I had begun my reading in Proverbs one morning with revisiting where I had left off the previous day intending to continue on, but was so stilled by one verse – or rather, “arrested” on the reasonable suspicion of my need of correction! The verse was Proverbs 10:12:
Hatred stirs up strife,
But love covers all sins.
It was those two words: ‘love covers.’
It didn’t take long for it to dawn upon me that there was something here for me to glean, that this truth might sink inwards more deeply and assist with dealing with what was wrong within, hindering my way in faith’s journey in Lord Yeshua. The verse had even been underlined on a previous reading and annotated with the cross-references of 1 Peter 4:8 and Proverbs 17:9. These teach: ‘And above all things have fervent love for one another, for “love will cover a multitude of sins” (1 Peter 4:8); and ‘He who covers a transgression seeks love, But he who repeats a matter separates friends’ (Proverbs 17:9).
Clearly, we all struggle at times with God’s commandment to love others and it may not always be easy to accept that the lack thereof may be what lies at the heart of a trying and difficult issue or relationship. We experience this struggle in a variety of settings including within family (especially!), church family (frequently!), work colleagues (unhappily!), neighbours (vexingly!) etc. We all know ‘the plague in our own heart’ (1 Kings 8:38) and I am certainly no exception to that! The Proverbs Scripture stirred my conscience of such things on that day, bringing with it a distinct sense of knowing I could not carry on like this in a particular matter in the Lord – and I was really troubled by it. As though as a timely self-enquiry prompt, I wondered, ‘if I do these things when the woods are green, how will I do when the woods are dry!’ (note Luke 23:31).
Unsurprisingly perhaps, I turned to 1 Corinthians 13 shortly after and still pondering, went on to look this up in a bible commentary I find particularly useful in matters of living out The Faith of Lord Yeshua. Well, my eyes were certainly opened to things not really considered before! Having thus had the mirror of the truth of God’s word placed squarely before my eyes – the only sensible response was to seek grace to help to deal with what I was enabled to see. At that time, the need for more of God’s grace to enable me to grow in this love, in Lord Yeshua through the Spirit of God’s inward work, was clear. The reminder was needful! It is God’s grace indeed that enables us to acknowledge those heart attitudes contradictory to God’s love as commanded; His grace that shows us our need for pardon and cleansing from sins, transgressions and iniquities in not obeying the commandment of God to love in this way; His grace that points out the grieving of the Holy Spirit and alerts us to the possibility of quenching His work in us if the ungodly attitude is continued in heedlessly; His grace that can teach us the ‘how to’ concerning the love which covers ‘a multitude of sins’ – and discerning of God’s own boundaries which He sets to this commandment! How great then is our need of the grace of God – especially in these ‘perilous times’ we live in (2 Timothy 3:1-5). My ‘lesson’ just then was the necessity of God’s grace to help me see my need.
A few months later another opportune time came for a deepening of and working out of this ‘light’ from the Lord, and with it a “break-through moment” of help in learning more of the ‘how to’ obey His word to love in this way. This thought came to mind – with crystal clarity: that, at the very time I’m seeking the mercy of God for help to overcome very real struggles with fleshly/ungodly heart attitudes, someone else is probably asking for grace to help them bear with me until the Lord transforms me. The point of that clarity was sharp and effectual! When it is my turn to ask grace to help me bear with another, I was to remember the mercy extended to me by God, through the prayers of others at a time I was in the flesh and hard work for others! The enabling grace which showed me more of ‘how to’ live it out came however during my Gospel reading of John 13:1-17:
Now before the Feast of the Passover, when Jesus knew that His hour had come that He should depart from this world to the Father, having loved His own who were in the world, He loved them to the end. 2 And supper being ended, the devil having already put it into the heart of Judas Iscariot, Simon’s son, to betray Him, 3 Jesus, knowing that the Father had given all things into His hands, and that He had come from God and was going to God, 4 rose from supper and laid aside His garments, took a towel and girded Himself. 5 After that, He poured water into a basin and began to wash the disciples’ feet, and to wipe them with the towel with which He was girded. 6 Then He came to Simon Peter. And Peter said to Him, “Lord, are You washing my feet?”
