The Spirit Of God Pursues Love For God - 03
A Godly person is attracted to other God lovers.
If the elder’s first commitment IS to love God and obey Him, then those who have the Spirit of God will want to seek out such a person for guidance. They’ll want to know, “How can I love God better?”
We often go to people who can help us improve our lives. And any who want to improve spiritually – to love God with all of their heart, soul and mind – will gravitate toward those who appear to have found success loving Him.
Returning to my previous analogy of the head chef. There is no doubt that any person can learn how to cook. Most people can fry an egg, or grill a hot dog. However, there is a difference between a teenager flipping burgers at the local McDonald’s, and a head chef preparing to serve skillet cod with lemon and capers.
Both can do a good job at putting food in front of you. But, whereas the head chef can provide the same burger from the McDonald’s grill, the teen doesn’t know where to begin in regard to the skillet cod with lemon and capers.
A teenager can be a genuine lover of God, as well as older man. The question is not a question of who does or doesn’t love. It is a question of thoroughness. It is arguable, the older man has had more opportunity and time to learn how to love God more fully.
The Apostle John wrote, “7Beloved, let us love one another, for love is from God, and whoever loves has been born of God and knows God. 8Anyone who does not love does not know God, because God is love. 9In this the love of God was made manifest among us, that God sent his only Son into the world, so that we might live through him. 10In this is love, not that we have loved God but that he loved us and sent his Son to be the propitiation for our sins. 11Beloved, if God so loved us, we also ought to love one another. 12No one has ever seen God; if we love one another, God abides in us and his love is perfected in us.”
So God begins a regenerative work in His people. He loves us and gives us a new life to love Him in; and to love others as well. The Holy Spirit is the only One who can bring this kind of life to a person. We are not God-lovers without Him. It is His fruit produced in us that transforms us and improves our love. And this is progressive. Or should be.
Paul wrote about this in Galatians 5:
“22But the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, 23gentleness, self-control; against such things there is no law. 24And those who belong to Christ Jesus have crucified the flesh with its passions and desires. 25If we live by the Spirit, let us also keep in step with the Spirit. 26Let us not become conceited, provoking one another, envying one another.”
Love is paramount. And it is reasonable to wonder if an unloving Church member has a place in God’s kingdom. The member should stop himself and ask God whether the Spirit has given him new life or not. Certainly, the Scribes and Pharisees should have weighed their own souls before the Lord, when Jesus condemned their hypocrisy, saying the inside of their cup was filthy.1
Choosing elders can be a challenge. It is up to God and the congregation. Sometimes the congregation will measure a man poorly. They will make decisions using the wrong criteria. Scripture is meant to be our guide, here.2
The ultimate choices should be built upon conditions that the man has and does live a life of love and obedience. They should elect men who’ve been a source of genuine help to the congregation, encouraging each member to be consistent in their pursuit of love toward God. Of course, they will not choose a perfect man. No elder is without fault.
In Matthew 23:25-26, Jesus says, “Woe to you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites! For you clean the outside of the cup and the plate, but inside they are full of greed and self-indulgence. You blind Pharisee! First clean the inside of the cup and the plate, that the outside also may be clean.”
1 Timothy 3:1-7 is one instance. It reads, “The saying is trustworthy: If anyone aspires to the office of overseer, he desires a noble task. Therefore an overseer must be above reproach, the husband of one wife, sober-minded, self-controlled, respectable, hospitable, able to teach, not a drunkard, not violent but gentle, not quarrelsome, not a lover of money. He must manage his own household well, with all dignity keeping his children submissive, for if someone does not know how to manage his own household, how will he care for God's church? He must not be a recent convert, or he may become puffed up with conceit and fall into the condemnation of the devil. Moreover, he must be well thought of by outsiders, so that he may not fall into disgrace, into a snare of the devil.”