Spots In Your Love Feast

By John Stallings


If you saw the movie, “Throw mamma from the train” you’ll remember Billy Crystal’s character not only taught writing but was an aspiring writer himself, & at present was having a problem with writers-block. This premise was amusing & I could relate to Crystal’s problem.

Writing has been one of the most humbling things I’ve ever attempted. If you read this blog much you’ll know that I make lots of mistakes though I try, I really try to get it right.

As a matter of fact, just before I started writing this piece, I went to my last posting, read it through & found a mistake. It was the kind of mistake spell-check can’t help with. I quickly changed it but many had already read it. A few more typos may still be lurking.

The big problem I have with that is; the post has been up several days & I had already proofed the article several times. [Wow.] That exasperates me, but it seems even when I do the best I can [& believe me I put my best effort into every message] I often come up short.

HEY JUDE!

Jude, a brother of Jesus seemed to have no such problem. He was a magnificent writer. He had a way with words, & was especially the master of metaphor. He doesn’t just tell you something, he paints a word picture. I wish I could have heard him preach.

Jude must have looked a lot like Jesus because Mary & Joseph were also his parents. Maybe he even sounded something like Jesus when he spoke. The same Galilean accent; the same mannerisms. Jesus drew word pictures with parables. Jude did it with short phrases that were rich in texture & in meaning.

In verses 12-13, Jude says some very interesting things.


JUDE CONTRASTS “AUTHENTIC CHRISTIANITY” WITH “SYNTHETIC CHRISTIANITY.”

If you were to ask the average Christian today what a church meeting was like in the days of the apostles, you’d probably get difference answers. A Charismatic person would feel that the early church service consisted of singing & preaching & the exercise of the gifts of the Spirit, & they’d be partially correct.

Many other people would no doubt believe the early church services were mostly a celebration, featuring the Lord’s Supper & the symbolic elements of bread & wine. They also would be partially right.

This may shock you but a dominate part of the worship of those early Christians was centered around a meal! That’s right—a meal!

The early Christians referred to this meal as the “agape meal” or love feast. What happened to this meal? Well; it fell through the cracks over time for various & sundry reasons.

Jude explains that counterfeit Christians had infiltrated his church. First he says; These are spots in your love feasts, while they feast with you without fear, serving only themselves.

What is Jude talking about here? What does…spots in your love feast… mean?

The love feast would be equivalent to our covered dish suppers. They would combine these meals with The Lord’s Supper. The early church didn’t just meet for an hour or so, they got together & worshipped & ate together. They called these “Love feasts” because they were characterized by Christian fellowship & love.

The problem with these love feasts was that some who came didn’t exhibit love. Sound familiar? These people came in their sin, with raunchy attitudes, with no intention of repenting thereby spurning the gracious love of God.

Paul was dealing with these types when he talked to the Corinthians. He talks to them about the divisions & factions that were destroying the unity of the church. With Paul & with Jude, people were actually coming to the love feast early & eating all the food. So when the late folk came after long days of work there was no food left. The early-birds had stuffed themselves with food & wine & some were lying around “three sheets in the wind.”

In Jude’s church there were “spots in your love feast…serving only themselves.

Christianity has two distinct groups; those who are authentic & serve God, & those who are synthetic & serve only themselves.

HAVE YOU EVER HEAR ANYONE SAY- “I STOPPED GOING TO CHURCH BECAUSE I WASN’T GETTING ANYTHING OUT OF IT?”

Certainly a church should be a feeding station where we can get our souls fed. But there’s a fine line between- “I wasn’t getting anything out of it,” & “I go where I can get the most for my money.” Or “I’m looking for the best show in town.” The bottom line is; True Christianity is about true love. Everything else is just the surface appearance of Christianity.

Listen to Pastor James;

Pure religion & undefiled before God & the Father is this, to visit the fatherless & widows in their affliction & to keep himself UNSPOTTED from the world.—James 1:27.

Have you ever considered that a church service is a lot like the old schools sixty or seventy years ago, when one classroom had grades one through twelve? I don’t know how those teachers did it because they had to see to it that each of those grade-levels were challenged & taught helpful lessons.

