Edification with Passion

Each of us is to please his neighbor for his good, to his edification. (Romans 15:2)

As I let the real meaning of each of these words sink in, both from the English and from the Greek, I sense a connection to a truth that has been emerging into my attention for some time. That is, the need for every single true follower of God to become filled and transformed by the passion that throbs in the very heart of the Godhead.

I see allusion to this passion in the original word for please. It involves emotion and an exciting of the emotions. So much religion is devoid of any emotion (except boredom if that can be considered an emotion) that it fails to ignite the affections of the heart toward God or attract others to Him. I have seen great emphasis on the need for us to love God, but in reality this is completely impossible until we begin to feel a sense of how passionately God loves us. Love can only be awakened by first being loved. We have no real love inherent within ourselves any more than a mirror has light inherent within itself.

What I have observed over the years is that one of two things tend to develop in reaction to the insistence that we must love God in order to be saved. Either a person will tend to redefine and remold the definitions of the words to fit what is already taking place in their experience and thus create a massive collection of altered vocabularies that sound right religiously, or else they will move toward an emotionally based religion that revolves around arousing feelings and excitement and emotional highs that come from all kinds of man-made sources but have little to do with the real spirit of God. These too, will tend to form their own set of definitions for all their religious words and will believe that the emotions they feel from their music or their interactions with other people or even their glossolalia is the kind of love required for them to be saved.

I believe that it is quite true that we must have love for God in our hearts in order to be safe to save in heaven. However, it needs to become much more clear to us that it is absolutely absurd to focus on our need for love without focusing even more on the real truth about God and His true feelings for us. If our concepts of God are confused with fear, are based on lies from the enemy of God and give us mixed messages about real love, then as mirrors, our souls will equally reflect confusion about God to others and we will still be living in spiritual Babylon as described in the book of Revelation. For the word Babylon means confusion and confusion is certainly one of the best descriptions of the religious atmosphere in this world today.

What I am seeing in this verse is a call to return to the true model of spirituality that will produce and bond together the true body of Christ here on earth. That is going to take shape when each and every person individually and personally makes the decision that they are going to reflect the example of Jesus and put others ahead of themselves. Each person will make a conscious and continuing choice through a vital and intimate connection with the heart of God to become a channel of God's passion and a source of real blessing for the purpose of integrating others into the edifice (hence the edification) of the temple of God. And the essence of the mortar that holds this edifice together is the strongest adhesive known anywhere in the universe, the bond of joy and love.

Any other model or activity outside of this basic formula will sooner or later be found to be a counterfeit and a fraud. Any other relationship or doctrine if not in complete harmony with this purpose will contradict it and must be exposed and reformed according to the standard of true religion.

Pure and undefiled religion in the sight of our God and Father is this: to visit orphans and widows in their distress, and to keep oneself unstained by the world. (James 1:27)

"By this all men will know that you are My disciples, if you have love for one another." (John 13:35)

Real love may indeed be a principle, but it cannot be real and effective unless it can also awaken our emotions. For our heart is the source of the emotions God designed us to experience and if we claim to have love but never have our emotions engaged then it is likely that our claim of love is only a head-trip based on an intellectual religion, a profession that has not been embraced by our heart.

Likewise, if our professed love is based only on the good feelings we get when we participate in an exciting worship experience but likewise has not transformed our heart and mind with the solid principles of the laws of God (which are the principles of true reality), then our professed love will have no backbone, no stability under pressure and our religion will be as fickle as our feelings.

True love can only be reflected by being loved, and that can only happen when we become truly exposed to and get a taste for the reality of the passion of God's love for us. That is what I want for myself. I want to become obsessed with knowing the heart of God and being sucked into the fire of His passion so thoroughly that I will not be able to prevent myself from passionately serving others with a spirit that is transformed and energized by the Spirit that powers all of heaven.

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