The following post is Part Five of a five-part series about discipleship from Locking Arms Director Leo Wisniewski. You can check out the other parts here: Part One, Part Two, Part Three, Part Four
Director Leo Wisniewski:
Love
Love is the driving force enabling us to give our lives away for Christ and the gospel. “In this is love, not that we loved God but that he loved us and sent his Son to be the propitiation for our sins.” (1 John 4:10) Jesus became the wrath-bearer who took the full judgment of God against sin that rightly should fall upon us. Our love is a response to his initiative, his pursuit of our hearts. Because we have come to know his love powerfully in the Cross and experientially by our adoption as sons through the Holy Spirit we can love others. As sons and daughters of God by our adoption through faith we obey Christ’s command. “Love one another just as I have loved you… By this all people will know that you are my disciples…” (John 13:34-35) A discipling relationship must be a healing relationship of love, acceptance, and forgiveness. There are over 20 one another commandments in the New Testament that reveal the rich substance of the love we should be expressing in our community and to those we serve. “Carry one another’s burdens and so fulfill the law of Christ.” “Be kind and compassionate to one another, forgiving each other just as in Christ God forgave you.” “Confess your sins to one another and pray for one another so that you may be healed. The prayer of a righteous person is powerful and effective.” (James 5:16) Our pathway from brokenness to healing is bound up with one another in the body of Christ.
Love is the most powerful attribute of God he wants to reproduce in us. The primacy of love is seen in the fruit of the Spirit that Paul gives to us in Galatians 5:22-23. Love is the tree if you will and the Holy Spirit the root system to support all the others: love, joy, peace, patience…Love is described by Paul as the most essential, the most telling attribute of our life in Christ and the only one that will remain for all eternity. “And now these three remain: faith, hope, and love. But the greatest of these is love.” (1 Corinthians 13:13).
How are you doing on God’s love meter? Not your romance meter but the kind of love that looks to other’s needs as more important than our own.
Contact Leo Wisniewski leo@lockingarmsmen.org to respond to this post and with any questions you may have. Check out our Huddles Page to get plugged in with one of our groups that meet regularly around the city!