When a church meets, the same thing is happening on a spiritual level. The pastors & teachers have to literally have something for everybody. One of the old time preachers put it this way; “There are spiritual Giraffes & spiritual Chihuahuas in every service.” This makes it a little difficult for ministry & without the Holy Spirit taking the things of God & revealing them to the people, nothing much would happen.

The next time you go to church, & you aren’t getting what you feel you need, & you feel the message is above your head, think about this; maybe God is looking out for the spiritual Giraffes that day. Or if you feel the Word is too elementary, maybe God is feeding the spiritual Chihuahuas that service.

Jude uses other metaphors to describe these folk who are serving self only but I want to stick with the love metaphor here.
There are several different kinds of love. There’s romantic love, family love, brotherly love & Agape love.

AGAPE LOVE

John uses agape love in 1 John 4:7-11;

Beloved let us love one another; for love is of God and every one that loveth is born of God, and knoweth God.
He that loveth not knoweth not God for God is love. In this was manifest the love of God toward us because that God sent His only begotten son into the world that we might live through Him……beloved if God so loved us we ought also to love one another.

John does a great job here of teaching us about agape love. He tells us that as Christians we should be exhibiting agape love. He tells us where Agape love comes from; he tells us what it looks like & shows us if we have this kind of love we’ll be a blessing to others.

But here’s the kicker; you & I aren’t actually capable of this kind of love. It isn’t going to happen. That is- in our own strength. We can’t love like that. As humans we’re just incapable. So in short John is asking us to do something we can’t do. You don’t have agape love & I don’t have agape love. We can produce family love & brotherly love & romantic love but we can’t produce agape love. It’s beyond humans to have sacrificial, God-like agape love.

The Beatles sang—All you need is love…& then they broke up. So how are we to fulfill this mandate to love—agape—others? John tells us that if we are born of God we know Him. That means to intimately know Him. If you & I are true believers who’ve committed our lives to Christ, then we know God.

AGAPE LOVE IS BEYOND OUR PAY GRADE

Do you remember the “pot-bellied” craze a few years ago when people were spending hundreds of dollars to own one of those exotic house pets imported from Vietnam? Well, this craze started when breeders of these particular animals claimed that these mini-pigs were very smart & that they would only grow to a weight of 40 lbs. For some reason people loved the idea of a smart mini-pig running around the house because thousands of these pigs were sold.

Well it turned out the breeders were only half-right. The pigs were smart. Some could even be trained to walk on leashes & use litter boxes. But they often grew to be as much as 150 lbs or more! I heard of one that grew to weigh 250 lbs & when the truth came out, as the pigs grew older they could become openly aggressive-not at all pet-like.

So what did the people do with their unwanted pot-bellied pigs? Fortunately, according to U.S News & World Report, a man named Dale Riffle came to the rescue. Dale was given a pig as a gift & he fell in love with it—even though it never learned to use its litter-box & developed a tendency to eat carpet, wall paper, & dry wall.

Dale loved his pig so much that he sold his suburban home & moved with his pig to a 5-acre farm in West Virginia…& then he started taking in unwanted pigs. Before long the guy was living in “Hog heaven.” When the article was written Dale had 180 pig residents on his farm enjoying a luxurious lifestyle! The little porkers snooze on a bed of pine shavings & wallow in mud puddles. They wait in line for one of Dale’s belly-rubs. These little rascals never fear that they’ll someday become bacon or pork chops. Not surprising, there’s a waiting list for unwanted pigs to get a hoof in the door at Dale’s ranch. At last report none of the pigs had ever had lipstick put on them which is comforting to know. In Dales’ own words; “We’re all put on earth for some reason & I guess pigs are my lot in life.”

It seems strange to me that anyone would fall so in love with pigs, especially if they were in their right mind.

But let’s be frank; isn’t it even more amazing that a perfectly holy God is passionately in love with we who are so imperfect, so openly rebellious & frequently indifferent?

