Season 2 Episode 001 : Radiant Love
This season I want to focus on how living a radiant life for Christ is only possible when we allow the Holy Spirit to transform us in evident ways. Transformation implies change. As a Type A, enneagram one, I’m the last possible person embracing change. I go to certain restaurants because I want a specific dish, there is never a question of what I’m going to order.
A few years ago they removed my favorite from the only fast food restaurant I can’t resist. Rather than change my order I simply refused to support Taco Bell until they returned the Mexican Pizza to its rightful place. I will replace my cell phone with the same model of cell phone until the AT&T personnel shatter my hopes and dreams when they inform me it is no longer available. Change gives me anxiety.
However, I am learning my perception of change is the problem. What is yours?
Without change, you won’t be challenged, inspired, or grow in your faith to become who God created you and fulfill the purpose He has for your life.
Change from the Holy Spirit produces specific fruit found in Galatians 5:22-23,
“But the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, and self-control.”
Deeper than the Sunday School bulletin boards you may or may not have grown up with, this fruit characterizes what living radiantly for Christ will look like. I invite you this season to take a closer look with me, at each one, as we allow the Holy Spirit to transform us into His image.
Starting from the top, if I say, love, what pops into your mind first?
Romance. Loyalty. Intimacy. Relationships. Desire. Sacrifice.
Depending on the context, love can mean many things. Growing up, I longed for romance. I read many novels, characterizing love with butterflies and moonlit rides on the beach. When I got married, the idea of love in my head crashed into reality. A mere week after we got married my new loving husband handed me a dress shirt. Confused, I held it up, asking him “What’s wrong with it?”
He shook his head, responding, “Nothing I just need you to iron it.”
I’m pretty sure I did nothing to hide the look of confusion on my face. I’d never ironed a man’s dress shirt in my life. So, handing it back, I informed him, “I don’t have time to figure this out, you’ll have to do it.”
He kind of laughed, I say kind of because at the time I didn’t find the situation funny at all, but looking at me with a smirk on his lips, he said “Well what do you think I got married for?” Twenty-five years later, I understand he was giving me a hard time. Twenty-five years ago, however, all thoughts of love and marital bliss went head-first out the window. I didn’t speak to him for 24 hours. Over the years I’ve learned love looks nothing like the giddy feelings described in romance novels.
My idea of love, and your idea of love, is shaped by many different things, including our culture, family of origin, books, and movies just to name a few. We unintentionally carry our concept of love into every relationship, including how we view the love of our God and how we love Him in return.
When you examine the list of the fruit of the spirit, love is listed first for a reason.
1 John 4:7-8 reminds us to “love one another, for love is from God, and whoever loves has been born of God and knows God. Anyone who does not love does not know God, because God is love.”
I don’t know about you, but I want to know God. To know Him I need to understand something about love.
The Greek word for love used in this passage is agape and is found more than 200 times in the New Testament, its meaning mainly referring to unconditional, self-sacrificing, giving love to all—both friend and enemy. [1] (New World Encyclopedia Contributors 2019)
If you want to live radiantly for Christ, those around you should experience God’s love both in you and through you.
Does that sound a little difficult? After all, some people aren’t easy to love. Thankfully, transformation doesn’t happen overnight, and the work God is doing in us is just that, a work in progress. But you and I can learn, we can grow, as the Spirit shapes us.
Here are three ways you can learn to love radiantly.
1. Recognize God’s love for you.
Have you ever been a part of a long-distance relationship? Several of the boys I dated before I married lived hours away. Our conversations would revolve around when we would see each other again. In an era before cell phones and face time, the separation made cultivating a relationship difficult. Long-distance relationships turned out not to be my thing and I married a boy who grew up in the same church I did.
Colossians chapter one tells us we are separated in our relationship with God because of sin. But because of God’s love for us, John 3:16 demonstrates how He made a way to cross the divide.
For those who have heard this scripture spoken countless times, try to hear it as if for the first time. For those unfamiliar with the passage, allow yourself to hear how much God loves you.
“For God so loved the world that He gave His one and only Son, that whoever believes in Him shall not perish but have eternal life.”
“People who haven’t been loved enough reach adulthood with a number of disadvantages. It’s hard for them to know who they are. As a result, they have a hard time finding their purpose in life and their place in the world… They feel uncomfortable and unsatisfied."[2] (Exploring Your Mind, 2020)
We cannot begin to produce love until we recognize we are loved.
The enemy would like nothing more than for us to feel unloved and therefore keep us from the purpose God has for our lives.
