The Order To Love
I have been thinking much lately about Agape Love, the God-kind of Love. We say we love God and we say that we love one another. And yet when it comes to choosing to love one another when the other person is less than lovely, we back away. God’s love gives even when we don’t feel lovely toward someone or they are not lovely toward us.
God the Father set the example when He gave His only Son Jesus to die for us when we were selfish and unlovely sinners in this world. In Ephesians 2:4-8 we read that God Himself gave us the very life of Christ and placed us in fellowship with Himself when we were still dead in our sins. And he did this, He gave us the gift of salvation because of His intense love for us. He demonstrated His love for us by sending Jesus. He extended His love to us when we did nothing to deserve it.
In 1 John 3:18 we are told to love in deed and in truth, not just in words of our tongue. We are to follow our Father’s example and Jesus’ example and extend Love to others, even when they don’t deserve it. We are to do things for others when we don’t feel like it and when we don’t like them.
In 1 Thessalonians 4:9,10 God tells us through Paul that He will teach us to love one another, that He will help us to increase more and more in love. I don’t know about you, but I need the Lord to teach me how to love some people and particularly to increase more and more in that love for them. It takes God to help us do this. We can’t do it on our own.
I guess what has helped me the most recently is to know that this is a command from my Father. It is not an option. It is not a good suggestion. It is not an ideal that cannot be achieved. It is an order from headquarters. If God gave us this command, then He supplies His ability to keep it. We cannot keep it in our own efforts. We must rely on Him totally to love as He loves. In my own human fleshly love, I cannot love someone who is hateful. I want to retaliate toward them and do to them the same thing they have done to me. BUT, when I yield to the Love, I am yielding to God, Who helps me to love His way. And we know that His way is described in 1 Corinthians 13.
In John 13:34,35 Jesus told His disciples (and that means us, as well) that He was giving them a new commandment: Love one another as I have loved you. He said this is the way people of this world will know that we are Christians, little duplicates of Christ. We are His Anointed Ones who are to speak and act just like Him. We do that by yielding ourselves to Him and His teaching. We cannot do this on our own. I repeat this for all of our hearing.
Here is where we need to use our faith and confession of the word. This is one area that we have not dwelt on. We use our faith for everything else. I know it would be a whole lot easier to use our faith for other things if we used it first for walking in the love of God. We remember that faith works by love. Since faith works by love, it would make sense to me that the first place to exercise our faith is in walking the love walk the way Jesus did while He was here on this earth and the way all the members of the Godhead---Father, Son and Holy Spirit---do all the time.
I have an assignment for all of us. Read John 13, 14, 15, 16, 17 and all of 1 John until we have the word concerning the God-kind of love so in us from His Word that we begin to act like Him. This won’t happen overnight. This is a process. And, yes, we will slip quite a bit while we are learning, but we will learn. He will teach us. And the world will want what we have when we have the God-kind of love. Say this over and over: HE WILL TEACH ME HOW TO LOVE HIS WAY.
Do you know what the God-kind of love produces? Are you ready for this? This is what so many in the Body of Christ are seeking. The God-kind of love will produce the God-kind of faith and the God-kind of power, the very thing that many are seeking. They want the power. They want the anointing. They want the miracles. They want the signs and wonders. They want the demonstration. You cannot have the demonstration of that which you are not walking in. This thought struck me yesterday as I was talking to a friend of mine. We saw this so clearly. In seeking to Love, we are seeking God, and in seeking God, we will receive all that He is, as we become so filled up with Him, with Love. Seek to love and you seek God and His Kingdom.
God the Father set the example when He gave His only Son Jesus to die for us when we were selfish and unlovely sinners in this world. In Ephesians 2:4-8 we read that God Himself gave us the very life of Christ and placed us in fellowship with Himself when we were still dead in our sins. And he did this, He gave us the gift of salvation because of His intense love for us. He demonstrated His love for us by sending Jesus. He extended His love to us when we did nothing to deserve it.
In 1 John 3:18 we are told to love in deed and in truth, not just in words of our tongue. We are to follow our Father’s example and Jesus’ example and extend Love to others, even when they don’t deserve it. We are to do things for others when we don’t feel like it and when we don’t like them.
In 1 Thessalonians 4:9,10 God tells us through Paul that He will teach us to love one another, that He will help us to increase more and more in love. I don’t know about you, but I need the Lord to teach me how to love some people and particularly to increase more and more in that love for them. It takes God to help us do this. We can’t do it on our own.
I guess what has helped me the most recently is to know that this is a command from my Father. It is not an option. It is not a good suggestion. It is not an ideal that cannot be achieved. It is an order from headquarters. If God gave us this command, then He supplies His ability to keep it. We cannot keep it in our own efforts. We must rely on Him totally to love as He loves. In my own human fleshly love, I cannot love someone who is hateful. I want to retaliate toward them and do to them the same thing they have done to me. BUT, when I yield to the Love, I am yielding to God, Who helps me to love His way. And we know that His way is described in 1 Corinthians 13.
In John 13:34,35 Jesus told His disciples (and that means us, as well) that He was giving them a new commandment: Love one another as I have loved you. He said this is the way people of this world will know that we are Christians, little duplicates of Christ. We are His Anointed Ones who are to speak and act just like Him. We do that by yielding ourselves to Him and His teaching. We cannot do this on our own. I repeat this for all of our hearing.
Here is where we need to use our faith and confession of the word. This is one area that we have not dwelt on. We use our faith for everything else. I know it would be a whole lot easier to use our faith for other things if we used it first for walking in the love of God. We remember that faith works by love. Since faith works by love, it would make sense to me that the first place to exercise our faith is in walking the love walk the way Jesus did while He was here on this earth and the way all the members of the Godhead---Father, Son and Holy Spirit---do all the time.
I have an assignment for all of us. Read John 13, 14, 15, 16, 17 and all of 1 John until we have the word concerning the God-kind of love so in us from His Word that we begin to act like Him. This won’t happen overnight. This is a process. And, yes, we will slip quite a bit while we are learning, but we will learn. He will teach us. And the world will want what we have when we have the God-kind of love. Say this over and over: HE WILL TEACH ME HOW TO LOVE HIS WAY.
Do you know what the God-kind of love produces? Are you ready for this? This is what so many in the Body of Christ are seeking. The God-kind of love will produce the God-kind of faith and the God-kind of power, the very thing that many are seeking. They want the power. They want the anointing. They want the miracles. They want the signs and wonders. They want the demonstration. You cannot have the demonstration of that which you are not walking in. This thought struck me yesterday as I was talking to a friend of mine. We saw this so clearly. In seeking to Love, we are seeking God, and in seeking God, we will receive all that He is, as we become so filled up with Him, with Love. Seek to love and you seek God and His Kingdom.
posted by Rev. Kialeen Potterton @ 6:05 AM
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