Embodying Divine Love in a World of Darkness

What does it mean to truly embody divine love in a world that often feels devoid of it? Join me, B.R.Maul, as we explore the profound teachings of 1 John 4:7-11, revealing how authentic love originates from God and signifies our deep connection with Him. This episode, "Living God's Way in an Ungodly World," begins with a heartfelt discussion on how the command to love God wholeheartedly and to love our neighbors as ourselves sets us apart from worldly love. We'll engage in a meaningful prayer, seeking divine guidance to manifest this pure, selfless love in our everyday lives, especially in these urgent times.

Moving forward, we'll delve into "The Power of Agape Love," where the atoning sacrifice of Jesus Christ takes center stage. Learn why acting on temptation, rather than temptation itself, constitutes sin, and grasp the assurance of salvation through Jesus' sacrifice, debunking the myth of losing one's salvation. We’ll also navigate the constant struggle between flesh and spirit, emphasizing the importance of repentance and God’s unwavering grace. Finally, in "Seeking Biblically-Grounded Church Communities," we stress the critical need for churches that prioritize biblical teachings over traditions and denominational constraints. Choosing the right spiritual home is crucial for our growth, so let's ensure we invest our time wisely in understanding and living out God's word to the fullest.

Chapters

• 0:28 Love as the Foundation
• 17:06 The Power of Agape Love
• 27:26 Seeking Biblically-Grounded Church Communities

Transcript

B. R. Maul: 0:28

Hello and good day. I am BR Maul, and this is Living God's Way in an Ungodly World. It's good to have you here with me. Thanks for joining.

B. R. Maul: 0:41

We continue in the book of 1 John. We're in chapter 4, and today we'll be going through verses 7 through 11. John has been talking quite a bit about the outworking of love and truth and righteousness, and today he's going to talk even more about knowing God through love. John has made it pretty clear to us, as born-again believers, that love is the foundation, and that is obvious for those who have been reading God's word, because, well, we know that love is our first and foremost. First part of that is to love our Lord, god, with all of our heart, all of our soul and all of our might. The second part of that is to love our neighbor, so everyone else, anybody who comes in contact with us, is our neighbor, not just a person who resides next door or across the hall or wherever it is that you live across the fields, but neighbor represents everybody, and we are to love our neighbor as ourself. Notice the difference, though. We are not to love ourself and, for that matter, our neighbor more than God. We love our maker. We love God with every fiber of our being. Living in this sinful world, in our sinful state of mind and our sinful flesh, of course, makes this impossible. But the day will come when we are glorified and when we are in eternity, we will be able to love him completely, entirely with our heart, soul and mind. But in the meantime, well, we are told to do it, which means, with the help of the Holy Spirit, we're going to give it all that we got, and when we do mess up, we turn around, we repent and embrace our Heavenly Father. We don't run away, we don't walk away sulking. You get up and we keep on going. That's loving Him.

B. R. Maul: 3:14

So let's begin the reading and, as usual, I will back up after I give the full reading and we'll break it down verse by verse. 1, john 4, verse 7. Beloved, let us love one another, for love is of God, and everyone who loves is born of God and knows God. He who does not love does not know God, for God is love. In this the love of God was manifested toward us. That God has sent his only begotten Son into the world that we might live through him In. This is love. Not that we loved God, but that he loved us. We also ought to love one another.

B. R. Maul: 4:16

Heavenly Father, I ask you to guide my tongue. Let nothing of my own words, my own agenda whatsoever leave my mouth. May it only be the words that are blessed by you, through the Holy Spirit, and open the hearts and minds of those who are listening. Lord, time is essential, as we've talked in other podcasts. The end of time is getting nearer and nearer. So, lord, for those who are seeking you, may all blockades be removed from them. Help them get rid of their pride, help them get rid of any insecurities, anything that may be keeping them from you and knowing your son, jesus Christ. And I pray through the name and power of Jesus Christ, amen.

B. R. Maul: 5:06

So let us back up Chapter 4, verse 7 in 1 John. So John says Beloved, and boy do I enjoy that. I guess that's where I picked it up from, because I like when he calls us beloved, and that's why I use that term of endearment, because it's a good reminder that we are loved. So I like to read it in God's Word and I like to use it with my brothers and sisters, especially when I am teaching God's Word. So I think it's important that we remind one another that we are loved. And that's what John has been teaching us over these weeks and we're going to know more about today.

