SoLo Lives! Ministry

Sound doctrine should be the solid foundation on which our decisions are based. It is highly important, therefore, that we submit to the authority of the Bible. It’s so easy to be swayed by false doctrine taught by false teachers. 1John 4:1 urges us to be discerning: “Beloved, do not believe every spirit, but test the spirits to see whether they are from God; because many false prophets have gone out into the world.” The following are some ways to help us determine whether what we hear or read is really from God:

1. See if the teachings match God’s truth in the Bible. An example to follow is what the Berean believers did. In Acts 17:11: “Now these were more noble-minded than those in Thessalonica, for they received the word with great eagerness, examining the Scriptures daily, to see whether these things were so.” If the teachings are not in sync with the Bible, then do not believe them.

2. Check the following to determine whether they are true or false prophets: 

• Their commitment to the body of believers. Do they belong to a church or a group to which they are spiritually accountable?  
• Their lifestyle. Are they leading godly lives? Are their families in order? Do they practice what they preach?
• The fruit of their ministry. Are lives blessed and transformed as they minister to others? Do people turn to God as a result? If people are pulled away from God, then they really are against God.

3. Verify what they believe about Jesus Christ. “…and every spirit that does not confess Jesus is not from God; and this is the spirit of the antichrist, of which you have heard that it is coming, and now it is already in the world” (1 John 4:3). This should unmask the wolves that come in sheep’s clothing peddling errors that throw many into confusion. Unless we’re grounded on the truth, we can step right into their snares. Jesus Christ is the Creator and not a created being as those who try to diminish His deity would say. During the time of creation, He was with God. He is 100% God and 100% man; not half-God, half-man. Though He became man, He was absolutely sinless.  Jesus is THE ONLY WAY to the Father, and therefore the only Mediator between God and man. Being so, He is the only Savior of man. As the Son of God, He was not merely adopted by God as His Son after His baptism. Being equal with God, He is not of any lesser rank or power and might than God. Jesus Christ – the Way, the Truth and the Life, is also Love. True believers of Christ will not only follow Him in truth, but also in love. 

Love is not something to be defined; it is a decision. The decision to love or not confronts us as we relate with people everyday. We can choose to love without the benefit of emotions. Our love is to be:

a. Agape. “Agape” may sound Greek, and it is, but it should not intimidate us. For it is this love, sacrificial and unconditional, that has drawn us, even in our unlovely, sinful state into God’s embrace. Christ, the sinless One, took upon Himself the punishment for our sins on the Cross. Dying to self, giving up our rights in favor of another is to love like Christ. “Beloved, let us love one another, for love is from God; and everyone who loves is born of God and knows God. The one who does not love does not know God, for God is love. By this the love of God was manifested in us, that God has sent His only begotten Son into the world so that we might live through Him. In this is love, not that we loved God, but that He loved us and sent His Son to be the propitiation for our sins. Beloved, if God so loved us, we also ought to love one another” (1 John 4:7-11).

Pearls are gems of beauty, but how they are formed should make us appreciate them more. Irritants such as parasites intrude into the oyster’s shell and chafe the oyster. It is this irritation that causes the oyster to secrete enzymes to protect itself. The enzymes coat the irritant in a film, which in time, forms into a mass that we know as the pearl.

When people make life difficult for us, agape love should lead us to prayer to persevere to love. Are we willing to sacrifice our time, comfort, and feelings to love those who are irritating, annoying, infuriating, and aggravating, and accept their idiosyncrasies? 

b. Abiding. This is a picture of being connected and remaining connected to the Source of love. Wherever God takes us, we go. Whatever we do, we do with God. “I am the vine, you are the branches; he who abides in Me, and I in him, he bears much fruit; for apart from Me you can do nothing” (John 15:5). On our own, we cannot produce agape love, but with God, we can. When we receive Christ, He, the God of love, takes up residence in our hearts and comes to abide in our lives through His Spirit. “…the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness” (Galatians 5:22).

While God does His abiding part, we have our abiding part to do. When we diligently get into the spiritual disciplines of prayer, quiet time, Bible study/reading, fellowship, accountability, discipleship, worship, and obeying His will, we are taking our part seriously. A graphic way to prove this point is through a magnet. God’s agape love draws us to Him, and when we stick close to Him, we gradually transform into His image, just as a piece of metal becomes magnetized when it comes into contact with a magnet. In due time, His agape love, as part of the fruit of the Spirit, begins to grow in us, and this gets absorbed by the people around us. Our love for others is the manifest presence of God in our lives. The love of God that draws us to Him is the same love that will draw others to us, which ultimately attracts others to Christ like a magnet. “No one has beheld God at any time; if we love one another, God abides in us, and His love is perfected in us. By this we know that we abide in Him and He in us, because He has given us of His Spirit. And we have beheld and bear witness that the Father has sent the Son to be the Savior of the world. Whoever confesses that Jesus is the Son of God, God abides in him, and he in God. And we have come to know and have believed the love which God has for us. God is love, and the one who abides in love abides in God, and God abides in him” (1 John 4:12-16).

c. Active. Love is not love until it is given away. For us to love, it has to be in the active mode. What words can we say, and what act can we perform to express love outwardly? How can we show more importance to other people than ourselves, and look after the interests of others rather than our own? 

What could help to change our aversion towards an obnoxious individual is to see the person with the eyes of Christ. Could it be that a person is proud because he/she had been rejected in the past, and he/she has put up a protective barrier? Could it be that the irresponsible employee is simply longing for attention, which his/her family deprived him/her of? Could someone’s resistance to the Gospel be because he/she has suffered a great loss and is blaming God? Only love can break down defensive walls and melt hearts of stone.

If love were to be defined, it’s a decision to make sacrifices in order to seek the good of the other person, all because we know and have received the agape love of God in our lives. “We love, because He first loved us. If someone says, ‘I love God,’ and hates his brother, he is a liar; for the one who does not love his brother whom he has seen, cannot love God whom he has not seen. And this commandment we have from Him, that the one who loves God should love his brother also” (1 John 4:19-21). For love to prosper, we have to move from definition to decision. And from the point of decision, love has to be set into motion to make a difference in a person’s life until it creates the kinetic energy to make the world revolve in the spirit of love. The decision to love is an acknowledgment that life is not about us, but about living for God. Have we made the decision to love with an agape, abiding and active love?