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| Living the Love: God's Desire for us.
Many people claim to know God. But they are being robbed of the kind of relationship Jesus really wants with them. They can quote long passages of Scripture and some have even spent years in seminary studying the Bible. They are deceived, thinking: I pray and read the Word every day. I think that means I’m abiding in Jesus.
They do not understand what abiding really is. As important as reading, meditating and listening to God’s Word are, those things alone do not qualify you as one who abides. To be a true “abider” you must not only hear the Word, you must also act on it.
Abiding is obeying. As Jesus said:
He that hath my commandments, and keepeth them, he it is that loveth me: and he that loveth me shall be loved of my Father, and I will love him, and will manifest myself to him. If a man love me, he will keep my words: and my Father will love him, and we will come unto him, and make our abode with him. If ye keep my commandments, ye shall abide in my love; even as I have kept my Father’s commandments, and abide in his love. This is my commandment, That ye love one another, as I have loved you (John 14:21, 23; 15:10, 12).
The Word that is truly alive in us is not the Word we know, but the Word we do. James 1:22 says people are deceived because they are not doers of the Word, but hearers only. First John 2:3-6 says it this way: “And hereby we do know that we know him, if we keep his commandments. He that saith, I know him, and keepeth not his commandments, is a liar, and the truth is not in him. But whoso keepeth his word, in him verily is the love of God perfected: hereby know we that we are in him. He that saith he abideth in him ought himself also so to walk, even as he walked.”
If we’re abiding in Jesus, we will live as He lived—in obedience!
Jesus walked in love. He was obedient to God in all things. He wouldn’t even say anything except what the Father told Him to say (John 12:49). Jesus lived to fulfill the Word and plan of His Father. He lived to be obedient (John 6:38).
Do you know how God responded to that obedience? He gave Jesus His Spirit without measure (John 3:34). As a result, Jesus defeated Satan and destroyed his works at every turn. Everywhere He went, He made the blind see, the lame walk and the deaf hear. He cast out demons and raised the dead.
No matter how the world tries to convince us that it’s more exciting to sin than to obey God, Jesus proved that it’s not. He lived the most exciting life in history. Obeying God won’t doom you to a life of boredom. Obedience will lead you into the most thrilling life of victory and blessing you could ever imagine.
God desires to pour His power through you just as He poured it through Jesus. He wants to bring to pass in your life the promise Jesus made in John 14:12-15: “Verily, verily, I say unto you, He that believeth on me, the works that I do shall he do also; and greater works than these shall he do; because I go unto my Father. And whatsoever ye shall ask in my name, that will I do, that the Father may be glorified in the Son. If ye shall ask any thing in my name, I will do it. If ye love me, keep my commandments.”
All too often, Christians quote those first three verses and leave out the last one. But if we want to do the works of Jesus, we must live as He lived. We must abide in Him. And abiding is obeying His commandments.
Go in Love
You may have noticed in several of the scriptures we’ve looked at that Jesus associated abiding and obeying with the love of God. The love of God is released in your life by acting on the knowledge of God’s Word.
As we saw earlier in John 15:12, Jesus summed up the commandments with one statement: “Love one another, as I have loved you.” Without revelation knowledge followed by action, love lies undeveloped and selfishness continues to reign supreme in you—even though you are a new creature. But when you act on God’s Word in obedience, the love of God is perfected (1 John 2:5). That’s when love begins to flow from you to others.
Living a lifestyle of love is essential if you want to maintain living contact with God. First John 4:16 says, “God is love, and he who dwells and continues in love dwells and continues in God, and God dwells and continues in him” (The Amplified Bible). Every step out of love is a step out of this vital, living contact with God because you are walking in disobedience.
Years ago, Rufus Moseley wrote:
If we abide in His love and always go in love, feeling and willing and giving out nothing but love and all possible love to all men and all things, we will always be in Him and under His anointing. It was made known to me that I could write editorials and do everything else that can be done in the loving Spirit of Jesus. I could even be in heavenly places while plowing with a mule, pruning trees, in courtrooms, in death cells, in all places of need, provided all was done in the spirit of love.*
You’re Not on Your Own
If you’re sitting there thinking you could never consistently live a life of love, don’t worry. None of us could do it on our own. But, thank God, we’re not on our own! The Greater One is in us. It’s His strength within us that makes us victorious.
