Hello Dear Reader,
I pray that this Christmas season is revealing to you what Love looks like and what Love is? God Himself? Today, I want to look at simple scripture found in 1st John 3:1 Amplified version: "See what (an incredible) quality of love the Father has given us, that we should (be permitted) to be named and called and counted the children of God! And so are we! The reason the world does not know (recognize, acknowledge) us is that it does not know (recognize, acknowledge) Him."
It says, see what an incredible quality of love the Father has given us. The incredible quality of love! The word incredible means: so extraordinary that it seems impossible, hard to believe. Beyond belief or understanding. What a perfect word to describe the nature of God Himself. Love looks like a person who is so extraordinary, hard to believe, beyond our human belief or understanding. Thus, you have God who is so extraordinary that a human mind can not fathom the depth of who He is or what love really is.For God and love are one in the same person and purpose.
During this past year a deep cry has come from my heart and spirit. I didn't know why I had to pray it, but I had to. The prayer was this, "Father, I have known you and your love from my human understanding, "I WANT TO LOVE YOU BEYOND MY HUMAN UNDERSTANDING. I WANT TO KNOW YOU BEYOND MY HUMAN UNDERSTANDING, AND I WANT TO BE WITH YOU BEYOND MY HUMAN REASON!"
Then another part of a prayer began to come forth from me. "I want to love You, the way you want to be loved. I want to know you the way you want to be known. I want to be with you the way you want to be with." Lord, not my idea of who you are, and what you want, but yours!
I don't think I realized at the time what I was asking, but I think the prayer was the modern day prayer of the Apostle Paul, found in Ephesians chapter 3, that we would know the height, width, and depth of His love. I believe most of the problem in the church in the USA is that we have reduced God's love to our own "human" understanding and our own limited "human" experience. For most people that experience begins and ends with being saved.
When most believers talk about God, and I mean that literally, they thank Him because they saved them from...? That is wonderful and ought to be done. Sadly, that is all the Love they really ever know of God except in theory. Many have stopped here and have not "pressed on to know the Lord for the person He is." Others have gone on a little further and been baptized in the Holy Spirit and even experienced the Baptism of the Holy Spirit and received spiritual gifts from God. However, their knowledge of God's love ends there and is measured on "how God used me today."
In many Charismatic circles today, God's love is revealed by doing something for God, and then we can testify of God's love by how God moved through us to touch others. This is also necessary and a part of our relationship with God. But how many people can tell you who He is apart from what He has done or doing? Why is it that most Christians can only testify of His hand, and not His face?
It is this very fact that the Holy Spirit is trying to bring His church today, In Revelations chapter 2 verse2-4, I know your works and your patient endurance, and that you works have increased to this day, but nevertheless, I have one thing against you, you have deserted me your first love." The Lord goes on to say, REPENT, and do your first work, or I will come and remove the candlestick from your midst." The candlestick represent God's very presence in our midst. His presence represents His person. Remember Jesus said, "where two or more are gathered in my name, there I am in the midst of them."
It is difficult to truly know the "quality" of Love Himself by just knowing His hand, salvation, the Baptism of the Holy Spirit or by how He has used us to minister. The church has been satisfied staying in this present revelation of love up to this time. However; God is beginning to cause many who truly are seeking Him, not to be content with just salvation and Baptism of power as their experience of the love of God. As Church leaders we must come and recognize this paradigm shift that God is bringing about in this hour.
There is a stirring in the heart of the Lord's Bride, to come out from among them, the Daughters of Jerusalem as found in the Song of Solomon, to find the Shepherd/Lover of their soul. There is a quiet dissatisfaction growing in millions of believers all over the earth to know God more deeply and intimately. They are looking at church leadership to guide them higher into the very heart of God. Unfortunately, many leaders are not recognizing this shift and are continuing to bring God's people to their "church vision", or "church outreach."
This will never satisfy the heart of the Bride, Her cry is joining the Holy Spirit and saying, "Come Lord Jesus." There is a passionate love awakening in the Bride of the Lord, that must know this "incredible quality of love that He is in real experience!" They won't settle for anything else! This is going to cause a great upheaval in the church as we know it today if we fail to recognize this shift of the Holy Spirit. Church was never designed to be a place where we fill ourselves up with ourselves or spiritual homosexuality. It was to be a gathering of believers to be with Him, and for Him. A gathering to dwell in His presence, hear His voice, and do His will for our time together.
It was meant to be a gathering to grow deeper in love with Him, together as a full functioning Body. A gathering together to get His instruction, to renew our strength and mount up on the wings of eagle and to soar wherever the wind of the Spirit was to blow. The experience of this beautiful quality of His love individually andcorporately will lift us up higher into His heart and deeper into His thoughts and purposes. It is here, Jesus will and can build His church.
For this is the true meaning of what Jesus said to Peter, "Upon this Rock, I will build my church." The rock Jesus was referring to was that Peter answered Jesus question in Mathew chapter16:16-19. Jesus ask, "who do men say that I am? Peter replies, " you are the Christ the Son of the living God." Jesus answers, Blessed are you Simon bar Jonah for flesh and blood has not revealed this to you, but my Father in heaven, and I tell you, upon this rock I will build my church."
Notice something very important here. FLESH AND BLOOD HAS NOT REVEALED THIS TO YOU! Remember our definition of incredible: So extraordinary as to seem impossible! Jesus tells John, "your human understanding can never understand who I am." Do you hear His thoughts fellow ministers? But my Father in heaven HAS REVEALED THIS TO YOU! Yes, Jesus must revealed to each heart by the Father and the Holy Spirit. We as leaders are to prepare " a way for the Lord to come in our midst." This is not church service as usual, but a real and tangible waiting upon the Lord and allowing the Holy Spirit to lead us as He desires.
