is a clear definition of Gods “love”. But can we actually feel that strongly about love without understanding Gods love, just loving in the natural? Meaning, just through our own wisdom and not God’s wisdom and spirit? As men we always have a natural tendency to troubleshoot situations within and by ourselves. Unfortunately, for a few years I used to struggle with understanding God’s Love without having a daily relationship with God. I couldn’t figure out or grasp the concept of loving truly and unconditionally. I always thought that just believing in Christ Jesus is all it took. Just going through the motions of going to church, but disconnecting myself daily, but plugging back in occasionally when it was convenient for me. So, love was good, but love was not great. Why, because I may have loved, but with hidden anger. I may have loved, but with records of wrongs. I may loved, but with no patience. I may have loved, but it was self-seeking. I may have loved, but with my own terms not God’s. With God’s love, all these other layers of emotions and self-satisfying justifications were erased from my heart. This theoretically, has left more room for true “love”, God’s love, and less room for the emotions of love from the natural; which increased the good love to great love. But I couldn’t clear that space in my heart without living in the spirit of God, daily. It took and currently taking, obedience, daily praise and devotions to learn and understand God’s love and grace and staying “plugged in to the Spirit”. God is Spirit and his worshippers must worship in spirit and in truth. (John4:24)  But the fruit of the spirit is love… (Galatians 5:22).  Since we live by the Spirit, let us keep in step with the spirit. (Galatians 5:25)

What does all this mean? Good question! If the fruit of the Spirit is “love”, we have to walk in the Spirit to receive the fruit of the Spirit and the Spirit is God. So to fully understand true “great love”, God’s love, we have to accept Christ Jesus as our Lord and Savior and walk in the Holy Spirit, daily…period. God’s love endures and will never let us down! Love never fails… (1 Corinthians 13:8). Loving through the Spirit never fails. This is the highest magnitude of love that we as men, brothers can ever experience or even imagine. This is the type of love that God has for us, even more intense! When we learn to love Christ Jesus, we learn to love ourselves. When we learn to love ourselves, we learn to love our neighbors as we love ourselves. The Entire Law is summed up in a single command: “Love your neighbor as yourself.” (Galatians 5:14).  Even now while I’m walking to a better place with the Spirit, it gets easier to understand and to share love. It has been easier to understand, but it hasn’t been easy to get to this place of peace; and it’s a continuous battle to stay here and praising God daily, brings me even closer.

 It takes obedience of God’s will. We men have to forget about the past mistakes, wrongful actions, and the bitterness of betrayals. It doesn’t matter where you were yesterday; what matters is where you are today and where you are going tomorrow, walk in FAITH.  Forgetting what is behind and straining toward what is ahead, I press on toward the goal to win the prize for which God has called me heavenward in Christ Jesus. (Philippians 3:13)  God has plans for all of us brothers.  We go through our trials and tribulations for a reason. Too make us stronger, wiser and to lead us to Him, our Father God.  For we are Gods workmanship, created in Christ Jesus to do good works, which God prepared in advance for us to do. (Ephesians 2:10)  When we learn from our past and always improving the present, we can enhance our love for the future.  This is how we create great love….God’s Love.

What is our role as men?  Brothers, there is a good reason why God wants us Men to understand his love, love for each other and love of ourselves. He wants us to be free; free of stress, free of burdens, free of emotional pains. And he wants to use our free will to live in the Spirit with joy. You, my brothers, were called to be free. But do not use your freedom to indulge the sinful nature, rather, serve one another in love. (Galatians 5:13)  Understanding Gods love gives us strength to love our brothers and neighbors unconditionally. This will make us the spiritual rocks in our homes, work places, communities and congregations. God teaches us through our lives, he corrects us through our mistakes, he loves us regardless. Our circumstances are the means God uses to exhibit just how wonderfully perfect and extraordinarily pure His Son is. Discovering a new way of manifesting the Son of God should make our heart filled with renewed excitement…giving us “Life!” It’s not easy or was it ever promised to be; keep your soul properly conditioned to manifest the life of the Son of God. Consider it pure joy, my brothers whenever you face trials of many kinds, because you know that the testing of your faith develops perseverance. Perseverance must finish its work so that you may be mature and complete, not lacking anything. (James 1:2-4)  God knows each of our strengths and weaknesses. He knows our hearts and what we want to accomplish. In his heart a man plans his course, but the Lord determines his steps. (Proverbs 16:9) Gods wants us to be successful and prosperous, but he wants us to seek His Kingdom first. If we are seeking His Kingdom first and living in His perfect will, we will be blessed generously. We can love and be loved fully, we can understand how to nourish that love, and we can have a great family life and work balance. This will keep us on Gods course. As we become more like Christ Jesus and living by the Spirit, we will keep focused on Gods will and not the ways of the world. We need to be imitators of God, (Ephesians 5:1), and avoid the sinful nature by holding ourselves and each other accountable. But seek first his kingdom and his righteousness, and all these things will be given to you as well. (Mathew 6:33) It took me a while to fully understand this, but when I did, I said “Wow!” “Why didn’t I get to this place of peace sooner or even stay here, in this place of peace, when I was here before!” It was all in God’s time, not mine! Praise God! Thank you Jesus! But now that I’m here and walking with the Spirit and growing closer daily, and walking with my brothers; I want to continue to share every minute, every second of God’s Love and Grace with you. Make every effort to live in peace with all men and to be holy; without holiness no one will see the Lord. See to it that no one misses the grace of God and that no bitter root grows up to cause trouble and defile many. (Hebrews 12:14-15)