You see, abiding in Jesus enables us to bear all the fruit of the spirit listed in Galatians 5:22-23, including love. All those fruit were put inside you the moment you were born again. They will forever be a part of your reborn spirit because it is made in the image of God. He put His own, divine nature in you, and the fruit of the spirit are characteristics of His nature.
Even though they are inside you, no matter how hard you work at it, you’ll never be able to consistently manifest those fruit in your life unless you are abiding in Jesus—spending time with Him in prayer and in the Word.
Think about the illustration He gave of the vine and the branches, and you can easily see why that is. “I am the true vine…. Abide in me, and I in you. As the branch cannot bear fruit of itself, except it abide in the vine; no more can ye, except ye abide in me. I am the vine, ye are the branches…” (John 15:1, 4-5).
The branch of an apple tree doesn’t bear apples because it struggles and strives. It bears apples because it’s connected to the trunk of the tree. The life that flows through the branch of that tree just naturally brings forth apples.
In the same way, when you’re in union and communion with Jesus—the Vine—His divine life flows through you and produces spiritual fruit. Jesus is your Life Force! Your living contact with Him determines your spiritual results.
Contrary to what many people seem to think, you cannot live from Sunday to Sunday, fellowship with the Lord just once a week at church, ignore Him the rest of the time, and still live a reasonably successful Christian life. Jesus was quite clear about that.
Read what He said in John 15:6: “If a man abide not in me, he is cast forth as a branch, and is withered….” The word wither means “to shrivel, to lose or cause to lose energy, force or freshness.”
The moment a branch is broken off the vine, it begins to die. It doesn’t matter how close they are to each other. You can lay that branch right next to the vine, but if the union has been broken there will be no life flow. There will be no sap flowing from the vine into the branch.
That’s a vivid picture of what happens to us when we aren’t in vital contact and living union with the Lord. When we become too busy to spend time with God in prayer and in His Word, when we become preoccupied with natural, earthly things and disconnect from communion with Him, we immediately begin to wither.
We still belong to Him. We still have His life within us, but His energy is not flowing through us so we can’t produce anything.
The Fruit of Abiding and Obeying
Of course, even when you do abide in Jesus, He won’t grow the fruit for you any more than the apple tree will take up the responsibility of the branch and grow apples straight from the trunk of the tree. He simply provides you with the power and the life. Then you must do your part by choosing to yield to that life. By an act of your will, you must let that which Jesus has put on the inside of you manifest itself on the outside.
When someone says something ugly to you, for example, you have to make a decision. Will you yield to the irritation of your flesh and say something ugly in return? Or will you yield to your spirit and respond in love?
The answer to those questions will be determined by two factors. The first is, of course, the choice you make. The second is the condition of your heart.
If you have been neglecting your time with God, spending more time in front of the television than in the Word, you may find yourself too weak to obey the voice of the Spirit. Although your heart’s desire is to act lovingly, your flesh will win the struggle with your undernourished spirit and lash out in anger toward the one who wronged you.
But if you have been daily abiding in fellowship with the Lord, then your heart will be strong and full of the spiritual energy necessary to overrule the flesh and let the love flow.
Overcoming in Love
Because God’s own Spirit lives inside us, constantly empowering us to do His will, obedience isn’t a burden—it’s a joy: “These orders of His are not irksome (burdensome, oppressive, or grievous). For whatever is born of God is victorious over the world; and this is the victory that conquers the world, even our faith” (1 John 5:3-4, The Amplified Bible).
If you’re a born-again child of God, you are an overcomer. Maybe you have been abused and criticized so much that you think of yourself as unloved and a failure. If so, stop focusing on yourself and turn your focus on the Word of God instead. Allow the Word to change how you see yourself. You can step into an overcoming lifestyle by spending time in the Word developing your faith, and fellowshiping with the Father in prayer.
When you become connected to the Word, you won’t see yourself in failure any longer. You’ll see yourself in God! You’ll begin to read words like, “Behold, what manner of love the Father hath bestowed upon us, that we should be called the sons of God...” (1 John 3:1). You’ll begin to see by revelation of the Spirit that God actually is your Father and He does care for you.