This does not mean we don't teach, preach or minister to God's people, exactly the opposite. We do all that in the power of the Holy Spirit in the love that God desires to reveal to His people for that meeting. If experiencing what Love looks like (God) itself is the purpose for our gathering togeher, Love, (God Himself) will meet every need of those who gathered. Also, those who have gathered in His name will meet the need of Love (God Himself) by loving Him as He desires.
God is a Spirit and those who worship Him, must worship Him in Spirit and Truth! This God is so beyond our human understanding that He must reveal himself to us and in us. The human mind is incapable of understanding who God is, thus it is also incapable of understanding what LOVE LOOKS LIKE! God the Father must reveal love to and in us by our continual communion and fellowship with Him.
Let us review John chapter 15:4 Jesus says, "Dwell in me, and I will dwell in you." Beloved this takes a real thirsting for God, and a returning to our first love in experience by making time to be with Him, everyday! It goes on to say in the amplified, "Live in Me, and I will live in you, just as no branch can bear fruit of itself without abiding and being VITALLY UNITED, to the vine, NEITHER CAN YOU BEAR FRUIT UNLESS YOU ABIDE IN ME!" This vital uniting with the Lord is revealed here in Mathew 16 when Jesus says, "flesh and blood has not revealed this to you, but my Father in heaven." This is where you can truly begin to know the incredible quality of that love, that we might be called the children of God.
So important was this truth, that Jesus tells Peter that by allowing the Father to reveal who Jesus was in him, it gave him and us the power to grasp the keys of the Kingdom. Listen to the word of God, "Upon this rock I will build my church, and the gates of hell shall not prevail against it. I will give you the Keys to the Kingdom of heaven, and what ever you bind on earth shall be bound in heaven, and what ever you loose on earth shall be loosed in heaven." Mathew 16:18-19
This incredible quality of love can not be learned intellectually or by just doing some religious work, it comes from "abiding in the vine (love itself)." So important is this truth that in Revelation chapter 3:14-22, we see a picture of the last days church and Jesus standing in our midst.
There are many pictures of this scene painted on canvas and they call it the invitation. Most teachers believe this represents Jesus reaching the lost, as He is knocking at the door. But in fact, this scene has nothing to do with the lost, but the church of Jesus Christ, King of Kings!
Rev. 3:14 is written to the church at Laodicea. Jesus tells them their true spiritual state: Verse 15-17: I know your record of works and what you have been doing, you are neither hot or cold. Would that you were cold or hot. So, because you are LUKEWARM, and neither cold or hot, I will spew you out of my mouth! Did you hear that? This is an accurate picture of the end-time church here in America and many other places, filled with the world and filled with God, lukewarm! A church that has lost their passion for Him, because they never really grew to know Him as He wants to be known, or loved the way He wants to be loved. That is what He told the church at Ephesus in Revelation 2:4, "you have deserted me your first love."
The fruit of this lost quality of love, has made us work hard for God, but only Luke warm in passion for Him. Why did we get this way? Jesus tells us in verse 17, "for you say you are rich and in need of nothing, and YOU DO NOT REALIZE AND UNDERSTAND THAT YOU ARE WRETCHED, PITIABLE, POOR, BLIND AND NAKED.” Sure glad I didn't write that or you would all be mad at me. LOL!! Seriously howerver!!
It is to this church verse 20 and 21 are written, "Behold, I stand at the door and knock, if anyone hears and listens to and heeds my voice and OPENS THE DOOR, I WILL COME IN TO HIM! (Do you hear that beloved?) Jesus will come in by revelation and reveal in you that incredible quality of love." AND WILL EAT WITH HIM, AND HE WILL EAT WITH ME!"
Eating together is one of the highest forms of fellowship as in the Last Supper. That is why there is a "marriage supper" of the Lamb representing a continual fellowship of the Bride and the Bridegroom. This continual fellowship is where you begin to receive the height, width, and depths of His love and you become deeply rooted and ground in what love looks like, God Himself. Does this mean we don't study the Word, or pray, or fast?
No, beloved it empowers those very things with love! It gives those things their true power to be bread for our souls and water for our spirit! This continual abiding in Him opens us to receive the life of the words of the bible and not just the intellectual understanding of His word void of their power. It is love Himself that causes the word to burn in our hearts like the two men on the road to Emmaus!
So what will you do beloved reader? Settle for business as usual in your spiritual life or even in your church? What will we do as church leaders as God awakens this desire in His people for God Himself? Will we keep giving them "our present understanding" of God? Will we keep them going in our programs or plans? Or will we hear His voice and lead his people to the very cry of God's heart in Isaiah chapter 66 verse1.
This is the only place you can know what Love looks like, because it is the only place you can see His face and change from one degree of glory to another. This is the place you receive the incredible quality of love that the Father has given us, because flesh and blood can not reveal it to you. Do you understand. Love is God, God is love and only He can reveal who He is and what love looks like in you! It is the very work of the Holy Spirit to do in you. Romans chapter 8 verse 5 says, "and hope putteth not to shame; because the love of God hath been shed abroad in our hearts through the Holy Spirit which was given unto us."
Let this scripture become alive by the revelation of God's heart in it, believer or church leader and let us go on together to know the Lord. I close with Isaiah 66:1 until tomorrow. Please let the Holy Spirit breath this cry of God's heart into yours!
"THUS SAYS THE LORD, HEAVEN IS MY THRONE, AND THE EARTH IS MY FOOTSTOOL, WHAT KIND OF HOUSE WILL YOU BUILD FOR ME? AND WHAT KIND CAN BE MY RESTING PLACE?"
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