[Day 1] Foreword and the Comparison Between Divine Love and Human Love
After you learn that it is an evil, adulterous, crooked and perverted generation that we are in the midst of, you will not be fashioned according to this age. Instead, you will be separated from this age, without being defiled and corrupted. Nowadays, we are concerned about where our children will be after this age. In the coming dispensation of the kingdom, will they be in the kingdom or will they be in the lake of fire? Therefore, we must be enlightened with the light of the coming back of the Lord to reconsider the goal of our parenting. First of all, we need to make our children seeds of the gospel so that the gospel of the kingdom will be proclaimed throughout all the inhabited earth. Secondly, we need to make our children first fruit for God, so that they could be raptured alive before the Lord’s coming back without going through the great tribulation, following God and the Lamb, and reigning with the Lord for one thousand years. Thirdly, we need to make our children the good material for the building up of the Body of Christ and the preparation of the Bride.
In order to reach our goal, we need to build a loving relationship with our children today, which is not merely human love, but human love mingled with divine love. As we have already believed into the Lord Jesus, we have received the love of God into us. So there is not only the human love or the natural love in us, but the divine love, the human love mingled with the divine love is also in us. This love is far more than human love. It is much richer, much higher and much more sanctified.
From the Bible and our own experience, we can find seven characteristics of the love of God.
- The love of God is never changing. It is eternal in time, space and power.
- The love of God is unlimited and immeasurable. It is as deep as the ocean and it is inexhaustible.
- The love of God is self-denial and self-sacrifice, which far exceeds the self-denial and sacrifice of man. Romans 5 said, “For scarcely for a righteous man will anyone die, though perhaps for the good man someone would even dare to die. But God commends His own love to us in that while we were yet sinners, Christ died for us.” This is the love of the Lord that is self-denying and self-sacrificing.
- The love of God is loving the unlovable, sinners, and even enemies (Matthew 5:43-44). We usually love the ones who are good and lovable, but the Lord Jesus loves sinners and enemies. When we were still His enemies, He died for the ungodly, and reconciled us to God (Romans 5:10). What a knowledge-surpassing love!(Ephesians 3:19).
- The love of God is a kind of flowing love, a dispensing love. Romans 5:5 says, “And hope does not put us to shame, because the love of God has been poured out in our hearts through the Holy Spirit, who has been given to us.” If we have already received this love that is flowing and dispensed from God, it is necessary for us to flow and dispense this love to other people too.
- God’s love can be spread widely, endlessly, and far away, so that we can love each other (1 John 4:7). Therefore, we can establish a two-way loving relationship with our children. Not only the parents love their children unilaterally, but the children can also love their parents and others. This is the divine love mingled with human nature. It is a healthy, perfect, and joyful love.
God’s love has been poured into our hearts through the Holy Spirit. At the same time, life, light, joy, peace, rest, truth, etc., are also poured and distributed into us. These are the characteristics of divine love.
We compare human love with divine love. Although the maternal love of human is real, warm, selfless, and self-sacrificing, it is short-lived and limited by the lifetime. Moreover, it is limited, restricted by time, space, capacity, and ability. When a child is young, parents can provide what the child eats, wears, and uses; but when the child grows up, most of the psychological, spiritual, and inner needs of the child are beyond the parents’ ability. Only God can provide and satisfy man’s needs. Furthermore, although maternal love is self-denying and great, it is changeable and lacking strength and ability. Therefore, the love of man is definitely not able to prevail against the destruction and attack on children by the evil generation today.