B. R. Maul: 5:47

Because, again, love is the foundation of Christianity. We cannot be a follower of Christ and not have love in our hearts. If one claims to love Jesus and yet does not have the love of their brethren in their hearts— Brethren as in other born-again believers, brothers and sisters that's when the person should seriously consider if they are indeed born again. So he says Beloved, let us love one another, for love is of God, and everyone who loves is born of God and knows God. That's verse 7. So let us love one another. That's not asking. He is telling Love one another, and why? For love is of God. All love comes from God.

B. R. Maul: 6:40

Think about that for just a few moments here with me. That true love, not the Hollywood stuff, not the stuff of the flesh, the lustful kind, no, but pure true love, that wholesome love, that love that is overflowing with goodness, all of it comes from God. Flowing with goodness, all of it comes from God. Every single little ounce of love comes from God. Which means we can't make it. We can fake it for a while, but we can't make it. We can't just produce love out of thin air. So we must go to God for this. And John says and everyone who loves is born of God and knows God. Born of God. There's that born again. Born of God is spiritual. We are all born physically into this world. If you're listening to this podcast, well then that means you were born Physically, you were born into this world. But many people are not born again, and that is born of God or born spiritually. So everyone who loves is born of God or born again and knows God.

B. R. Maul: 8:03

So isn't that interesting? The reason I find that interesting is especially in the world that we live in today, in modern society anyway, everything is fast. We want to get things done now. When people call each other on their cell phones, they want someone to pick up immediately. Boy, do some people get testy when they leave a message and they don't hear back from the person after about 10 minutes. And of course, such things are said. As I know, they have that cell phone on them Everywhere they go. So the assumption is that you need to answer that right now and we need to talk right now.

B. R. Maul: 8:43

Fast food that's a concept. Drive up to a little window, speak into it, say this is what I'd like for my dinner, drive up to another window and they hand it out to you. That's pretty fast. So why do I bring that up? Because John says and everyone who loves is born of God and knows God, and that is assumed, that that all happens at the same time, that it's very quick that one is born again. And because you're born again, the snap of a finger, the dial of a cell phone, the ordering up of a fast food drive Just like that you know God. But like any relationship beloved, it doesn't come just like that. So once we are born again, our path, our walk with the Lord is just starting. And like any relationship, we invest into that relationship time and we know him, we get to know who he is, and then we start to understand his love and not the world's, His pure love. And so give it time. If you haven't been walking with the Lord long, don't expect just to know him. Lord long, don't expect just to know him. Invest that time into him. It's well worth it.

B. R. Maul: 10:09

Verse 8, he who does not love does not know God. Why, for God is love? There's verse 8. So he who does not love does not know God. That too is something that happens in time. My younger years was saturated in the world, so even the way I loved other people was very selfish. It was me-oriented, and so many movies that I watched I was just convinced that that's what love was. You fell in love, you fell out of love. Love just broke your heart and then you walked around with a broken heart for a while until finally it mended and then you tripped and fell in love again. But that's not God's love, that's the world's love. So as you get to know God and you get to understand his love for you, the Holy Spirit in that process is sanctifying you and you yourself begin to understand that love and you yourself begin to love in that way. Now that last part, those four words, for God is love. God isn't full of love, he is love. Everything about him has love in it. No-transcript Verse 9,.

B. R. Maul: 11:41

In this the love of God was manifested toward us, that God has sent his only begotten Son into the world that we might live through him, and that's being Jesus, living through Jesus. And the name Jesus is synonymous with love. I can just say his name, and sometimes that's just what I do If I'm down and out, I'll just repeat his name sometimes Just Jesus, jesus, jesus. I tell you I can feel that love because he is love and Jesus is the manifestation of love, which means we can see him, we can touch him. Right now we can't, because he is seated at the right hand of God the Father, but he will come again, right to judge the living and the dead. But as John says in verse 9, in this the love of God was manifested toward us, that God sent his only begotten Son into the world that we might live through him, through him, jesus, and through him, love.

B. R. Maul: 12:59

Not easy, is it? We are in this difficult state for all of us who are born again, because spiritually we want to love Our spirit that is speaking with the Holy Spirit, that is being guided by the Holy Spirit that dwells in us, shows us which way to go in our path of righteousness, to go in our path of righteousness. But that can be difficult. It can be difficult to be forgiving. It can be difficult to be generous and give when it actually hurts to give. It can be difficult to be kind to somebody who isn't kind, who has a horrible nature about them, and our flesh yells and screams inside, thinking they have it coming, say that witty remark that'll just knock them down.

