Spontaneous love at molecular level

I always remember an interview Oprah once had with a French-Columbian politician who was held hostage (often in solitary confinement where she did not even utter a sound for days) by Columbia guerillas for six-plus years.

The lasting message the woman said she took away from her horrific ordeal was, and this is a direct quote, “Whoever the person you ultimately want to be, that one you always dream about one day becoming, just be that person right now. You don’t have to wait.”

*****

“Peace is not the absence of conflict, but the ability to cope with it,” advises Jo Petty in her 1951 book, Apples of Gold. “To go without some of the things we want is indispensable to happiness.

From another passage: “Love is the passionate and abiding desire on the part of two or more people to produce together conditions under which each can be, and spontaneously express, his real self; to produce together an intellectual soil and an emotional climate in which each can flourish, far superior to what either could achieve alone.”

Paul writes in Ephesians 4:16, [16] From whom the whole body fitly joined together and compacted by that which every joint supplieth, according to the effectual working in the measure of every part, maketh increase of the body unto the edifying of itself in love.

“ 'Joined together and compacted by' is that, ‘You can’t get a molecule between us,’ ” explains Jordan. “There’s this harmony and solidarity and it’s held together ‘by that which every joint supplieth.’

*****

“The Christian life isn’t me having the brains to run things; it’s, 'He’s the head.'

"You got all these members in your body that work in harmony and, in what I think is the most fascinating thing, the more you go into creation the bigger creation becomes.

"You talk about looking at the stars and how vast it is. I’ve always been fascinated by how the more you get into the molecular level of stuff, where the atoms and molecules are, there’s a big world there, too.

“What they’ve discovered with your molecules is every molecule is like a little factory. It’s got an intelligence center; it’s got an action center, a motor center. It’s got mechanisms in it and they all function; they all tell each other what to do and respond.

“Imagine if all the different molecules that make up your body decided to do what they wanted to do and not what the head says. You see, this is where disease comes from.

"Most of the time disease is some kind of blockage that keeps the proper information from coming down to that gland or organ made up of the cells, and it starts working on its own thinking process. It will gang up with a few others and work on that thinking process and make a tumor or whatever.

“But the brain is what controls it all. It’s the boss; it tells it what to do. And when the brain is in control of everything, it works and functions in harmony.

“By the way, the head also supplies the power to do it. You see, your Christian life isn’t lived on your thinking process; it’s lived on HIS thinking process. It’s not lived in your power; it’s HIS power. It’s ‘Christ in you, the hope of glory.’ It’s the working of HIS power IN us.

*****

“When we grasp that, then we can understand when Paul writes, ‘17] This I say therefore, and testify in the Lord, that ye henceforth walk not as other Gentiles walk, in the vanity of their mind,

[18] Having the understanding darkened, being alienated from the life of God through the ignorance that is in them, because of the blindness of their heart.

[19] Who being past feeling have given themselves over unto lasciviousness, to work all uncleanness with greediness.

“Now that you are so radically different than who you were before, don’t walk like you don’t have intelligence.

“This passage, in verses 18 and 19, does what Ephesians 3:16 does, when he talks about being ‘strengthened by His spirit in your inner man.’ If you want to understand how reversionism works, where a saved man acts like he’s lost, there’s the inner mechanics.

“There in those verses is literally what goes on in your inner man when you, instead of walking intelligently in the wisdom God gives you, you go back and you substitute human viewpoint for God’s viewpoint.

“As a Believer, when you do that, it causes far more drastic consequences than it did as an unbeliever because now you’re not an unbeliever. You’ve been radically changed. Your spirit, soul and body have entirely different relationships between each other than they did before you were saved.

“Now, you talk about gumming up the works; throwing a wrench in the machinery and what happens then when you start walking in the vanity of your mind. All that you are is turned on its head!

“So he said, ‘You know what, you understand who you are. Be smart about life. Walk intelligent. Walk in the light of who you really are. Just let Christ be who He is in you.' That’s what the rest of Ephesians 4 is all about.

*****

“Now, when he says in chapter 5, ‘Be ye therefore followers of God, as dear children;
[2] And walk in love, as Christ also hath loved us, and hath given himself for us an offering and a sacrifice to God for a sweetsmelling savour,’ the ‘therefore’ is chapter 4:30-32.

“Paul writes, [31] Let all bitterness, and wrath, and anger, and clamour, and evil speaking, be put away from you, with all malice:
[32] And be ye kind one to another, tenderhearted, forgiving one another, even as God for Christ's sake hath forgiven you.

“Wow, that’s almost like that verse in Titus, isn’t it? You see how being in Christ is designed to change the way you talk and think? The way you talk comes out of your heart.

“Jesus said, ‘Out of the heart the mouth speaks.’ He said to let all the anger and turmoil and strife and bitterness of that old life be put away. That’s not who you are! Here’s how you do that: ‘Be ye kind one to another.’

“Paul writes in Colossians 3, [12] Put on therefore, as the elect of God, holy and beloved, bowels of mercies, kindness, humbleness of mind, meekness, longsuffering;

[13] Forbearing one another, and forgiving one another, if any man have a quarrel against any: even as Christ forgave you, so also do ye. 

“You can be forbearing, you can be kind and tender-hearted, but without forgiveness it will lead to bitterness. It will lead to all those things in Ephesians 4:31. The key that changes it all is forgiveness.

“Take the worst somebody’s done to you and I can tell you you’ve done far worse than that to God Himself. If God can forgive you, you can forgive them. There’s things you’ve done that you can’t even forgive yourself for and they come back in your mind sometimes and haunt you. You’ve done FAR worse than that to God and He forgave you.

“You know why you walk in love? Because you know what it’s like to be loved. That’s all there is to it. You know what it’s like to have someone love you when you didn’t deserve to be loved; when you were, of all things, unlovable.

“He said, ‘I didn’t love you because you were lovable; I loved you because of the will of my Father, and He loved you and gave Himself for you.’ I love that verse. Christ has given Himself for us for a sweet-smelling savor.

“He took a stinker like you and made you something that smells wonderful to the Father and He did it at Calvary. And He did it in spite of you, because of His grace. You want to walk in love? Think like that!

*****

“One of the hard things to do when you teach people is to help folks move out of sentimental-based thinking into the good, hard doctrinal reality that gives substance to their hope. Their hope will then give the sentimental attachment.

“People say, ‘Well, why don’t I just start with the sentimental attachment and forget how I got there?’

"Because, as soon as the wind blows, you get off that sentimental attachment. If it’s all based in your sentiment, when the wind blows the other way, your sentiment turns around and you’re mad sentimentally in your emotions. You know that.

“Your emotions can change like that. You need your hope built on something that doesn’t change. You see, if you’ve got the facts and you place your faith in the facts, that faith in the facts of God’s Word will bear fruit and the fruit will produce some feeling.

“The feelings are like the tip end of the tail on the dog--they come last. My daddy used to say that he liked everything on the pig, including the part that jumps over the fence last. That’s where feelings are! Get the whole pig over the fence and the feelings will get there. And if they don’t, you know what? You’re not going to worry about it because the pig’s over the fence.”

(new article tomorrow)