It is most gratifying, Moises, that the Spirit of God is urging you to recall what He has told you and is reminding us of as you post again the differences between Agape and Phileo Love.
Especially that this Truth is so important to Spiritual discernment! It is VITAL to help us not get bruised or scuffed against stones and thorns of shallow un-spiritual ground!
We certainly do have to treat one another as we ourselves would be treated. Yet how is this to occur if we are blind, and in a spiritual condition that can not of itself, receive, believe or even love the Truth of God. God tells us not lightly ~
1Co 2:14 But the natural man receiveth not the things of the Spirit of God: for they are foolishness unto him: neither can he know them, because they are spiritually discerned. ~ and the Spirit is God’s to give as God occasions.
So how are we to treat ourselves when we interact with the blind, dark, callous souls of carnality not yet given the Spirit to discern the things of our God? What this helps me into understand is:
Heb 12:3 For consider Him that endured such contradiction of sinners against Himself, lest ye be wearied and faint in your minds.The above became of particular importance to me as I began to feel the weight of the Truth that the blind do not see as Ray has so clearly stated for us in one of his papers! Simple, True, but Oh so very difficult if you don’t believe it!...and you think you do because it is common sense...yet down deeper than you think...YOU DON'T BELIEVE IT!
How easy is it to see Satan snatching the Word as soon as it is planted? How easy is it to experience that thorns choke His Word and shallow stony ground just doesn’t let anything of the Word of God, to flourish and grow. It is painful to that point where one has to consider HIM that endured such contradiction of sinners against Himself….and accept, realize and agree with what God has said, that shallow, thorny stony ground that is by His Plan and Purpose, unfruitful. So by understanding, that comes only by the Spirit of God ( L Ray Smith) we faint not, under false expectations as painfully we are to experience that our most desperate longings and desires, and prayers to the contrary, we are, as stated by our God, powerless to defeat or thwart, change or correct that the shallow, stony ground will ever be given to produce fruit of His Spirit. It is necessary and very painful fact..…soul destroying….to observe this truth in action, that those seeing, do not see and those hearing don’t understand and to endure the pain to go on, fainting not at the words of Truth given by our Lord through which He is bringing forth patience and making known His endurance.
Luk 8:15 But that on the good ground are they, which in an honest and good heart, having heard the word, keep it, and bring forth fruit with patience. The contradiction of sinners spoken of in
Heb 12 : 3 is that which was endured by Christ, which is the carnality of those who prefer the old and not the new, preferring to resist rather than receive the Spirit of the Lord in the admonitions and insights given. This is the work of God to reserve to everyone the experience of resisting His Will until He gives the change of heart.
The Truth of the Lords Word that
Luk 8:5 the fowls of the air devour and.as soon as it was sprung up, it withered away, because it lacked moisture.and the thorns sprang up with it, and choked it.This is what I we have to experience happening. If we are to be the good soil then even if the world is awash in milk….
Luk 8:8 And other fell on good ground, and sprang up, and bare fruit a hundredfold…..the good ground is
within for the Kingdom of God is not outside it is within ME, YOU, US not least of all RAY! and othersbeing caused of our God to be bearing fruit a hundredfold! Humans are not the fruit! Patience is! Numbers of
followers is not the fruit. Endurance is! Popularity is not the fruit. Obedience is! Frustration is not the Fruit. Love is and this all contrasts with and to the kind of fruit that we bear within! We know ourselves by the fruit we bear.
The temptation to faint and to spiritual weakness is in bearing up after seeing and experiencing the sorrow and disappointment and getting over and past the pain of being offended by the fact that the Word of God sown on the waysides of carnality, will not bear enduring fruit of His Spirit, EVER and this fact is not to defeat our well doing it is to strengthen us to discerning from up close, at home, within, the difference between Phileo and Agape Love.
Your contribution is very important Moises because we all have to learn how to treat and interact with those who are still in the dark….without us fainting under the weight of that darkness. Knowing the Truth of discerning the difference between Agape Godly Love and Phileo Love is critical to not being caught in the cares of the world.
Blessings
Arc