Love Is A Commandment
Love is a commandment. We’re talking about the Love that God has, is a commandment for us to operate in. The God-kind of Love is not something we wait for feelings to indicate. It has nothing to do with feelings. It is a decision we make to love someone, regardless of our feelings or what we may want to do in our flesh.
In Matthew 22:37-40 when the lawyer asked Jesus what the great commandment was, Jesus’ response was: You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, and with all your soul, and with all your mind. He was quoting Deuteronomy 6:4,5: Hear (Pay attention, sit up and take notice), the Lord your God is one Lord. And you shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, and with all your soul, and with all your might.
Why did Jesus come? And why was this God’s first commandment? And, of course, Jesus added that there is a second commandment like the first: Love your neighbor as yourself.
We are told many reasons in the Word of God why Jesus came. He came to set the captives free. He came to loosen, undo, dissolve, destroy the works of the devil. What is the greatest freedom? What are the works of the devil? The devil is the embodiment of hatred, which has its root in fear. Everything that comes from him is rooted in fear—sickness and disease, lack, poverty, doubt and unbelief, want, etc. So, the opposite of this is: Jesus is the embodiment of love which is rooted in faith and brings healing and health, abundance, believing, peace and joy, etc. This is the reason love is God’s commandment. Love brings all that is good and wonderful and makes us whole without any want, enjoying life to the max.
Love is not a little thing that is an option in our lives and is the romantic idea that we’ll live on love and nothing else. We literally do live on love and nothing else, but it is not the Hollywood interpretation of love or the romance novel’s interpretation. It is God’s interpretation. And His interpretation is that it is a commandment that you and I love God and everyone else, regardless of how we feel about it. I’m going to take a little side trip here, if you don’t mind. The reason so many Christian marriages are failing and ending in divorce is that we have embraced the world’s idea of love and marriage. When we base our relationship in marriage from the beginning on the covenant of God’s love, which builds a strong foundation for the storms that come, our marriages will last. There is a reason they will last-----the God-kind of Love never fails.
Since God is Love, then when we love (go back to 1 Corinthians 13, particularly in the Amplified Bible, to find out what His love looks like), we are allowing God, who is Love, to set us free from whatever bondages we are in. We allow God to release in our lives what He so desires to do. He desires to see us walking in victory and enjoying life. As we walk in Him, then we walk in His love and we walk in all that He is. That is a pretty awesome picture, if you ask me. So is it worth it? Of course it is.
If you have let your love life slip, go back to 1 Corinthians 13 and start meditating on it. The Christmas season is the perfect time to work on God’s Love. He knows we have so many opportunities to practice it from the tired sales clerk to the hurried shoppers who can be very rude sometimes to the impatient driver honking his horn at you to the family demanding certain things from you. Yes, it definitely is the time to practice God’s love.
It is one week until Christmas. Get out your 3x5 card and write on it the portion of 1 Corinthians 13 you are having trouble with. Carry it everywhere you go until you’ve got it and then carry it some more. You’ll know when you’ve got it. Believe me. I know. My portion is: Love is not touchy, fretful or resentful. Love pays no attention to a suffered wrong. How about you? What is the portion you are working on?
You see, we can do this. Why? Because the God kind of love is shed abroad in our hearts by the Holy Spirit (Rom. 5:5) and the Father told us through Jesus that the love wherewith He loves Jesus is in our hearts and that He loves us as much as He loves Jesus. It’s in there. What we have to do is to learn how to release His love on purpose into every situation we encounter. And the way to do that is to meditate on these portions of scripture until we can walk in love consistently.
Matt. 22:37-40; Rom. 5:5; John 17:23,26: 1 John 3:22,23; 1 John 4:8-11
In Matthew 22:37-40 when the lawyer asked Jesus what the great commandment was, Jesus’ response was: You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, and with all your soul, and with all your mind. He was quoting Deuteronomy 6:4,5: Hear (Pay attention, sit up and take notice), the Lord your God is one Lord. And you shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, and with all your soul, and with all your might.
Why did Jesus come? And why was this God’s first commandment? And, of course, Jesus added that there is a second commandment like the first: Love your neighbor as yourself.
We are told many reasons in the Word of God why Jesus came. He came to set the captives free. He came to loosen, undo, dissolve, destroy the works of the devil. What is the greatest freedom? What are the works of the devil? The devil is the embodiment of hatred, which has its root in fear. Everything that comes from him is rooted in fear—sickness and disease, lack, poverty, doubt and unbelief, want, etc. So, the opposite of this is: Jesus is the embodiment of love which is rooted in faith and brings healing and health, abundance, believing, peace and joy, etc. This is the reason love is God’s commandment. Love brings all that is good and wonderful and makes us whole without any want, enjoying life to the max.
Love is not a little thing that is an option in our lives and is the romantic idea that we’ll live on love and nothing else. We literally do live on love and nothing else, but it is not the Hollywood interpretation of love or the romance novel’s interpretation. It is God’s interpretation. And His interpretation is that it is a commandment that you and I love God and everyone else, regardless of how we feel about it. I’m going to take a little side trip here, if you don’t mind. The reason so many Christian marriages are failing and ending in divorce is that we have embraced the world’s idea of love and marriage. When we base our relationship in marriage from the beginning on the covenant of God’s love, which builds a strong foundation for the storms that come, our marriages will last. There is a reason they will last-----the God-kind of Love never fails.
Since God is Love, then when we love (go back to 1 Corinthians 13, particularly in the Amplified Bible, to find out what His love looks like), we are allowing God, who is Love, to set us free from whatever bondages we are in. We allow God to release in our lives what He so desires to do. He desires to see us walking in victory and enjoying life. As we walk in Him, then we walk in His love and we walk in all that He is. That is a pretty awesome picture, if you ask me. So is it worth it? Of course it is.
If you have let your love life slip, go back to 1 Corinthians 13 and start meditating on it. The Christmas season is the perfect time to work on God’s Love. He knows we have so many opportunities to practice it from the tired sales clerk to the hurried shoppers who can be very rude sometimes to the impatient driver honking his horn at you to the family demanding certain things from you. Yes, it definitely is the time to practice God’s love.
It is one week until Christmas. Get out your 3x5 card and write on it the portion of 1 Corinthians 13 you are having trouble with. Carry it everywhere you go until you’ve got it and then carry it some more. You’ll know when you’ve got it. Believe me. I know. My portion is: Love is not touchy, fretful or resentful. Love pays no attention to a suffered wrong. How about you? What is the portion you are working on?
You see, we can do this. Why? Because the God kind of love is shed abroad in our hearts by the Holy Spirit (Rom. 5:5) and the Father told us through Jesus that the love wherewith He loves Jesus is in our hearts and that He loves us as much as He loves Jesus. It’s in there. What we have to do is to learn how to release His love on purpose into every situation we encounter. And the way to do that is to meditate on these portions of scripture until we can walk in love consistently.
Matt. 22:37-40; Rom. 5:5; John 17:23,26: 1 John 3:22,23; 1 John 4:8-11
posted by Rev. Kialeen Potterton @ 6:54 AM
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