B. R. Maul: 13:52

And when our flesh thinks that the Holy Spirit convicts us and the Holy Spirit reminds us that our Heavenly Father is love and that love is manifested through Jesus and that love is also abiding in us as the Holy Spirit, so we can't say, I'm not able to Believe me. There are times I would like to, there are times I'm tempted to say, hey, this is impossible. I can't do that because the way this person is. But the Holy Spirit is quick to convict me and remind me of my own sinful self, my own sinful nature, and that while I was still in that state of sin, god the Father loved me and Jesus hung on that cross for that sin. It was that thought in part that brought me to the Lord Jesus. The very thought of my nature, the stuff that I was doing and how I would talk, treat other people, my motivation behind things, my actions and my deeds, my words, my motivation wasn't pure.

B. R. Maul: 15:06

Like anybody who is not born again or anybody who has backslidden and is far from hearing the Holy Spirit speak to them, it quickly becomes about me and selfishness and pride. Well, those are enemies of love. You know, I don't believe that hate is necessarily the opposite of love. That's a pretty strong emotion, so there's a pretty good argument for that. But I really wonder if it's a matter of pride and that that pride is the opposite of love. Now, I know in God's word, fear is something that certainly damages us. It takes away from our ability to have faith in the Lord. So faith and fear are opposites, and I suppose, even with hate, one could argue that perhaps we are indeed accessing our prideful self to be able to hate. I mean, I don't know, that's a tough one, that's one to chew on for a while. What do you think I'd like to hear from you? Do you think the opposite of love is hate, or do you think the opposite of love is pride, putting ourself above other people? You can get a hold of me at my website, brmaulcom, and just at the top there click on the page that says Contact Us. Click on that and get a hold of me. I'd love to hear from you. You can also use the texting device that says message me at any of the directories that you may be listening from. Just click on the message me and let me know what do you think? The opposite of love. So in this the love of God was manifested then through Jesus Christ.

B. R. Maul: 17:06

Verse 10, propitiation that's a pretty big word, but it just means atoning sacrifice. It was just the one sacrifice. Jesus did it. He lived a perfect life, a sinless life. He never succumbed to temptation at all. He was tempted. That's in God's word. The devil tempted him.

B. R. Maul: 17:41

Temptation itself is not a sin. The devil loves to make us feel guilty when we are being tempted. If we are thinking something in a situation and we're tempted pondering it, well that's not the sin. Yet right Sin is when we go through with it. So don't let the devil get you down in that you just tell the devil that you're a child of God and Jesus died for all your sins, and that temptation in and of itself isn't sin, because he tried that with Jesus and he failed with Jesus. I know, from time to time he does get us, but then we repent. Right, the Lord is quick to forgive us and we carry on.

B. R. Maul: 18:25

So that propitiation not that we loved him, nope, but that he loved us. That's God, the Father. God, the Father loved us and he sent his son to be the propitiation for our sins. So he took care of it For all who have confessed with their mouth the Lord Jesus and believed in their heart that the Heavenly Father raised him from the dead. You are born again, you are a child of God, you are in God's family and nothing can take that away from you, including your own sin. That's such a horrible teaching that is going around in some of the major denominations today, and boy does that bother me.

B. R. Maul: 19:09

You can't lose your salvation, and I would like to challenge anybody anyways, answer this what good would salvation be if we could lose it under our own accord? Because under my own accord I couldn't make it into heaven to begin with. And so if God put that same stipulation on there that made me fail, where I couldn't even get into heaven by myself because by nature I'm sinful, well, if he put that stipulation on there that once I was born again, well, if I sin too bad, well, he's going to take it back. Well, that'd be worthless, that wouldn't do any good. Nobody would be getting into heaven Because even with the help of the Holy Spirit, we sin, we mess up.

B. R. Maul: 19:57

That's part of this flesh and blood that continues to war with the Spirit. My goodness. It is every single day. Anybody who was born again can testify to that. There's not a day that goes by that a person isn't tempted or just downright tired and sick and tired of whatever. And so sinning still comes easy because it's still our natural way. But at least we have the Holy Spirit to supernaturally, when that is, we do the right thing and we turn to our God and repent and we pray and we ask him for strength to be our stronghold, and he does it every time he comes through.

B. R. Maul: 20:37

So you can't lose your salvation, beloved. And I certainly hope that if you are battling with that, if you are stuck at a denomination or a church that continues the week after week, teach and preach that you must go back and take communion or you must confess and do whatever, whatever works that they tell you to do, because that would just be works. That's not grace. But remember, we are saved by grace, through faith, but by grace, by God's grace. And is God going to take his grace back? No, he is not, and I'm very thankful for that. And verse 11, he ends with Beloved.

