#knowhislove

“God is love.  When we take up permanent residence in a life of love, we live in God and God lives in us.” (1 John 4:16 The Message)

 If we claim to be children of God, the main thing that should set us apart from the world is not our lack of sin, but the way that we love others. First and foremost, that is who God is – a lover.  The entire gospel can be summed up in “for God so loved.”  That is why He did what He did in sending His son to this earth to die for us, as messed up as we are.  Why else would he suffer so, except that He loves us so desperately?

 If we claim to belong to Him, then that is how we must live – as a lover, loving Him and loving others.  Do you remember the song from the eighties?  They will know we are Christians by our love.  It really is true.  God says to us, “If anyone boasts, ‘I love God,’ and goes right on hating his brother or sister, thinking nothing of it, he is a liar.  If he won’t love the person he can see, how can he love the God he can’t see?”  (1 John 4:20 The Message)

 Those are strong words.  If we truly belong to Him, His love should fill us and flow through us. And yet, I know, we sometimes struggle with this.  It’s not always easy to love people.  Most of us have someone in our lives that rubs us the wrong way.  We may not necessarily hate them, but we have a hard time liking them.  We may find ourselves becoming easily irritated with them or speaking negatively about them to others.  

 How can we overcome?  How can we become ones who are known by love?  How do we take up permanent residence in a life of love?  How do we go from being easily irritated by others to a place where “love covers a multitude of sins?”  

As I’ve said many times before, what we really need, more than any other thing, is a revelation of His love.  We must “know this love that surpasses knowledge, that you might be filled to the measure of all the fullness of God.” (Ephesians 3:19 NIV) If we are struggling in the area of loving others, it probably comes down to the fact that we really don’t have a full revelation of His great love for us.

 We need to think on His love often.  We need to ask Him to give us awareness and an understanding of His love. We need to look at our own brokenness and sin, which God willingly and fully pardoned.  When you think about it, His love is incredible.  That He could love me, as sinful as I am, amazes me.  

 When we realize how much we are loved, how much God has forgiven us, it’s much easier to love others.  When we realize the worth God the Father put on us, by sending His son to die for us, we come to see that all are precious in His sight.  He died for all.  He loved all – the entire world.  Everyone is unique, loved and created in His image.

 I believe it hurts God when we come against those whom He created. Kris Vallotton shared some wisdom on Facebook, some things He has learned in His time working with Bill Johnson.  He says, “Look for the good in people and focus on their goodness, not their flaws. Never speak negatively of anyone. Honor and celebrate all different kinds of people, regardless if you agree with them or not.”  These two statements really convicted me.

It’s very easy to look at people’s flaws. It’s easy to speak negatively of others. It’s easy to get irritated by others who are different from us.  That is because God created us all unique.  We are not the same.  We don’t think the same.  We don’t act the same.  We were all raised differently.  I guess that’s what makes life interesting.

 We must not expect everyone to be or think like us, instead we need to celebrate each other’s differences.  We need to focus on the good in others, not the flaws. Believe me, I need to be reminded of this as much as anyone.  This is something I struggle with, as I’m sure most of us do.

Last night, I was having a time of seeking God’s face and I was crying out desperately for more of Him, for more of His Spirit.  So often I feel like there’s more - something that I am missing.  I read of the lives of great revivalists and their stories of being baptized in the Spirit and I think, “Wow, I’ve never encountered God like that.  (The encounters that they had with God were extreme.) I need more.”

 I often think in order to move out into the things God has called me to, which can seem overwhelming, that I just need more.  I need to encounter Him first, hear Him speak, whatever that looks like. (Not that I haven’t encountered Him, but I just felt like there is so much more.)

 But God stopped me in my tracks and asked me to lay that down.  To surrender to Him my need of that.  To serve Him even if I never experience that.  In fact, He said that even if I didn’t feel anything, that doesn’t mean He is not there.  He said that everything I need is inside of me.

 He brought me to the verse, Ephesians 3:19 which says, May you “know this love that surpasses knowledge – that you may be filled to the measure of all the fullness of God.”

 God showed me, while I was crying out for more of His Spirit, that what I really needed – what we all need – is, not more power or anointing (first and foremost), but a “revelation of His great love for us.”  For it is through this “revelation” that we are “filled to the measure” of “all the fullness of God.”

 Do you want all of God?  Do you desire to walk in the fullness of all He’s called you to?  Do you long to be like Him in every way?  Then what you need, what I need, is to “know His love.”

 Yes, according to His word, this love is beyond human understanding, but God would not have told us to seek it and know it if were not possible to comprehend it.  We cannot understand it with human thoughts, but through our spirits.

 He longs to make His love known to us, for He desires all to be “filled to the measure of His fullness.”  That is what will change us and as a result, change the world around us. 

 When we are filled to the measure it means there is room for nothing else – not sin, not pride, not selfishness, not lust, not anger or fear.  Are these things you struggle with?  I know I do.  That is why we need a revelation of His love in our lives.  If we are so filled with His love, those things will have no place in us.

 “Perfect love casts out fear.” (1 John 4:18)  (Among other things.) 

 When we are filled with His love, we have ALL of Him - the fullness of God!

 Recently I watched the movie Raggamuffin,which is about the life of Rich Mullins. (What an inspiring movie!)  In that movie, Brennan Manning says, “I am utterly convinced that on judgment day, the Lord Jesus will ask one question and only one question: Did you believe that I loved you?”

 At first I didn’t know what to think of this.  But God is giving me this revelation of my desperate need to know His love.  Without it, I am just going through the motions.  Without it, I will have no true impact.  Without it, I will continue to struggle with sin, lack of joy and fear.

 “His love is better than life.” (Psalm 63:3)

 There is so much more I could say, but I’ll end with this quote.  I don’t think it can be said any better than this.

 Brennan Manning said, in His book – Abba’s Child, “Define yourself radically as one loved by God.  This is the true self.  Every other identity is illusion.”