Recognizing and accepting God’s love for you is the first step toward allowing the Holy Spirit to transform you into a loving person. Secondly, to love radiantly we must
2. Reciprocate God’s love.
Have you ever been in a one-sided relationship? Long-distance relationships are tricky, one-sided relationships are heartbreaking. Caring for someone who doesn’t return your affection results in the bitter sting of rejection. Our relationships don’t flourish when feelings aren’t reciprocated.
God desires a relationship with you. His love for you isn’t dependent on your love for Him. While sin will separate us from being in a relationship with Him, nothing can separate us from His love. (Romans 8:38-39)
When we choose a relationship with Him, we have access to the power of the Holy Spirit in our lives. But the strength and power of your relationship with Him can’t be accessed until you choose Christ as the Lord and Savior of your life, and return His love. Until you follow the greatest commandment to “love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind and with all your strength.” (Mark 12:30).
Returning God’s love is simple, but it will require everything, all of your heart, soul, mind, and strength.
It means my emotions, my desires, my thoughts, and my actions belong to Him. But in this relationship, He doesn’t force you to give them up. God gives you the choice to be in a relationship with Him. When you give them willingly, the Holy Spirit transforms you so all your being wants what God wants.
When I fully understand His love for me, and His sacrifice for me, my only reasonable response is to love Him with all I am and sacrifice my wants and desires for Him. Which allows me to love radiantly and third,
3. Release God’s love to others
God’s number one priority is for people to know His love for them. It is why He commissions those who walk in relationship with Him to tell the world about Jesus (Matthew 28:19).
It is why the second commandment is to, “Love your neighbor as yourself.” (Mark 12:28-31)
Which again, some neighbors don’t seem lovable. Especially when we feel betrayed by people, maybe even family, who have hurt us. How do we love those people?
Only by allowing the Holy Spirit to produce the fruit of love within us can we by extension love the unlovable.
It’s because He loved me, and forgave me, because he loved me when I wasn’t lovable when I was still a sinner that I can forgive and love others (Romans 5:8-9).
Loving the unlovable might mean following Romans 13:10 which tells us love will act for other’s best interest and not do anything to harm them. Loving the unlovable might look like praying for blessing for those who would not call themselves friends as instructed in Luke chapter 6. Maybe loving them means following Ephesians 4:2 and allowing another part of the fruit of the spirit, patience to be cultivated, as we choose gentleness and humility when they choose to be prideful and vindictive.
Many years ago, our neighbors created lots of drama in our lives. No matter what we did, they were always angry with us. They would say hateful things about us to other people on our street, and even spoke unkindly should we happen to be outside at the same time. I started doing what seemed practical, avoiding them at all costs. I would even drive around the neighborhood before pulling into my driveway if I noticed they were on their front porch. I quit attending gatherings I knew they would attend. Avoidance solves a lot of problems, right?
Only it didn’t. The stress and tension I felt grew and grew until I became uncomfortable in my own home. Finally, I asked God to intervene. I don’t know why I waited so long, sometimes I think He’s busy with huge things like war and starving people, surely this small insignificant detail would work itself out. In my prayer, I asked how He could expect me to love people whose dislike of me felt intense. His response was, to show love to their kids.
They had children about the same age as ours. I started taking every chance I had I would call them over to share an activity with my kids. I would bring out snacks and offer to drive them to school functions. Over time our relationship changed, the heated exchanges ceased, the gossip stopped, and my dread of pulling into my driveway left. We moved away from the area, but every time I encounter a difficult situation with unlovable people, God reminds me there is always a way to show love, I just need the Holy Spirit to lead me.
When you recognize God’s love for you, reciprocate with your love, and release love to others you will see evidence of transformation in your life as you reflect His radiance to the world around you.
Let’s pray together to love radiantly.
Father, thank you for loving me even when I was unlovable and sending Jesus to die to pay for my debt of sin so I can be in a relationship with you. I choose to love you with all my heart, my soul, my mind, and my strength. When those around me seem unlovable, I choose to see them and love them the way you love them. Unconditionally and sacrificially. Help me to rest in the strength and surety of your love. In Jesus’ name. Amen.
Let’s go live and love radiantly.
XOXO,
Laura
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Galatians 5
1 John 4
New World Encycolpedia, Agape
John 3
Exploring Your Mind, How Can People Who Haven't Been Loved Learn to Love?
Romans 5, 8
Mark 12
Matthew 28
All scripture NIV unless otherwise noted
