no greater love

Starting this blog post off with an honest confession of my heart’s posture right now: I’ve been contending with my faith and in the middle of a great tug-of-war — the spiritual battle in the heavenly realms — over my soul and my life. I’m well aware of the seriousness of my situation and the fervency of the Lord’s fight for me. I can feel how much this battle has been raging, and it’s cost me a lot that I didn’t ask for. I am the territory being fought over, the rope in the middle being tugged to-and-fro, and I’ve been exhausted. Still, even in my exhaustion, I haven’t given up. It’s felt like I have. I’ve felt shame to think I’ve given up because of where I’ve been at, but the fact that I’m writing this proves otherwise. I give praise to God for that because I at least know I’m not giving up my fight. There’s still some in me, and yesterday, the battle came to head.

Talking with God has been a struggle for me since a study I did about discipleship earlier this year; end of February early March I think. I’ve been in crisis about salvation, not even my own but everyone else’s, since those studies. So affected by all of it that foundational parts of my walk have been affected: prayer, reading, journaling, studying. Even while still receiving encouragement and revelation from the Holy Spirit, I’ve been struggling — and that made me feel that much worse. Why would God still choose to pour into me when I haven’t been able to seek Him with the same excitement and enthusiasm I once did? Why would He still continue to add to my life when I’m in crisis? Shouldn’t this matter to Him, shouldn’t He want to change my mind and ease my heart? Shouldn’t He want to give me wisdom and understanding for what I’m not understanding at all? Where is the peace He’s promised me in Him, because I don’t feel it at all…

Accepting that I’ve been asking those questions and not enthusiastic about the Word as much as I usually am is a hard thing. Never in all of my years of walking with God have I felt this depleted in my faith, this discouraged, this disconnected. The God I thought I knew, the God I thought knew me, the God who led me to Him became a completely new person. And still, in my deepest confusion, He chose to show up in my life, comfort me in certain things, and be there. In my disillusion, I couldn’t do a thing. It reminds me much of what I’ve learned about marriage and how there are seasons when who you married becomes nearly unrecognisable, and that lack of recognition becomes the ultimate test of love, commitment, marital vow, and faith. As it is with any Christian’s walk with Christ, the same is true.

So, the point of this post isn’t just to catch you all up on where I’ve been at — that will provide context for this next piece, which may not be super long. I want to talk about one singular truth that I remembered today that the Holy Spirit spoke with me about last year: the second greatest commandment.

Love your neighbour as you love yourself.

There is no greater love than to lay down ones life for another, to give up all that we have, know, and believe in order to love someone else sacrificially. Last year, I went on a journey of learning about this particular command and topic in scripture. What it truly means to love and be loving. Love is one of the things I’m most passionate about when it comes to the things of God. It’s a topic I can spend hours talking about because I believe that true, unconditional, holy, righteous, and pure love can exist because it already does in Christ. I believe we’re all worthy and deserving of experiencing, embracing, accepting, believing, and receiving that love because it’s freely given and meant to be received.

I learned that loving yourself is integral in loving others, you can’t do the latter without first doing the former. But that former is impossible without the first and greatest commandment: Love God with all your heart, all your mind, and all your spirit, and above all else. Without loving God, we truly wouldn’t be able to love ourselves because we wouldn’t truly know how to. To be very clear and direct, He’s the one who made us so He’s the only way for us to truly know what we need and how we need to be loved, I’m just sayin. God’s love leads to better love, leads to better loving ourselves according to pure love, leads to loving others as we love ourselves. The math adds up here, and completely makes sense. Pure love is 1 Corinthians 13 love. That’s the best and most unconditional, unselfish way to love God, love ourselves, and love others. God makes us able to do that and equips us with His Spirit to do so, so we also don’t do it on our own.