B. R. Maul: 21:23

If God so loved us, we also ought to love one another. I really like that. Now it's kind of interesting. He says if God so loved us Well interesting way to put it, because, yes, god did and does so love us Well, then we also ought to love one another. That's not a suggestion that we should love one another Now. Loving one another make sure we understand this correctly is brethren, your family, your brothers and sisters in Christ, those who are born again in Christ, those who are born again. To love one another doesn't mean the same thing as those who are not born again Now, yes, we are to care for these people, people who don't know who Jesus is. Yes, our love should be there. We need to use that love that God so gave us, this agape love that is so pure, that is so holy, and go out, as Jesus said to all nations, and make disciples. And making disciples, before a person can be a disciple, which is a student, they must first be born again. And to be born again, you must know who Jesus is. So we get the name of Jesus out there, we get the gospel message in front of people, and that's loving them. But then, once they are born again, well, now they're brothers and sisters. Now they fall into that one another category that John's talking about to love one another.

B. R. Maul: 23:07

They may be a baby Christian and know very little of God's word or beloved. They could be backslidden. That could be you. Maybe you're a baby Christian. You haven't been a Christian very long. You haven't had much time to read God's word. You haven't had a whole lot of time to sit and hear the teaching of others who have been in God's Word for a long time. And for those who are backslidden, well, that's somebody. You could be walking with the Lord for years, but then you've made one wrong decision after another. You've turned back to your worldly ways and you are tempted over and over again to live like you used to be, and you need to get out of that as well.

B. R. Maul: 23:47

Someone who is backslidden falls into that category of one another, and so we love one another. We love the baby Christian. We do that by helping somebody who is newly born again to walk and to grow their faith so they are stronger. And for those who are backslidden, we love them, we go to them, we point out, and loving somebody isn't giving them what they want. Please stop giving people what they want in life. That's not loving them. Sometimes what they want is what they need, but when we're talking salvation, we give people what they need. They need Jesus, and if they're born again and they're backslidden, well, they still need Jesus. Someone who has backsliding doesn't mean that they've lost their salvation. You can't do that. Someone who ever appears to look like they are no longer a Christian but they used to be, that means they never were, because they're either backslidden yes, someone who has backslidden or is backsliding can look just like the world, but otherwise they never had the Holy Spirit in them. Someone who can walk away and not feel the conviction of the Holy Spirit telling them you better turn around and do what's right, but they can go right back to the way they were living. It's sad to say and it's very unfortunate. I hate saying it, but then that means they were never born again.

B. R. Maul: 25:23

So, love one another, love God's love. Oh, that agape love. How powerful it is. And this world already has a whole bunch of the cheap stuff, the stuff that we use to get what we want. We love commercially, worldly, selfishly, lustfully, to serve ourself, and the world already has a whole bunch of that. What the world doesn't have is God's agape love, that love that, instead of being selfish, is selfless, that love that puts the person below the person that they are loving.

B. R. Maul: 26:07

And we'll go out of the way to do what is right, even when we don't like to, because we know it's the right thing to do. It is loving other people, loving one another. And how else do we do that? Well, we stay in the God's word each and every day, right beloved. Well, we stay in the God's Word each and every day, right beloved.

B. R. Maul: 26:25

Some techniques of mine every day of the month, 1 through 31, that's the proverb that I read and then I'll read five of the Psalms. Each day you do that and every single month you've gone through all the Psalms and all the Proverbs. And that's powerful stuff, very powerful. And then prayer oh, keep praying to your Heavenly Father. Come together with your brothers and sisters, meet with brothers and sisters as often as you can. Weekly is the best. If you can do even more, if you can do a couple of times great.

B. R. Maul: 27:03

Throw the stuff of this world away, these movies, even the books that are coming out these days. They're just getting worse and worse. I still watch movies from time to time, and there are still good books out there, but don't put that above God's Word. It's not worth it. And, of course, worship. Don't put that above God's word. It's not worth it. And of course, worship.

B. R. Maul: 27:26

If you're fortunate to have a Bible-loving and teaching church, well, stick with it. But if you're at a church that is stuck on their own traditions, they're more concerned about what the denomination says, the hierarchy of that denomination, the hierarchy of that church. My advice is run, get out. You're being misled. I'm not very popular for saying this stuff, but it's true. It's so very true, and I say it out of love, because I love all my brothers and sisters. I want all of my brothers and sisters to flourish, so when we all stand before Jesus Christ, our Lord and King, that there will be rewards for what we have done, because we didn't squander it just doing worldly things or going to a church, because that church makes me feel good, even though they didn't dig into God's Word. And that is all that I have for today, and so we'll talk soon. Until next time, god bless, thank you.