The Compensations of Love
Greetings, brothers and sisters. This is Dr. James Perry continuing with our series where we seek to explore the deeper meanings of our relationship with Jesus Christ. Over the years, the heavenly Father has revealed many revelations of spiritual truth to me, and I want to share them with you. This morning we seek to understand the compensations of love.
And now, sit back and listen to today's message.
The Compensations of Love
"If ye keep my commandments, ye shall abide in my love; even as I have kept my Father’’s commandments, and abide in his love." John, Chapter 15, Verse 10
Brothers and sisters, in today’’s broadcast we examine the compensations of love. There are times when a display of faith is required——one that goes beyond the ordinary requirements of faith. There are times when a display of goodness is required that supercedes the normal requirement of goodness. And there are times when a exercise of wisdom that is required surpasses the normal exercise of wisdom. And while these extraordinary displays take a tremendous toil on our emotions and sometimes on the physical mechanism itself, there are compensations.
To help us grasp the concept of spiritual compensation, consider these material analogies.
Sometime ago when my wife was volunteering at the elementary school, one of the ways they raised funds was to bring in a telephone booth filled with circulating dollars. The student who collected the most money on a fund raiser drive won the privilege to get into this telephone booth filled with circulating dollars. And within the time allotted, all the dollars that he could grab belonged to him. Another analogy that comes to mind is the shopping spree that some commercial television stations put on from time to time. If the shopper is selected, she gets to keep all the groceries she can put in a shopping cart during a certain time limit. And the final analogy is the so-called Homestead Act of 1862. This was an act passed by Congress that gave individuals 160 acres of land if they would occupy and improve it for five years. At the end of the five-year-period, the land would be theirs. The central idea behind these analogies is that whatever you can possess for a certain period of time becomes yours.
Consider this quote: "Goodness begets goodness, but to the one who is truly good, evil also begets goodness." When evil becomes entrenched, it requires a prolonged exposure to goodness to eradicate evil, even though it may take time. The greater the evil, the greater the effort required by goodness to eradicate it. And this creates a greater gap between actual reality and the maladapted temporary reality created by the evildoer.
Consider our world, which is plagued by evil. Eventually the evil will be uprooted and goodness will prevail in every heart: this is because God’’s will ultimately prevails. Those who become disseminators of this goodness will have a specialized revelation of goodness in their hearts, a special revelation that could not be obtained in any way other than by the willingness to allow goodness to flow through them. Goodness is a spiritual quality, and its peculiar quality that is used to uproot a particular evil leaves its spiritual fingerprint indelibly stamped on the soul. In our moral and spiritual lives, we are often called upon to stand for righteousness. And this righteous stand requires wisdom and patience. And when the decisions of wisdom have been made, then patience must reign. And patience, which is a part of goodness, transcends time and is applied as long as there is a chance that the wrongdoer will see the error of his ways.
The compensations of love are the increase in status made possible by displaying the love. So then if we are called on to display patience for an extended period of time, that patience actually becomes a part of us. And we are now able to display this same patience in similar situations without strain. It has become a part of us. So the results of showing divine goodness is to be enhanced by divine goodness. And we can begin to see how in the truly good, evil begets good. This goodness causes the evildoer to repent. And this repentance by the evildoer increases the goodness in the evildoer who has tuned into it, and in the displayer of it, who increased the content of goodness in his soul by allowing it to flow through him.
When the goodness-displayer is called on to forgive, when he does he has his debts forgiven. Forgiveness is necessary in order to keep the circuits of love open and to keep love flowing. It is apparent that love and forgiveness are related. It is impossible to allow love to flow through you when unforgiveness blocks the flow of love.
And so it is with faith, trust, hope, and all of the spiritual qualities, the compensations for displaying this qualities is the acquirement of the qualities themselves. The exercise of the higher level of faith, trust and hope imparts the higher levels of faith, trust, and hope to the very fabric of our souls, so if we are called upon to exercise a similar level of faith, trust, and hope, we can readily do so. And we must remember that the converse is also true. If we fail to exercise the faith, trust, and hope, in the face of evil, allowing evil to defeat us, than that faith, trust, and hope that we failed to exercise does not become apart of our souls.
And so we ascend to higher levels of spiritual status by exercising the qualities needed for an increase in status. But how does all of this occur in human being, with all of his frailties and weaknesses? The human being has a natural endowment of power suited to withstand the normal problems of existence.
But when the normal problems of living exceed natural endowments to remain calm, firm, and strong, he is left defenseless. He has the choice of accepting defeat or responding with evil. When the natural endowment of patience, determination, and self assurance fails, in order to continue on with his integrity, he needs something greater than himself. And this something greater is spiritual power.
When we desire to display a higher level of faith, wisdom, trust and hope, we would think that the collapse of our natural endowments would spell defeat for us. But not so when we seek the Father’’s will. When our self-righteous efforts collapse, we have merely opened the door for divine righteousness to come in, with its endless supply of hope, faith, and trust and goodwill. When we give it our all, then do we qualify for the Father to give his all. When we are weak, He is strong. In weakness are we made strong, for we cease to resist His will. When we are hooked up to the power of the Father, our natural selves feel weak, for we have exhausted our self sufficiency and are now operating with divine sufficiency. At the point, we can truly say, "not my will but your will be done," for that is all we can say if we have truly exhausted purely human resources for adjustment.
And all of this requires faith, trust, and hope for the effective functioning of this partnership where we agree to allow the Father’’s power to flow through us without the blocking effect of our self-righteous efforts. As this power flows through us, it transforms us into the image of His Son, Jesus, where we rely exclusively upon the Father in moral and spiritual issues. Our emotions may rage, but they are powerless to defeat our wholehearted desire to abide by the Father’’s will and to receive the compensations of love.
This concludes today's message on the compensations of love. We hope you find something in this message to ponder and pray about as you go about your day.
Until next time, this is Dr. James Perry.
Your Kingdom Come; Your Will Be Done!
Inspirations Messages of Love
By Dr. James Perry
The Compensations of Love
