“Dear children, let us not love with words or speech, but with actions and in truth. And by this we know that we are of the truth, and shall assure our hearts before Him.” - 1 JOHN 3:18-19

          It goes without saying that for those who are children of God that “communion with the Father” will always be first and foremost. And as a lifestyle, it will always be pre-eminent and prominent. This is so, not only because communion with the Father is the “first and greatest commandment”, but because God is Spirit (JOHN 4:24), and as His children, so are we. In other words, since He is Spirit, the only way to enter into communion with Him is in the spirit. So, communion and Spirit come first. But then, we have to ask ourselves why would God give man the three-part constitution of “spirit, soul and body” if all we ever really needed to do was worship God in the Spirit? In JOHN 4:24, it says God is Spirit, but then it also says, “God is Spirit, and they that worship him must worship him in spirit AND truth.” And therein lies the answer to why we also have a soul and a body. To worship in spirit AND TRUTH is so that the cup from our communion with the Father may overflow and burst its banks (like rivers of living water), and thereby, be subsequently “of earthly good” for our neighbour (a person that lives nearby). For that which is spirit must become life. Which is why the first and greatest commandment then follows immediately with the second greatest commandment, which is to love your neighbour as yourself. They are two, but one. One leads and the other follows, so that the kingdom physics of seedtime and harvest may, in all things, even love, consistently prevail (GENESIS 8:22). And in the matter of love, the harvest that comes from the seedtime of communion is this: “Abide in me, and I in you. As the branch cannot bear fruit by itself, unless it abides in the vine, neither can you unless you abide in me.” – JOHN 15:4. And together, both the first and greatest commandment and the second are the mathematical relationship and arithmetic summation of 1 JOHN 3:18-19, “Dear children, let us not love with words or speech, but with actions and in truth. And by this we know that we are of the truth, and shall assure our hearts before Him.” How else can we love in action and in truth without also the soul to “feel” that love, and the body to “act” on that love? And when we do love in truth, with a heart overflowing with love, and a life brimming with deeds of love, it is then that we become not just “children” of God, but also “friends”. 1 JOHN 4:7 “Dear friends, let us love one another, for love comes from God. Everyone who loves has been born of God and knows God.”

     Through worshipping the Father, first in spirit (through "communion with the Father"), it is then through the subsequent fruit borne of that communion that we can then worship the Father also in truth (through “community with man”). For God says that it is through the three-way relationship of the truth of wisdom, understanding, and knowledge (that then overflows from that communion), that the fruit therefrom (that is the house of “community”) is subsequently built and established. “By wisdom a house is built, and through understanding it is established; through knowledge its rooms are filled with rare and beautiful treasures.” – PROVERBS 24:3-4. Only when a house has been built with the wisdom, understanding and knowledge of love will its rooms be filled with rare and beautiful treasures. And since “love comes from God, and everyone who loves has been born of God, and knows God” (communion) (1 JOHN 4:7), as children of God, being those who “are born of God”, we can share the abundance of that overflowing love through the three-way operations of firstly (1) the gifts and talents (spirit) He has placed upon us (as an inheritance and fruit of being a child of His), and (2) through our feelings of community, compassion and commission (soul), and (3) through what we do, and write and say (body). “Let your speech always be gracious, seasoned with salt (love), so that you may know you ought to answer each person (in love).” – COLOSSIANS 4:6.

     So whilst we worship God in spirit (through the love of “communion with the Father”), we worship God in truth (through the love of “community with man.”) In this working model, communion with the Father always comes first, so that what we first fill our cup to overflowing (with through the love of “communion with the Father”), we can then pour out through the love of "community with man." “But seek ye first the kingdom of God and his righteousness (communion with the Father), and all these things shall be added unto you (community with man)” – MATTHEW 6:33, where the “6:33” represents man (6), and the “33” represents the completion we receive from abiding in Him (3) becomes the completion we give through Him abiding in us (3) (JOHN 15:4).