I sat with this revelation for a while before I got to one greater: that this love has truly set us free. Those of us in Christ have a gift of freedom that knows no bounds and no limitations, a freedom that the world and nothing in it has to offer. This freedom is a gift from God that brings peace and joy. Liberation from the death of our soul and into salvation with Him for eternity — in the earth and in heaven. The greatest thing we’ve ever done for ourselves was to choose Christ through faith and being baptised to new life, choosing to surrender and walk by faith. The greatest love we’ve ever shown ourselves is the full acceptance of forgiveness and mercy that God has had in the palm of his hand which is laid out and open to anyone and everyone willing and ready to take it. The greatest love we’ve ever shown ourselves is letting the truth set us free. The truth of who God is, the truth of who Christ is, the truth of who we are. The whole truth.

As I mentioned earlier, yesterday this battle came to a head; it’s own climactic turn. I couldn’t tell you where it’s headed, but I’m confident it’s toward the direction of victory in Christ. I don’t know what that looks like exactly, but I’m confident it’s good. The climactic turn was the result of a very honest confession of my broken heart before God; a confession that left me bare before Him and now leaves me bare before you. I told Him that if salvation depends on discipleship and the ability to make disciples and baptise them and do all of those things, that if He truly means to tell me that every Christian I’ve ever met and known isn’t save simply because they haven’t baptised someone (yet, in some cases), then I want no parts.

An honest confession from a broken heart that only wants to be close to God, no matter what it could cost — even if that meant my own salvation. I care more about the salvation and security of everyone else in eternity than I do my own. I’ll throw all of mine away to make sure everyone else can be saved because the love of God that I’ve been able to witness in all of these years is all I want for everyone else to witness. The discomfort I felt in a moment of saying that set me free to really come to this place of honest conversation with God about what discipleship is and why it’s important to Him and why it’s, truthfully, been important for me since 2020. Yes, the revival and restoration of the Church and reconciliation of the world is a heavy burden that lays on my heart every single day. I think about it daily.

And that’s what leads me to the point of this blog entry: there is no greater love. The greatest way to love another is to love them as ourselves, and the best thing we’ve ever done for ourselves as christians is choose Christ because we now know the freedom that lies in that. The best thing we could do to love another person is care for their soul the same way we took care of ours — however that looks for the timing God has set for each of us. God loved us by laying down His own life for our sake, we love Him by choosing to do the same. As a result, we learn how to love ourselves more purely and honestly. In turn, we’re able to love others as ourselves. Knowing that laying down our lives for the sake of another is the most precious gift we could ever give out of love.

I’m still not 100% sure where I’m at as I’m typing this. I’m still sitting with God and asking difficult questions, hoping that in all of my asking He’s merciful, gracious, and kind-hearted toward me. But at least, I’m glad to say that, from where I’m sitting, I can see there’s a light at the end of this tunnel and there’s hope. Not hope that I won’t give up, my heart is too devoted to this walk to truly give up. My hope is that God will revive my enthusiasm for His word again, and that I can stand even more firmly on the Rock of my salvation and say with full confidence that “I believe, even in this” yet again.

In no way am I saying that what I’m writing here is the end-all-be-all for the Believer in Christ — these journal/blog entries are purely for the sake of unveiling my life and walk in the way I’ve been instructed to in the Spirit. This is what my walk consists of — deep-diving into certain topics and aspects of life in order to come out more faithful and grounded in Christ and scripture. I spend much of my time having these raw conversations with God and that’s usually how I get to these points of revelation in the word. Please don’t use my experiences to dictate and determine what your walk with God will be like. Instead, I ask that you pray and seek the Lord for guidance and clarity if anything I write resonates. Because, at the end of the day, I’m not here to lead you or tell you what to do, my only duty is to point you back to the One who made you so that you may reach out and find Him through His word and His body. I pray you’ll be well and that God’s good, perfect, and pleasing will be made manifest in your life as you continue to let Him transform your mind with His word. May His peace mount guard and garrison around your heart and mind as you come to Him in prayer. And may your eyes always be set forward, on Christ.