Begin to see yourself as the Father sees you. Whatever He says about you as His child, that’s the way it really is. All you have to do is come into agreement with Him and yield to His way of doing and being right. When you agree with the Word, you will obey it.
You may not feel able in yourself, but the Greater One lives in you and He makes you able. Love Himself is inside you, so you are able to love. As you begin to abide in the Word—becoming not just a hearer but an obedient doer—the life of God and the love of God will become a reality in your life.
Walking in the steps of Jesus will no longer be an impossible dream.
Before you know it, you’ll be living the love!
Wake Up Thou Sleeping Christain.
Many in the church have fallen asleep and lost their high seats of authority.
One of the most significant messages I am hearing from the Holy Spirit right now is that He is looking for dependable people around the world who will carry out His divine purposes. What He is finding instead are believers who have become like the nobleman mentioned in 2 Kings 7:2: "Then a lord on whose hand the king leaned answered the man of God, and said, Behold, if the Lord would make windows in heaven, might this thing be? And he [the prophet Elijah] said, Behold, thou shalt see it with thine eyes, but shalt not eat thereof" (KJV).
The lord mentioned in the verse was a noble leader on whom the king depended. He was having trouble believing the words of Elijah, who had just prophesied that the next day the famine in the land would end (see v. 1).
This leader saw only the impossible. He didn't see that tomorrow could bring change.
Doesn't that sound a lot like the church? Jesus is leaning on us to do something supernatural, but we can see only the impossible, so we quit praying and fail to accept our spiritual responsibility, there giving the enemies room to sow tares.
As we look at the condition of the world, we have to wonder: Where is the powerful influence of the church? From events such as natural disasters, church leaders falling daily, divorces within the church, nations rising again nations, church no longer different from the world, daily we face seemingly impossible situations- anarchy and confusion.
Ezekiel 7:26 says, "Disaster will come upon disaster, and rumor will be upon rumor. Then they will seek a vision from a prophet" (NKJV). During a disaster, we want to know what heaven is saying!
God is using His prophets to speak to us. We must listen, rise up and return to our places of influence so the King can lean on us to bring about a change.
Right now, the church and nations of the world is like Lazarus. We were sick and have been swathed in a culture of death.
Just as Jesus commanded someone to remove the stone from Lazarus' tomb and then called him to come forth from death, He is calling Nations and His church back to Him. It is time for us to remove the stones that prevent us from seeing the potential for supernatural change and make us too apathetic to do anything. The King is leaning on us to bring our nation and the church back from the grave.
Many Christians are frustrated about the current state of affairs, but they do nothing. They have been slowly lulled into a spiritual sleep that eventually leads to death. "Evil triumph when good men do nothing".
Acts 20:9 tells about a young man who fell asleep in a window. "And in a window sat a certain young man named Eutychus, who was sinking into a deep sleep. He was overcome by sleep; and as Paul continued speaking, he fell down from the third story and was taken up dead."
By falling asleep, Eutychus lost his high place. Many in the church have fallen asleep and lost their high seats of authority. We need to be raised up and revived through the apostolic anointing the way Eutychus was raised up by Paul.
Jeremiah 42:14 says, "'No, but we will go to the land of Egypt where we shall see no war, nor hear the sound of the trumpet, nor be hungry for bread, and there we will dwell.'" The children of Israel wanted to go back to bondage rather than go forward into the promise of God because the situation seemed impossible. They didn't want to do anything with the word of the Lord.
The king's noble thought what the prophet spoke was impossible too. We must not become like him. We must not allow doubt to immobilize us because what the prophets say seems impossible (2chronicles 20:20b). We have to be revived back into prayer and expect the church and their luke warm, theology ridden and title chasing pastors and our nations to turn back to God. We want the King to lean upon our prayers once again so that by this time tomorrow something has to change!
Believer's Authority over sickness. By Amos Great
Before Jesus left the earth, He made this powerful statement: "I assure you…if anyone steadfastly believes in Me, he will himself be able to do the things that I do; and he will do even greater things than these, because I go to the Father" (John 14:12, The Amplified Bible).
To the natural mind, this seems far-fetched. You may think, I'm just a simple human being. Jesus really didn't mean what He said. However, believers can do what Jesus did and more.
