SHIFTING CONTAINERS – Emotional Capacity (part 1)

“The value of our lives is measured by our capacity to love others.” – Wayne Trotman

From the lips of Jesus and from the pen of Paul came the same message:  The first and the greatest virtue of the Christian faith – the one non-negotiable in the armour of every believer – is to LOVE  (Matthew 22:37  and 1 Corinthians 13:13).  Growing our capacity to love deeper, to love wider, to love more extravagantly, and to love completely differently must be one of the major pursuits on our journey with Christ.   Once we have started the process of expanding our MENTAL CAPACITY (see previous week), we need to expand our EMOTIONAL CAPACITY – the ability to imitate a God of love in a world of anger.  (This chapter is of such importance that the next two weeks will be dedicated to this topic.)

One of the most convicting and uncompromising verses in the Bible is found in 1 John 4:8:  Whoever does not love does not know God, because God is love.  Love is not a mere ATTRIBUTE of God, it is His NATURE.  This implies that loving is NOT merely one of God’s activities, but that every activity of God is loving. If He creates, He creates in love. If He rules, He rules in love. If He judges, He judges in love. Everything He does expresses His nature. God and His nature are manifested by what He does. By love, God is revealed and known, and this, therefore, becomes the indwelling nature of every follower of Christ.  He that does not love the image of God in His creation, has no saving knowledge of God.  God is love and therefore His followers need to be the embodiment of His love.

To love God and to love our neighbour is the law on which all virtues hang (Mark 12:29-31), and the pursuit of a bigger capacity to love should be first and foremost on every follower’s agenda.  This is a non-negotiable.  The ability to love deeply, unconditionally, and uncompromisingly should be developed before seeking any other virtue.  It is ranked by God even higher than truth.

Building our emotional capacity through the vehicle of overflowing love is the heart cry of Paul for the Church throughout the ages:  “May the Lord make your love increase and overflow for each other and for everyone else, just as ours does for you.” (1 Thessalonians 3:12)

Please press the pause button for a moment and let this sink in!

THE LIGAMENT OF LOVE

In Colossians 3 Paul provides a comprehensive list of virtues that should be the adornments on the robe of every believer.  “Clothe yourselves,” he says, (12) “with compassion, kindness, humility, gentleness, patience, forbearance and forgiveness.”  And once again, like in most of his letters, Paul ends with the one virtue that contains the whole of Christian perfection, and links all the parts of it together, and, surprise surprise, it is not TRUTH, it is LOVE.

When Paul refers to the word “bond” in “bond of perfectness” (Colossians 3:14) he uses the Greek word SUNDESMOS, which is also the word used for LIGAMENT.  Love is therefore the ligament that binds all virtues into perfection.  This is extremely significant and intentional.  A ligament is a short band of tough, flexible, fibrous connective tissue that connects two bones or cartilages or holds together a joint.  It is also a membranous fold that supports an organ and keeps it in position.

From a spiritual perspective therefore love, or charity, is a tough but flexible virtue that links together all other virtues.  It protects the body and keeps it in the right position before God, who is the Author and Perfector of love.  This does not minimise the importance of truth, or any other virtue for that matter, but it does emphasise the fact that love contains the ability to join together and unite, more than any virtue.

In a sense, truth holds all virtues together while love links all virtues together.  The reason is simple.  Truth cannot, and should not, be compromising and flexible.  Truth is firm and has a firm foundation.  But of equal importance is the fact that love cannot, and should not, be rigid and unbending.  Paul explains in 1 Timothy 1:5 that “the goal of our instruction is love from a pure heart and a good conscience and a sincere faith.”  Note that truth is not the goal, love is. Truth is the means. It is subordinate. Truth serves love. Education serves relationships — mainly the relationship between us and God, but also between Christian and Christian, and between us and unbelievers. The “goal” of truth is ultimately to reveal the true nature of God: LOVE.

This ligament of Biblical virtue needs to be flexible and compassionate.  Love does not rejoice IN truth but WITH truth (1 Corinthians 13:6  Love does not delight in evil but rejoices with the truth. ).  Love shapes how we speak the truth (Ephesians 4:15  Instead, speaking the truth in love, we will grow to become in every respect the mature body of him who is the head, that is, Christ.) while truth shapes how we show love (1 John 5:2-3  This is how we know that we love the children of God: by loving God and carrying out his commands. In fact, this is love for God: to keep his commands. And his commands are not burdensome).

But loving mostly comes naturally with those we like.  Expanding a capacity to love more will involve loving the “unlovable” people who differ from us, those who irritate us and even those, or especially those, who seek to harm us.  This was the message of Matthew 5 and this was the heart of Christ (verse 44) when He instructed His followers to love their enemies and pray for those who persecute them.  The reason was simple; because God is a good God who gives in excess and “causes his sun to rise on the evil and the good, and sends rain on the righteous and the unrighteous”,  His followers are expected to do the same.  Mediocrity, and just doing the bare minimum and loving those who deserve our love, was never an option.

Growing our capacity to love more and to love differently will be one of the major, but at the same time most rewarding, challenges we will face on our journey with Christ.  GOD IS LOVE.  This is His nature and His DNA.  Anybody who confesses to be in Christ has no option but to reflect this incarnated unconditional character trait.  Love is the ID document of those who claim to belong to the Kingdom of God.    It will not be determined IF we love, but HOW we love.  We do not love because Scripture teaches us to love, we love because Christ lives within us and we can do nothing else.

The following was found written on the wall in Mother Teresa’s home for children in Calcutta:

• People are often unreasonable, irrational, and self-centered.  Forgive them anyway.
• If you are kind, people may accuse you of selfish, ulterior motives.  Be kind anyway.
• If you are successful, you will win some unfaithful friends and some genuine enemies.  Succeed anyway.
• If you are honest and sincere people may deceive you.  Be honest and sincere anyway.
• What you spend years creating, others could destroy overnight.  Create anyway.
• If you find serenity and happiness, some may be jealous.  Be happy anyway.
• The good you do today, will often be forgotten.  Do good anyway.
• Give the best you have, and it will never be enough.  Give your best anyway.
• In the final analysis, it is between you and God.  It was never between you and them anyway.

Love cannot be contained in the same heart that is filled with fear, suspicion and hatred.  We cannot have Christ and not have unconditional love.  It is as simple as that.  If we struggle to love, we have not yet been transformed and need to build capacity in this regard.  Don’t go over this chapter too quickly and don’t simply dismiss new thoughts as “not for me” teachings.

Next week we will explore four kinds of love that we are seldom taught:

• A Kenosis love
• A Glasnost love
• A Sine-qua-non love
• An Empath’s love

You are most welcome to order the book CAPACITY from Mike at thirdwayinfo@gmail.com