Listen to the way God describes & paints the human race in Romans 3:10-17;

There is no one righteous, not even one; there is no one who understands, no one who seeks God. All have turned away; they have together become worthless; there is no one who does good, not even one. Their throats are open graves; their tongues practice deceit. The poison of vipers is on their lips. Their mouths are full of cursing & bitterness. Their feet are swift to shed blood; ruin & misery mark their ways & the way of peace they do not know.

All of us are flawed because of sin but God loves us anyway. Isaiah says our goodness is like filthy rages compared to a holy God.

1 John 3:1 says;-How great is the love the Father has lavished on us, that we should be called children of God!

Friend, you & I are utterly unable to generate agape in ourselves. The only way that happens is to be regenerated & born again. When we’re born again, then we have the ability to have this agape love because then we know Christ in an intimate way. Turn it around & it sounds like this; if we don’t have agape love it’s because we don’t know God.

John tells us- if we don’t have this agape, sacrificial love, then we don’t know God. Let me put it in question form; how can we have “the God kind of love, & love others in the way God loves us, if we don’t know God?

How can I do calculus if I don’t know calculus?
How can I speak Portuguese if I don’t know Portuguese?
How can I fly a plane if I don’t know how to fly?
How can I have agape love if I don’t know God who is the essence of that love?

If I don’t know God then agape love isn’t within my personal universe.
An individual can’t be an agape-loving -person unless they’ve been taken hold of by God & transformed into a loving person. That clears up a lot of things doesn’t it? Have you ever wondered why someone had no love? There’s’ your answer. They don’t know God, thus they can’t have agape love. John doesn’t go into detail about how this happens he just let’s us Know it’s a “God thing” & when we get straightened out with God this loves just comes. John can’t explain it & I certainly can’t because it boggles the human mind. All we know is when we know God He works in us in such a way that we can agape like He agapes. And when this love comes to us, it won’t come as a philosophy, it will come as a force, a living, practical force that we are to live out day by day.

If Jesus said “I feel for you” that would be Sensitivity.
If Jesus said “your sin is illogical” that would be Rational.
If Jesus said “Only bad people sin,” that would be Judgmental.
If Jesus said “Tell me about your problems” that would be Therapy.
If Jesus said “You should have seen it coming” that would be Pity.
If Jesus said, “Relax & try not to think about your failures” that would be Meditative.
If Jesus said “Don’t worry about your sins, things will get better” that would have been blind Optimism.

But Jesus said, “Take my hand & let me pull you out of your sin & forgive you. That’s Agape Love!

HERE’S ANOTHER SURPRISE…

If you looked at John’s language structure in this passage, it would be logical for him to say this; - “since God has loved us with this agape love, then we ought to love Him.” But John doesn’t say that. He says,--Since God loves us with agape love, then we should love one another with agape love. God’s agape is what enables us to agape.

The more you & I experience God & walk with him in intimate fellowship, the greater our ability to agape others. The more of God I have the more agape I will have with which to love others. So what I want to do is experience God as much & as closely as possible, because that’s where I get my power to agape love people. How do I build up my agape love level? I experience God. How do I experience God? By spending more time in His presence. What kinds of things bring me into this intimate fellowship with God? Worship, prayer, Bible study & quite time so that I can take on more of the reflection of God.

Friend, I want to encourage you, if you’re not already doing it, to add a time of quiet each day with God. Over the years I’ve found that this time of closeness where I can press into God & listen to Him as He speaks, has been perhaps the most healing thing in my life. I have found that this & only this gives me a growing ability to love that I just don’t naturally possess.

In verse 12, John says God’s love is perfected or completed in us.

Do you have a sense of emptiness in any area of your life? Is there something that eats at you or something that’s missing & you just cant put your finger on it? In time, as you draw nearer & nearer to God, He’ll make those things that are stressing you now irrelevant. He’ll take the things that seem to be missing & make them inapplicable. How? In the ever increasing experience of the agape love of God, all things pale in comparison.

Here is what God envisions for you & me;

….That He might present to Himself a glorious church, without SPOT or wrinkle or any such things; but that it should be holy & without blemish.


Blessings,

John