You must believe every word that Jesus spoke concerning your rights and privileges as a child of God. You are the righteousness of God! You are a believer, not a doubter. Jesus gave you the authority to do great things in His name, in His awesome ability (John 14:13-14). On your own, you are nothing! But according to Philippians 4:13, you can do all things through Him!
This must be your attitude if you ever expect to do what Jesus did. The Gospels tell how Jesus healed the sick, cast out devils and more. When was the last time you prayed for others to receive deliverance from sickness and demonic oppression? Perhaps God prompted you to do so in times past but you were reluctant. Unfortunately, fear got the better of you.
Your Faith is Required.
You must have the courage to follow in Jesus' footsteps. He instructed you to imitate Him as He imitated the Father, and He has empowered you to do so. He said, "Behold! I have given you authority and power to trample upon serpents and scorpions, and [physical and mental strength and ability] over all the power that the enemy [possesses]; and nothing shall in any way harm you" (Luke 10:19, AMP).
Your righteousness gives you the right to exercise your authority over Satan's works. Like Jesus, you have the authority to do good to all those who are oppressed of the devil (Acts 10:38). You, too, can lay hands on the sick and see them recover; cast out devils and help God's people live free from bondage to Satan. But it starts by exercising "light-switch faith."
What do you expect to happen when you turn on a light switch? You expect the lights to immediately come on, right? The same is true with living by faith in God's Word. You must believe that you can do what it says you can do. Light-switch faith says, "I believe that when I lay hands on the sick, they will recover. Demons will leave when I command them to because God's Word says that I have the authority. That settles it! Get back, Satan!"
Jesus said that casting out devils would be a sign of your authority as a believer (Mark 16:17). No sickness, disease or demon can stand up against God's power at work in and through a believer. These spiritual forces know that you possess God's power over them. However, they'll make every attempt to convince you otherwise.
You are equipped with the Word of God, the name and blood of Jesus and the power of your words spoken in faith. Demons have to flee when you utilize these weapons in your spiritual warfare against them (Ephesians 6:10-12). Therefore, exercise your God-given authority and help God's people live a victorious life!
WHY THE BAPTISM IN THE HOLY GHOST?
At the moment we accept Jesus as Savior, the Holy Spirit comes to dwell in our hearts. So what more do we need? I TELL YOU, IT IS POWER (SUPERNATURAL), ANOINTING OF GOD'S SPIRIT!
If you have received Jesus as your Savior, God is living in you. By the Holy Spirit He has joined Himself to your spirit. Your spirit, the very inmost part of you, is alive, and not only alive but also filled with all the wonderful joy, and love, and peace, and glory of God Himself.
"If any man be in Christ," says the apostle Paul, "he is a new creature" (2 Cor. 5:17, KJV). He also says that Christians are seated in heavenly places with Christ (see Eph. 2:6).
If you are like many people, you will respond at this point:
"Well, I am different. Something certainly did happen to me when I invited Jesus into my heart, and for a while I had a deep sense of the love and joy you are talking about. I really wanted to tell everyone about it, too.
"But now I seem to be cooling off. Life isn't all that different anymore. I still know that things have changed deep down inside me somewhere, but most of the time I feel just about as I did before. In the mornings, when I get away by myself and pray, I do sometimes feel God's presence, but I sure can't keep track of Him during the day!"
Why is this? It's not hard to understand if you will accept what the Bible says about the nature of man, that you are a threefold being: spirit, soul and body (see 1 Thess. 5:23).
If you are still thinking of yourself as only two parts—soul and body—then you will inevitably confuse your psychological reactions with your spiritual life, and this is not only confusing to the understanding, it can actually, in this psychological age, lead you into false teaching. Many fine Bible teachers today, under the pressure of psychology, are identifying the spirit of man with the "unconscious mind" or the "deep psyche," simply because they do not take seriously the Bible's ability to divide between the soul and the spirit (see Heb. 4:12).
But if you make this division, you not only will be able to grasp what happens in the baptism of the Holy Spirit but also will find yourself able to account for other things in your Christian life that may have puzzled you.
When you received Jesus as your Savior, your spirit came alive, began to assert its new life and take its rightful place as head over your soul —your psychological part (intellect, will and emotions)—and your body, your physical part. Your body and soul, however, were accustomed to "running the show," and it wasn't long before they had pretty much overwhelmed your new life in the Spirit and resumed the driver's seat.