     As such, through His mind boggling forethought and purposefulness, God has intentionally designed the expression of the man’s spiritual heart (where the heart is the icon of love), to be an exact reflection of the way that He has designed the working of man’s physical heart. There needs to be an "inflow" from communion and an “outflow” through community. In that way the heart, being the symbol of love, clearly demonstrates that the fullness of love is a two-way operation (MATTHEW 22:37-39). And as an expression of the outflow of HIS heart, for those who are children of God, being who are those who are led by the Spirit (communion) (ROMANS 8:14), we get to partake of the greatest privilege of all, which is to share the exorbitant love of an astonishing Father with all who are our neighbour (community). So in that way, in the operation of the fullness of love, man then becomes that side of the pump house of God’s heart that receives the oxygen-rich (Spirit-filled) blood from “communion with the Father” and pumps it to “the body” through “community with man”. Which is also why He created man’s body in the image of one head (the oneness of communion) and one heart (JOHN 17:21) with ten fingers and ten toes (the many of community) (ROMANS 12:5). In His remarkable way, God has pre-purposed ahead of time, that as His children, we may all be “like Father like son” - being those for whom the apple never falls very far from the Tree of Life. “Under the apple tree I roused you; there your mother conceived you, there she who was in labour gave you birth. Place me like a seal over your heart, like a seal on your arm; for love is as strong as death, its jealousy unyielding to the grave. It burns like blazing fire, like a mighty flame. Many waters cannot quench love; rivers cannot sweep it away.” – SONG OF SONGS 8:5-7.

     So what this tells us is that just like there is a dependency between a child and a parent, just like there is a dependency of man upon God, there is a dependency of the second greatest commandment on the first. If, as is often the case of “the way of the world”, where there is often an exclusive focus on the second greatest commandment only, which is to love our neighbour as our self, since it said that “everyone who loves is born of God” (1 JOHN 4:7), for those of the world who choose to bypass the first and greatest commandment as step one, being those who “in their own strength”, try to love their neighbour as themselves, being a branch not part of the vine, this is the culmination of 1 CORINTHIANS 13:1-4. “If I speak in the tongues of men or of angels, but do not have love, I am only a resounding gong or a clanging cymbal. If I have the gift of prophecy and can fathom all mysteries and all knowledge, and if I have a faith that can move mountains, but do not have love, I am nothing. If I give all I possess to the poor and give over my body to hardship that I may boast, but do not have love, I gain nothing.” For love comes from God (1 JOHN 4:7). It is of this that God speaks when He says, “There is no one righteous, not even one” (ROMANS 3:10), and this is when we denigrate all our efforts and all our deeds to be merely “filthy rags” in the sight of God (ISAIAH. 64:6), for they are fruit that is not borne of the Tree of Life, but are fruit borne from the Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil. Which is when man decides to operate in the pride of his own righteousness and independence from God the Father (the vine).

     In the same way, have you ever heard of the expression sometimes levelled at Christians that they are “so spiritual that they are of no earthly good”? This “turn of phrase” is one that would generally be levelled at those of us as Christians, who in their great love for God our Father, get completely lost in that love, which is absolutely beautiful, and is without question first prize. And in the delight of that rekindled relationship, they somehow forget that when it comes to LOVE IS AS LOVE DOES, that there are actually two great commandments. For those of us who find themselves in this situation, this is the expression that, on occasion, gets levelled at the children of God when to the exclusion of all else, they somehow become exclusively focused only on the first of the twin mandates of MATTHEW 22:37-39. It’s where one forgets that the “fullness of love” is a relationship of balance and unity between the two mandates, and that the fullness of love is best accomplished when love is expressed as the combination of both. In other words, it’s only when love is arrayed in the fullness of all its glory, which is with complete co-operation between the inhalation of “communion with the Father” and the exhalation of “community with man,” that man then lives and walks in the way and the truth and the life that is living authentically. It is when love epitomizes both “the form and the function” of the icon of the Cross, which is the two beams of the Cross in concert as one, being representative of the two greatest commandments acting in unison, that we find the greatest “demonstration of heart” that there is, which is love.

     So in order to abide in His presence, we need to be in His presence, so that we can then be led by His Spirit in fulfilling the other half of the equation of love, which is “community with man”. The phrase “so spiritual that they are of no earthly good” is an expression that becomes applicable when one focuses entirely and solely on the first mandate of “communion with the Father” only. And, in truth, this is something we all do, from time to time, since communion with the Father is part and parcel of the cycle of life that is required for first filling up our love tank to overflowing before we can then pour out that love in loving our neighbour as ourselves.

    How amazingly gracious and great is love that it provides both a unique signature on the individual soul of man, and yet also a uniform opportunity to the entire brotherhood of humanity! 

"Now to the King eternal, immortal, invisible, the only God, be honour and glory for ever and ever. Amen." - 1 TIMOTHY 1:17.

God’s richest blessings, Wayne Biehn.