We can’t help but hold our own view of the Lord. It’s all we have of Him in our understanding if He has granted any sight. We have seen only what we have seen in His providence.
We might even be so bold as to say it is the Lord Himself, in His manifestation to each, that apportions to each and all; and only as He wills according to His specific purpose. It is not that the Lord who is unchanging has given less or more to any in the giving of Himself to us and for us; or changes from one to another, as though He ‘is not the same’ Lord in all to His people.
Nor is it necessarily a particular function of ‘coming out of a blindness’ that is cause; as if it were ‘of us’ that this takes place…some being to whatever degree ‘more or less yet blind’ or more or less yet sighted. But again, the Lord has a very particular purpose in mind regarding the revelation of Himself.
It is to the end of loving one another as He has loved us, of having souls purified to a sincerity not of this world, to which an apostle testified in even describing the reality of the process:
Seeing ye have purified your souls in obeying the truth through the Spirit unto unfeigned love of the brethren, see that ye love one another with a pure heart fervently:
Who would deny, if having any awareness of Him, or any claim in being touched by that love of the Lord in experience…knowing something of the greatness of that love? And in this, our view of mercy ministered (in whatever way) and perceived, by the love of the Lord, particularly according to that view in experience, loves that ‘view’ of Him? Yet God knows how very easily we find peace with ‘our own view’. Can even be deceived to an unrighteousness in love of our ‘own view’.
And that becomes a rub amongst us, doesn’t it? That matter of ‘view’.
The world loves its own, the Lord issued as both statement, but deeper, as a mechanism to be understood in the ‘why’ of it. At base is what holds the world together temporally, the denial of Christ’s preeminence in all. There is an unspoken agreement, no matter how far all other considerations and disagreements may superficially manifest…beneath it all, the world is what agrees to oppose the Lordship of Jesus Christ. No, there is not material contract signed, (unless one finds ‘signing on’ to follow the flesh) no polling of each or any actually, but there is a plain line drawn by Christ; the world and His kingdom. And “If ye were of the world, the world would love his own: (with its own notion of love and acceptance) but because ye are not of the world, but I have chosen you out of the world, therefore the world hateth you.
There is ‘an agreement’ in the world, which, if we claim to see, perhaps have tasted to whatever degree in its hate of a disciple; there is no less a ‘base’ of agreement among those ‘not of the world’. Jesus Christ is Lord.
Yes…something is ‘easy’ in loving one’s own, loving those with whom one finds all agreement. Having much in common or may seem to be. But how are we assigned to manifest being ‘His disciples’ to the world? He tells us. By the love we are to have for one another…and a love not dependent upon superficial agreement of views (which can be fund abounding) by comfortable preferences.
And such is to be unfeigned, not with clothespin on our noses, not with any ‘buts’ or our own peculiar litmus tests for some worthiness. Love one another as I have loved you. A new (even THE new and unchanging commandment) given to us for our benefit overall. For to seek after accomplishes something…to be done with dissimulatings, performances, pretense and pretentiousness, facades, and a purifying of soul takes place as we endeavor by grace to see that place of un-feigning in all, and abide as He abides.
And as surely as we find His love is not ‘sappy’, any claim that such would be the whole of it in result as ‘just a gooey sappy faux love devoid of discipline, reproof, rebuke…and yes, even end up denying the Lord’s obedience’…one may made able to think again. Learning to love, in whatever measure such light of heavenly love has been ministered (Love one another AS I have loved you…) has come with, and in, many attendant rebukes and chastenings. And many repentings.
Much repentance, unless a man deceives himself.
What do we find, especially when overconcerned (perhaps concerned at all if apart from grace) “What will this man do?” Or “What are ‘they’ all doing?”
To one He may say what He gives one to do, may be entirely different from what He may have for another:
Jesus saith unto him, If I will that he tarry till I come, what is that to thee? follow thou me.
Again, some will and can only see this as throwing the barn door open to all manner of heresy, horrible doctrines, and/or behaviors justified as ‘in the name of the Lord’…and quite falsely. Would it be fey to simply ask “Have you not already looked around”?
Of course we are more comfortable ‘around our own’, and none would deny the scriptures rife with warnings of our company kept and associations. And yes, it is to whatever extent we mask our own preferences in the religious garb of doctrinal purity (do you doubt?) or some justification for withholding of mercy if we see it called for, we will find ourselves opposing this: “Love one another as I have loved you”, forgetting all the dark places in mind, practice, perceptions, and conclusions from which the Lord patiently delivers.
That is, unless you are the one who ‘got it all right from the beginning’, never in need of chastening, many corrections, and repentance. And also eschewing those as though they are not appointed to the revelation of our salvation.
Yes, the love of the Lord. It’s easy to sit in some sentiments of our own imaginings as to purity and sincerity. But Christ would have it shown, not when we are all too comfortable in the amens of our agreements among those of some apparent commonness of either doctrines or experiences. Yes, it is no stretch that His purpose of apportioning Himself in some seeming difference to each, which some might call only a recipe for confusion, is itself a setting stage that love might be made manifest.
May some testimony come forth, even in sight of a world to which it is appointed to be seen “Yeah, they sure do disagree a lot (maybe even more than many) but man, they sure do love one another…”
By this shall all men know that ye are my disciples, if ye have love one to another.
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