When you pray in the morning, the busyness of your soul and body is quieted; your spirit has a chance to let you know He is there; and at this, as well as at other times, you get an inkling that deep inside you, the new life is very real.
But as soon as the clamor of existence begins again, you automatically start to trust your soul and body rather than your spirit. You were so accustomed to living by your thoughts, feelings and desires—by your soul, your psychological being—and by the demands of your body, that you soon lost track of the voice of the newly living spirit deep within you. It would seem that something needs to happen to your soul and body before your spirit can gain stronger control.
This "something" that needs to happen is that the Holy Spirit, who is living in your spirit, needs to flow out to fill your soul and body. This is described in the Scripture in a variety of ways. Just as the experience of accepting Jesus is spoken of throughout the Bible in different ways, so a number of descriptions are given of the next experience: "baptism in (or with) the Holy Spirit," "receiving the Holy Spirit," "Pentecost," "receiving power," the Holy Spirit to "come upon" or "fall upon" a person. All these are expressions of the same truth, viewed from different sides.
There is much difference of opinion over what terminology to use. However, we feel on especially safe scriptural ground using the term "baptism in the Holy Spirit," since quite an impressive list of biblical persons so used it: God the Father (see John 1:33), God the Son (see Acts 1:5) and God the Holy Spirit, who is, of course, the inspirer of the Scriptures in which these expressions are found. There were also John the Baptist (see Matt. 3:11; Mark 1:8; Luke 3:16; John 1:33); the four evangelists, Matthew, Mark, Luke and John, in the places just cited; and the apostle Peter (see Acts 11:16). If you will read these references carefully and compare them, you will see in each case it is not salvation that is spoken of, but a second experience.
This is called in the Scriptures "the baptism in the Holy Spirit" because it is a baptism, meaning a drenching, an overflowing, a saturating of your soul and body with the Holy Spirit, BEING IMMERSED IN THE HOLY GHOST. When the Bible speaks of Jesus "baptizing" in the Holy Spirit, we immediately visualize something external, somebody being put into something.
However, the word "baptize" in Greek means to completely suffuse—it is used in classical Greek of a sunken, water-logged ship—so it does not really make any difference whether Jesus, to suffuse our souls and bodies, immerses us in the Holy Spirit in an external sense of the word, whether He inundates us from the outside or whether He causes the Spirit to rise and overflow from where He is living inside us.
Probably both pictures are true—He "comes upon us" both from outside and inside, but it is important to remember that the Holy Spirit is living in you, and therefore it is from within that He can flood your soul and body.
Jesus says, "'He that believeth on me … out of his belly shall flow rivers of living water [the Holy Spirit]'" (John 7:38, emphasis added). The wording in The Amplified Bible is, "From his innermost being shall flow" (emphasis added).
When we receive Jesus as Savior, the Holy Spirit comes in, but as we continue to trust and believe Jesus, the indwelling Spirit can pour out to inundate, or baptize, our soul and body and refresh the world around.
This, too, is why again and again in Scripture the first normative evidence of the Pentecost experience is an outpouring: "They were all filled with the Holy Ghost, and began to speak with other tongues" (Acts 2:4, KJV).
Some are puzzled by the term "receiving the Holy Spirit." A Christian may ask the question: "How can I receive the Holy Spirit when I already have Him living in me?" This expression can be understood easily if we remember that we are talking about a Person, not a thing or a quantity of something.
Some have talked about the Holy Spirit in a quantitative way—as if you could receive some of the Holy Spirit at salvation and some more at a later date. But if the Holy Spirit is a Person, which He is, then He is either living in you or He isn't.
The Person of the Holy Spirit has been living in your "house" ever since your new birth—your salvation—but when you are baptized in the Holy Spirit, you fully acknowledge His Presence and receive His gifts.
Let us sum up, then, by saying that the first experience of the Christian life, salvation, is the incoming of the Holy Spirit, through Jesus Christ, to give us new life—God's life, eternal life. The second experience is the receiving or making welcome of the Holy Spirit, so that Jesus can cause Him to pour out this new life from our spirits to baptize our souls and bodies, and then the world around, with His refreshing and renewing power.