God wants us to make sure that no one is overlooked by His grace. Brothers we have to look out for one and another. I need my brothers to keep me from wandering…God knows that I have wandered a lot from time to time, but no excuses, unacceptable! But it’s part of life and dealing with the daily battles. No one said that it was going to be easy. But if I do fall short or wander, I am forgiven by God; therefore, my brothers of Christ Jesus should forgive me too. Therefore confess your sins to each other and pray for each other so that you may be healed. The prayer of the righteous man is powerful and effective. (James 5:20) The ways of this world are wicked. We have to use our own judgments to decide what we engage in or not. If we do fall short, we pray asking Christ Jesus for forgiveness. Then we listen to Gods advice and instructions, while we correct ourselves. Because as we are forgiven; we shouldn’t try to justify falling short and wandering. But we have to realize, that only through him and his will can we erase imperfections. Here is a hypothetical situation. How many of you guys set out on a mission to go shopping for something with your wife or significant other. You agreed that you have a task and a budget. However, when you get there you find yourself gravitating towards the electronics or the sporting good section knowing that wasn’t part of the plan or instructions. Not because that’s a sin but we may be tempted to spend money we shouldn’t; regardless we get distracted. We all do it. But if your partner was holding your hand keeping you on task, all distractions would be non-tempting. (In theory, you still may be thinking it but not acting on it) God will hold our hands through anything. It’s when we let go of his hands, we are wandering into temptations. My brothers, it’s also our role to walk with our fellow brothers and hold each other accountable to Godly standards, not ours. My brothers, if one of you should wander from the truth and someone should bring him back, remember this: whoever turns a sinner from the error of his way will save him from death and cover over a multitude of sins. (James 5:19)

The Bond of Men has been just that, the bonding of a close group of men. God has blessed me and every one of us within this small men’s ministry group with His love and grace. I have made relationships which transcends all understanding, relationships that will endure and relationships with brothers of Christ Jesus that I love. I look at everyone differently through Gods eyes. I feel blessed every day, I praise God every chance I get. The author of lies (that bad guy) is always challenging me, but do you think Verizon wireless has a big network, it’s nothing compared to our Father God’s! So can you hear Him now? Our Father God is the only network that we need! Thank you Jesus! But we all should have an outlet to discuss our daily struggles and help each other staying encouraged and strong in our faith. …Making the most of every opportunity, because the days are evil. (Ephesians 5:16) The days are evil, Satan will try to kill, steal and destroy. We need to fellowship with our brothers as much as possible to prevent the theft of our spirit, theft of our love. Think of it this way, when you love BUT with records of wrongs, isn’t that stealing the love from the person you love? And in return stealing love from you? When you love BUT with anger, isn’t that theft from the author of lies?  Hatred stirs up dissension, but love covers over all wrongs. (Proverbs 10:12) Gods gives us wisdom to change our way of thinking, and listening to our brothers of Christ with encouraging words.  Listen to advice and accept instruction, and in the end you will be wise. (Proverbs 19:20) and it’s that simple, we just need to listen! And accept instruction! I know that’s hard for us men to do, most of the time. : ) or we may be listening but not hearing or understanding.  (And if there are any women reading this book, they are smiling right now and I just got good reviews from women with that last statement!) Understanding love would probably be that easy if we just listened and accepted instructions. Listening and accepting instructions from our Lord God. His will, not ours. Brothers, God knows what it takes to have Great Love. Open our hearts, minds and ears…listen. When we don’t listen, just like any other Father, he corrects or allows us to learn the hard way.  Blessed is the man whom God corrects; so, do not despise the discipline of the Almighty. (Job 5:17) Now some of you may think that I’m selling out to the women, wrong. I’m trying to help out my brothers! If you love your wives, kids, brothers, sisters, grandpas, even grandmas (just kidding), Side note; guys if you are butting heads with your wife’s or significant other’s mom, stop it! That’s another reference book, but be the man and a bigger person! Love her sincerely too, unconditionally! …to be continued. End of side note. 

As I was saying, if you love them as God loves you, it will be amazing! Love must be sincere. Brothers, just imagine being in your own paradise, or sitting on a beach hearing the waves crash down on the white sand, maybe also hearing a few seagulls in the background with no one else around you; Maybe sipping on a nice ice cold beverage while reading or just taking it all in. Think about your serenity; think about how that peace would make you feel. Now imagine if you loved or where loved in that same way, the way that God loves you…that tranquility, that peace of no worries or stress. Cling to that feeling. Hate what is evil; cling to what is good. Be devoted to one another in brotherly love. (Romans 12:9)   When we have that peace with the Spirit, we can do anything! We can change our way of thinking, change our way of loving, change our way of being loved, change our way of loving ourselves…as men. And we have to love and honor with our hearts, not just by talking the talk but by walking the walk. These people honor me with their lips, but their hearts are far from me. They worship me in vain; their teachings are but rules taught by men. (Mathew 15:8-9) The big change comes from within us, as men…as men of God. Let us brothers make the first critical move to re-establish our relationships, our minds and our hearts. Let us not worry about tomorrow, let’s be joyful always and giving thanks in all circumstances for today.  We are warriors, but let us love as we should. Let us be the men that we were created to be.

Be Loved with Great Love, Love with Greater Love. Gary Gray