7 Jesus answered and said to him, “What I am doing you do not understand now, but you will know after this.” 8 Peter said to Him, “You shall never wash my feet!” Jesus answered him, “If I do not wash you, you have no part with Me.” 9 Simon Peter said to Him, “Lord, not my feet only, but also my hands and my head!” 10 Jesus said to him, “He who is bathed needs only to wash his feet, but is completely clean; and you are clean, but not all of you.” 11 For He knew who would betray Him; therefore He said, “You are not all clean.”
12 So when He had washed their feet, taken His garments, and sat down again, He said to them, “Do you know what I have done to you? 13 You call Me Teacher and Lord, and you say well, for so I am. 14 If I then, your Lord and Teacher, have washed your feet, you also ought to wash one another’s feet. 15 For I have given you an example, that you should do as I have done to you. 16 Most assuredly, I say to you, a servant is not greater than his master; nor is he who is sent greater than he who sent him. 17 If you know these things, blessed are you if you do them.
My pondering led to some deep thoughts, wondering how could I do something like what the Lord had done – wash the feet of someone you know has betrayed you and will do even more betraying? How do you really love like that? How do you love those you know in your heart you dislike? How do you get that darkness out of your heart – which, for me, was being opened up before my eyes as I read meditatively through the passage? The conviction which comes in knowing that you have not obeyed the Lord’s command to love as you ought – or even at all at times – is acute! However, the grace of God is such that even as I read and re-read John 13:12-17 in particular, its truth was being enabled to enter in as instruction, as correction and as light to dislodge the darkness it had revealed in my heart.
This was my ‘how to’. It was being shown in a deeper way, that as God in and through Lord Yeshua the Messiah has done to me, so I should do to others. As God has given me forgiveness, so I should extend that forgiveness to others; as He has been patient to me; so I should extend that patience to others; as He has been gracious to me, so I should extend that graciousness to others; as He has loved me and made His love cover me, so I should extend that love – which also covers – to others. And so forth and so forth.
The ‘seal’ of the Lord’s work of grace continued to flow later still in another Gospel reading, this time in Matthew 6:43-48:
“You have heard that it was said, ‘You shall love your neighbour and hate your enemy.’ But I say to you, love your enemies, bless those who curse you, do good to those who hate you, and pray for those who spitefully use you and persecute you, that you may be sons of your Father in heaven; for He makes His sun rise on the evil and on the good, and sends rain on the just and on the unjust. For if you love those who love you, what reward have you? Do not even the tax collectors do the same? 47 And if you greet your brethren only, what do you do more than others? Do not even the tax collectors do so? 48 Therefore you shall be perfect, just as your Father in heaven is perfect.
That ‘seal’ is the powerful motivation provided in the Lord’s word here, ‘that you may be sons of your Father in heaven’. Is that not what we desire? To live up to that which God in His mercy has called us to be, by His grace through faith in His Son, Lord Yeshua? When it is tough, when it is a thankless task, when it is abused and misused, when you know it is unreciprocated, unnoticed, even unwanted – God’s grace can enable us through the supply of the Holy Spirit to obey, to follow Lord Yeshua, to walk in the light and in the victory of Yeshua the Messiah.
For me, this was not an “arrival point”, and though perhaps not quite a beginning point by the mercies of God, it was nevertheless a needful help along the way.
Quite often, it is not that we do not know these things, which seem pretty straightforward at first when you read such Scriptures but if we are honest, there are some situations which – even for a moment – have us stumped in how to walk in the love of God in it. Or indeed, to even want to!
Praise, thanksgiving and all the glory be to Almighty God for His marvellous mercies and grace in His Son, Lord Yeshua the Messiah, for through the power of His Spirit and word, He rescues us from ‘self’ and covers us with His love.
Until He comes or calls,
Shalom and God bless you.
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