"Out of his belly shall flow rivers of living water!" The Greek word used here for "belly" is koilia, which refers literally to the physical body. It is by means of the physical body and its speech and actions that we contact our environment and the people around us. The world is not going to be helped or challenged until it sees and hears and experiences Jesus' life flowing from us in the power of the Holy Spirit.
The reservoir, the well, is in us when we become Christians. Then, when we allow the indwelling living water of the Spirit to flow out into our souls and bodies, we are refreshed first.
Our minds come alive in a new way to God's reality. We begin to think of Him, even dream of Him, with a new frequency and joy. Our emotions respond, and we begin to be happy in Him. Our will responds, and we begin to want to do what He wants. Our bodies respond, not only with feelings of well-being, but also with actual renewed strength and health and youth. Then the living water begins to pour out to others, and they see the power and love of Jesus in His people. He is now able to use us to refresh the world around us...AMEN!
Unavoidable Commands by Amos Great Matthew 22 is one of the many places in the New Testament we find those general commands. There we read about a young lawyer asking Jesus a crucial question: “Master, which is the great commandment in the law? Jesus said unto him, Thou shalt love the Lord thy God with all thy heart, and with all thy soul, and with all thy mind. This is the first and great commandment. And the second is like unto it, Thou shalt love thy neighbour as thyself. On these two commandments hang all the law and the prophets” (verses 36-40).
Steps to Obeying:
1: Receive God’s Love
Love God. Love others. Those are the general orders of the kingdom of God. And direct orders to each member of the Body of Christ. They are easy to remember. Simple to understand. Yet, have you ever failed to live by them? And as a result, have you been unable to find God’s specific will for your life and break through to your destiny? If so, you’re not alone!
But it doesn’t have to be that way.
There are definite things you can do to step up and step into obedience to those two all-important commands. The first is simply to receive God’s love for you.
“What?” you may ask, “I thought this was about me loving God…not about God loving me!”
It is. But the Bible says, “Herein is love, not that we loved God, but that he loved us, and sent his Son to be the propitiation for our sins” (1 John 4:10).
In other words, the cycle of love begins with God. His love for us is what ignites within us a love for Him and a love for others. Receiving His love is what enables us to obey our general commands.
So, let me ask you a question. Do you know how much God loves you?
Most believers don’t. Yet Jesus told us plainly just before He went to the cross. He prayed to the Father for His first 12 disciples and for all who would believe in Him, and said, “You have sent me, and have loved them as You have loved Me” (John 17:23, New King James Version).
If you’ll receive the love of God, I dare you to start right now and confess it. Open your mouth and say, “God loves me just as much as He loves Jesus!” Say it like you mean it. Keep saying it and thanking God for it until the truth of it begins to saturate your heart.
And when the devil tries to convince you God doesn’t love you that way, tell him to shut up! Don’t give his lies any place in your thinking. Stop them short by praising God right out loud and saying, “Father, thank You for loving me so much. Thank You for giving Your own Son for me that I might not perish. I receive that love now, in Jesus’ Name.”
2: Believe God’s Love Is in You
Here’s the second thing you can do to walk in obedience to God’s general commands: Believe that the love God has for Jesus actually abides and lives in you.
Believe, as Romans 5:5 says, that the love of God has been shed abroad in your heart by the Holy Ghost. Believe, as Jesus said in John 17:26, that the love with which God loved Jesus is in you. First John 4:15-16 says, “Whosoever shall confess that Jesus is the Son of God, God dwelleth in him, and he in God. And we have known and believed the love that God hath to us.”
Think about that. The creative principle of the heavens, the very love of God Himself has been imparted into your spirit and you have been authorized to love others with it.
When you begin to believe that, you activate within yourself the most powerful force on earth. You’ll start loving everybody. You’ll not only love God with all your heart, soul, mind and strength, you’ll start loving and praying for the meanest people you know. You’ll be so full of love, you won’t have to work at releasing it…it will just begin to overflow.
3: Putting it to work (Practicing)
When you start receiving and believing God’s love, you’ll experience His presence and love. You’ll find that it isn’t a struggle to love Him and receive His love. Then you’ll be ready to take the next step and begin using and practicing that love on other people.
