Nothing good in life comes easily. This is especially true about growing in our Christian life, and in particular, growing in love. Today’s excerpt from The Kingdom Turn is found on pages 161 and 162:
“Love is the greatest of all Christian virtues, the overarching and overriding Kingdom practice. Love focuses faith and fuels hope, giving rise to lives of courage, wisdom, temperance, and justice. Those who are able to increase in love for God and neighbor express the life of Christian virtue as the natural outworking of God’s Spirit and Christ’s righteousness in their souls.“But we do not come to the life of faith full grown in the virtue of love. Instead, like all the virtues, we must grow in love. Growing in love is related to growing in the Lord Jesus Christ, for He is God, and God is love. The more we grow in Him, the more His love will come to expression through us.
“Growing in Christian love is a twofold proposition. On the one hand, we must concentrate on growing from within. We must train our minds to love, nurture love in our hearts, and settle our consciences on love being the guiding priority, value, and practice by which we must live.
“As we are thus being transformed on the inside, the outside of our lives will increasingly reflect that inward reality, and love will be more consistently the standard that guides our conduct in life.
“But we can only effect real and lasting change on the inside of our lives by making some important changes in our outer lives at the same time.
“Inner change comes only by the work of God’s Spirit, as we resort to the Lord in prayer and the reading and study of Scripture. But such disciplines take time, and it may be that the time of our lives is already spoken for by a variety of activities. But if the discipline that changes us within is as important as we suspect, we will need to recover some of the time of our lives in order to devote more of it to the disciplines of prayer, reading, meditation, and study of God’s Word. We will have to change some outward aspect of our lives, setting aside some activities – such as sleeping, watching television, surfing the Internet, or whatever – in order to put the time those activities require to better use in nurturing love within our souls.”
For reflection or discussion
1. Are there things in your life robbing you of the time you need for growing in love? What can you do about this?
2. What can you do to exercise your soul—mind, heart, and conscience—to grow stronger in love?
The world will know we are followers of Jesus and citizens of His Kingdom as they see His love coming through us in every situation. We must be willing to work hard at love so that we increase daily in love for God and for our neighbors. As we grow in love, we will know more of the joy of the Lord. Share today’s podcast with a friend, then get together to discuss it. Your copy of The Kingdom Turn is waiting for you in The Ailbe Bookstore.
T. M. Moore
