Characteristics of Love: Love makes good impression
1 Peter 5:14(NLT) Greet each other with a kiss of love. Peace be with all of you who are in Christ.
1 Peter 5:14(GNS) Greet one another with the kiss of Christian love. May peace be with all of you who belong to Christ.
Introduction: Glory be to God Almighty for the privilege to see another week of Speaking Scriptures.
🙏 His Grace will not be frustrated in our lives and homes in Jesus name.
In continuation of characteristics of God’s love which is at variance to valentine or worldly love, we are looking at the 9th characteristic: Love makes good impression.
Your Impression of someone is what you think he/she is.
🛑 Charity or love begins at home, what Impression do you have concerning your spouse before you marry and now?
Impression can be good before marriage for whatever reasons and be made bad after marriage also for whatever reason.
Some had good impression based on beauty and favour that they expected to come after marriage. This good impression ends badly because the so called good impression is made out of vanity common to worldly love that ends in divorce or disaster.
Proverbs 31:30 Favour is deceitful, and beauty is vain: but a woman that feareth the Lord, she shall be praised.
If the good impression is borne out of Godly fear, then praise shall not be absent in that marriage and will end blissfully.
Some had good impression based on materialism before marriage and thereafter, marriage turned badly when things go wrong at night time or stormy period which must surely come.
Proverbs 23:5 Wilt thou set thine eyes upon that which is not? for riches certainly make themselves wings; they fly away as an eagle toward heaven.
Setting eyes on uncertain riches to make good impression in relationship ends in sorrow because a Wealthy person without Christ ends in sorrow with scattered marital relationship. Remember the rich young ruler who could not leave his wealth to follow Jesus.
Luke 18:24 And when Jesus saw that he was very sorrowful, he said, How hardly shall they that have riches enter into the kingdom of God!
If good impression is based on the living God who gives without adding sorrow, then that marriage will weather any storms of life and ends up with marital bliss.
1 Timothy 6:17 Charge them that are rich in this world, that they be not highminded, nor trust in uncertain riches, but in the living God, who giveth us richly all things to enjoy;
1 Timothy 6:17(NLT) Teach those who are rich in this world not to be proud and not to trust in their money, which is so unreliable. Their trust should be in God, who richly gives us all we need for our enjoyment.
My wife told me about her classmates that tried to make her abandon her relationship with me and go out with ready-made bachelors and Wealthy men rather than poor student like me with uncertain future. I know one of them who was the ring leader of those who followed the rich and mighty then, She is still unmarried at almost sixty now. God remains faithful to those who form good impression based on the knowledge of Him.
Our text this week from Goodnews version says; Greet one another with the kiss of Christian love. May peace be with all of you who belong to Christ.
Kiss is an indication of affection, sexual desire, greetings or saying goodbye in certain culture.
For example, the early apostles and Christians with kissing as culture for greetings knew it as Holy kiss.
Romans 16:16 Salute one another with an holy kiss. The churches of Christ salute you.
1 Corinthians 16:20 All the brethren greet you. Greet ye one another with an holy kiss.
2 Corinthians 13:12 Greet one another with an holy kiss.
Based on our culture, as Christian couples, kiss can be in form of; affection, sexual desire or greetings and it is still holy. Our culture does not kiss everyone as a form of greetings, it is a borrowed culture. Even those with kissing as cultural greetings know it can be unholy when flesh takes over. That was why the apostles of old qualified the kissing among brethren as “holy kiss”.
Therefore, to avoid story that touches the heart, let kissing be only to your spouse, which qualifies it to be Holy in anyway and greet others according to our known culture even when you are categorised as uncivilised or Bush person, it is Devil’s strategy to entice Christians into immorality.
🛑 Now, when relationship is based on wrong impression, such as beauty and materialism as earlier mentioned, betrayal of Love is inevitable. Judas betrayed Jesus for materialism. He didn’t touch the money but hung himself.
Matthew 26:48 Now he that betrayed him gave them a sign, saying, Whomsoever I shall kiss, that same is he: hold him fast.
We have heard and seen spouses that caused pain or even death of their husbands and wives with a kiss. That marital relationship can never be based on God’s kind of Love ab initio but on worldly love.
Luke 22:48 But Jesus said unto him, Judas, betrayest thou the Son of man with a kiss?
🛑 Let us begin to examine ourselves and disallow circumstances of this present world to affect good impression we had when we said “I do” before God and man during marital vows.
❓ What practical steps are we to take as we walk in love this week?
Think of a specific way you’d like to greet your spouse this week. Do it with a smile and with enthusiasm. Then determine to change your greeting to reflect your love at all times.
✍ Finally brethren, let there be reminiscence of good old days of courtship with good impressions that led to marriage and ask God for new wine into your new life in Christ and NOT new wine into old ways of living to avoid breaking and wastage of marital bliss. As new creature in Christ, you cannot continue to live in old ways, such as hanging out with unbelieving friends, that is new wine in old bottle which will burst or explode.
Matthew 9:17 Neither do men put new wine into old bottles: else the bottles break, and the wine runneth out, and the bottles perish: but they put new wine into new bottles, and both are preserved.
✋ Maranatha