Exactly how do you go about doing that?
You can start by taking time to really forgive people who have wronged you. Don’t just casually say, “Oh, I forgive So-and-So.” Rather, in prayer take time to picture that person in your mind. Lift him before God and say, “Father, I turn the unloving feelings I’ve had toward this person over to You. I will not be bitter against him. I surround him with love.”
Imagine Jesus walking up behind that person and putting His big arms around him, bringing peace to him. Then just keep confessing, “I love that person as much as I love myself.” Don’t hurry through it. Take time to cleanse your spirit.
Spend extra time loving God and focus on forgiving people who have been especially hard cases in your life. Pray for them at night before you go to bed. Shut off the radio in your car and confess your love for the Lord, and for them, while you drive to work.
In addition, start to practice being agreeable. Consciously endeavor to live and walk in harmony with those around you—especially with your family, pastor and people at church. The devil will work the hardest to get you into strife with them because he knows when you’re in agreement, there’s power!
You activate the promise Jesus gave in Matthew 18:19-20: “If two of you shall agree on earth as touching any thing that they shall ask, it shall be done for them of my Father which is in heaven. For where two or three are gathered together in my name, there am I in the midst of them.”
Refuse to get into strife in any area. Don’t allow yourself to become accustomed to being angry. Stop getting mad at your car…computer…and traffic lights. When you let yourself get irritated at the physical things around you, you’re actually practicing being angry. Before you know it, you’ll be shooting off your mouth at somebody and you’ll sound angry, even if you aren’t.
It’s amazing what that will do for you. The more you practice being agreeable and kind, the more agreeable and kind you’ll become. The car and the computer may not appreciate it, but the people around you will. They’ll be glad you’re not acting like an angry bad-mouth anymore.
4: Don’t Just Sit There. Do Something!
Another way you can practice the love of God is by looking for secret ways to bless people. Give someone a gift and write a little note on it that says, “The Lord told me to give this to you.” But, don’t put your name on it. Just stand back and watch, and then give the Lord all the praise and glory.
Actions like that will charge up your confidence in the love of God dwelling within you. And that indwelling love will spring to life. Faith and love work hand in hand. Faith needs action. It’s not enough to sit around believing the love of God is in you. You have to get up and do something. As James 2:14-17 says: “What doth it profit, my brethren, though a man say he hath faith, and have not works? can faith save him? If a brother or sister be naked, and destitute of daily food, and one of you say unto them, Depart in peace, be ye warmed and filled; notwithstanding ye give them not those things which are needful to the body; what doth it profit? Even so faith, if it hath not works, is dead.”
If your love life is dead, resuscitate it by putting love into motion. Go to your closet, pull out the best you have and give it to somebody who needs it. Better yet, secretly slip them a gift certificate so they can go buy something brand new!
Don’t do it to be seen or appreciated. Do it purely out of love. You’ll experience so much joy! You’ll get excited about giving to and loving others.
5: Become God-Inside Minded
Finally, seal the deal on your life of love by continually confessing, “Greater is He—who is love—within me than he who is in the world” (1 John 4:4).
Cultivate within yourself the conscious awareness that God Himself, your very own heavenly Father, is walking with you and talking with you 24 hours a day, seven days a week.
“For ye are the temple of the living God; as God hath said, I will dwell in them, and walk in them; and I will be their God, and they shall be my people. Wherefore come out from among them, and be ye separate, saith the Lord, and touch not the unclean thing; and I will receive you, and will be a Father unto you, and ye shall be my sons and daughters, saith the Lord Almighty” (2 Corinthians 6:16-18).
Become God-inside minded. Say to yourself, “When I walk, God walks. His hands are in my hands. I have the mind of Christ. God is not a million miles away. He’s inside me right now. He’s my Father and I’m His very own son. I’m a joint heir with Jesus and my body is the temple of the Holy Ghost.”
When you begin to live in the light of that revelation—when you begin obeying and abiding by God’s general commands of love—you won’t find yourself wandering around in the spiritual twilight, trying to find your way. No. You’ll be walking in the light of heaven itself. You’ll be hearing specific orders from the heavenlies at every turn! You’ll be treading on the path of the righteous, which is like the light of dawn that grows brighter and brighter every single day! | |
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