A More Excellent Way
/By Oscar M. Baker
“Yet show I unto you a more excellent way.”
Our Lord loved people, and what did He do about it? Why, His whole lifetime here upon the earth was helping people, teaching them, healing their diseases, bringing the dead to life, and so on. That was love all the way through. It is not sitting down somewhere in seclusion, or out on a mountain top somewhere, like Buddha, and doing nothing. But you see that's somewhat of the old nature in man, just sit and do nothing.
Love is a way of life! Man can walk in love, can walk in the energy of God's love, and that's much more wonderful than any walk you can think of. Love is conformity with the very nature of God since He is love. And so it just seems to me that no man has ever been saved (as we say) because he was scared or afraid. There has to be this love somewhere. When man is in sin and realizes that Christ died for him and loved him, that will break him quicker than anything else you can do. You punish him, and that only brings back hatred and rebellion. You can threaten him, and he will harden himself. Somehow love melts people. And maybe it would be a good idea to practice it a little bit. And so love can be a way of life, walking in godly love, walking with God. Because that's the very nature of God Himself. If there were going to be a God-likeness in the believer, it would have to have love as the supreme power. So this walk with God is much more to be desired than anything else. Love, as I said, is conformity with the very nature of God. It's the expression of what God is. Now think of all the people you know, and can you pick out a few that seem to show forth this thing that we're talking about? Have you seen people with a shine on their face, and with love in their hearts, and putting others first instead of themselves? You see, love acts in benevolence to others, good will to others, the opposite of selfishness. This love has its source within. A lot of outward things you can put on, but this inward thing is a part of one's life. Paul expressed this in Gal. 2:20. "I am crucified with Christ: nevertheless I live; yet not I, but Christ liveth in me: and the life which I now live in the flesh I live by the faith of the Son of God, Who loved me, and gave Himself for me." No wonder Paul expressed love as Christ living in him, or God living in him.
What can you find in the entire world that's stronger than love? Love teaches us patience. The reason is that it works according to its own nature. Love is its own motive, not of something else.
And, so, love can bless men in circumstances which usually produce irritation, jealousy, or hate. It can work there! Under such circumstances as the Lord was in, being murdered by His own countrymen the Jews, yet He prayed that the Father should forgive them for they didn't know what they were doing. That's love! Now if a man is destitute of the divine nature of love, he's a stranger to God, and to grace.
(Excerpt from TFT tape, 10-11-83, UNITY OF THE SPIRIT, PART II.)
