CHARITY MEANS LOVE

[APOSTLE ENOCH ADEYEMI]

The Bible says:

“And now abideth faith, hope, charity, these three; but the greatest is charity.” – I Corinthians 13:13

Charity means love. Love is the greatest. Love is the conclusion of the whole matter. In our context; it is love that begins with our love for God. The proof of our love for God is obedience to His commandments (John 14:15). Scripturally, loving God means obeying His commandments with delight.

For instance, soul winning, soul in-gathering and soul establishment is a fundamental commandment of the scriptures that must not just be obeyed but must be obeyed with delight to proof the sincerity of our Love for God (Matthew 28:19, Mark 16:15, John 15:16).

Believers should have a life style of soul winning, soul in-gathering and soul establishment to demonstrate their abiding in the love for God (John 15:10.).

It is also important to mention that loving what your lover loves is a demonstration of your love for your lover. Our love for God remains an insincere love without loving what God loves. God loves souls (John 3:16). He is so much in love that He does not want anyone to perish; no matter how naturally terrible they appear to be. He would rather want everyone to come to repentance and reign with Him in eternity than to see them condemned to eternal damnation (II Peter 3:9). Therefore, He commissioned His children to go after them so that everyone on the earth will have the opportunity to choose God and reject the devil.

I once had this dropped in my spirit during an outreach that everyone on the earth will have the opportunity at one time or the other to choose between God and the devil, between life and death, between blessing and cursing and between hell and heaven, but it is the responsibility of believers to present this choice to the world (Deuteronomy 30:19).

This is the reason that the church is the hope of the world; the hope of humanity. Many believers interpret Romans 8:19 to mean that believers are to show the world their testimonies of material and other worldly blessing but the creature is waiting for the manifestation of the sons of God so as to be saved from decadence. Many people are going to hell daily! God is never happy seeing this happen but He has commissioned the believers to take care of the assignment of seeing the kingdom of darkness depopulated and seeing the kingdom of God populated.

As believers, we should see all our unbelieving family members, friends, neighbors, colleagues at work and any unbeliever on the street as “salvation projects” that demand our spiritual engagement to see them pulled out of fire (Jude 1:23). This is a fundamental way of spreading the love of God and of Christ to the world around us and to manifest as sons of God to them (Romans 8:19).

We can reduce the traffic to hell and increase the traffic to heaven by getting committed to the commandment of soul winning, soul in-gathering and soul establishment. It is not enough to lead someone to Jesus Christ, it is important to bring the harvest into the store house (the church) and equally important to see to it that the harvest is preserved in the store house of God.

This is how to show our love for God.