February 2010

Dear friend in Christ,

On February 14 we celebrated Valentine's Day. It's the day that has customarily been set aside to express our love for that "special" someone in our lives. We hear a lot about love, but the truth is, very few people really know what love is. For most, it's an emotional phantom that appears, then vanishes without warning. It seems to be illusive, indefinable, forever sought after, but rarely ever found. And even believers seem to be confused about love. People talk about "falling in and out of love", but that's an emotional response. Love is not a feeling, and a feeling is not the evidence of love. Love is a person; the Bible tells us in 1 John 4:8 that "God is Love." And in John 3:16 we read, "For God so loved the world that He gave His only begotten Son..." That's the greatest act of Love anyone could give. The Father gave because of His unsurpassing love for you and for me. And His love was translated into giving His highest and most treasured possession. He didn't send one of His angels, He gave of Himself; His ONLY begotten Son.

God IS Love and He wants us to know and understand that absolutely NOTHING can ever separate us from Him. No tribulation or trial, or sickness and disease, not lack or poverty, or a bad marriage, or even faced with life in prison. Nothing can ever separate us from the Love of the Father. The scripture in 1 John 4:8 does not say that God HAS love; it says that He IS love. And that is the key to all Bible revelation. It takes an understanding of God to walk with Him and to walk in His great commandment of love.

In the Book of Ephesians, chapter 3 and verse 18, the apostle Paul prayed that we "may be able to comprehend with all the saints, what is the breadth and length, and depth and height; and to KNOW the Love of Christ." We have the ability to KNOW the very Love of Christ, and that can't be anybody but God, because God IS love PERSONIFIED.

Love has to be our first and greatest quest in life. It must be the very center of our time and our thinking because God has given us the commandment to love. And because He has commanded us to walk in that Love, He sent Himself in the Person of the Holy Spirit to live on the inside of our spirit man to help us.

Love is a law of heaven and a law of earth. In fact, the apostle James calls this the "royal law of love." This is the commandment of the Church from our Heavenly Father that we love one another. 1 John 3:23, "This is His commandment, that we should believe on the Name of His Son, Jesus, and love one another as He gave the commandment." This is our primary calling in life, and the key issue to everything we face.

In the Book of Matthew, chapter 22:36-40, we can find exactly what Jesus told us about this commandment when He answered the young lawyer who had asked Him, "Master, which is the great commandment of the law? And 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 neighbor as thyself. On these two commandments hang all of the law and the prophets." So this tells us that all of the Torah, which is the first five books of the Bible, and all of the Prophets, and that includes the New Testament because the New Testament was prophesied into existence, and Jesus is a part of that prophetic utterance. (The Prophet spoke and the Word took upon itself FLESH, and He dwelt among us). So, all of the Law and all of the Prophets hang on these two commandments, and the way Jesus put it and the way He taught it, He went into great detail, and these two commandments are rolled into one. They are in the proper order. We are to love God with our entire being, and we are to love our neighbor as we love our self.

That's the way He gave the commandment, and that's the very process that we are to walk in, and as we walk in this commandment, it will keep us in a place before the Father where we are holy and blameless in His eyes.

God tells us that if we love Him, we will keep His commandments, and He's not only given us the definition of Love, He has also given us the instructions so that we can know HOW to love as He loves. 1 Corinthians 13 describes the behavior of love, "Love endures long and is patient and kind; love never is envious nor boils over with jealousy; it is not boastful or vainglorious, and does not display itself haughtily. It is not conceited, arrogant and inflated with pride; it is not rude and unmannerly, and does not act unbecomingly. LOVE, God's love in us does not insist on its own rights or its own way, for it is not self-seeking; it is not touchy or fretful or resentful; it takes no account of the evil done to it, and pays no attention to a suffered wrong. It does not rejoice at injustices and unrighteousness, but rejoices when right and truth prevail. Love bears up under anything and everything that comes; it is ever ready to believe the best of every person; its hopes are fadeless under all circumstances and it endures everything without weakening. Love never fails, never fades out or becomes obsolete or comes to an end." Does this describe you love walk?

If you've made Jesus Christ the Lord of your life, you've already taken the first step of obedience. The very love of God has been born within you, but unless you take action, that love will remain hidden inside of you. Like faith, love becomes active through the knowledge of His Word. And that's exactly why Paul said, "And this I pray, that your love may abound yet more and more in knowledge and in all judgement." The love of God is released in your life by acting on the knowledge of God's Word, and without revelation knowledge, followed by action, that love lies undeveloped, and selfishness continues to reign supreme in our lives, even though we are a new creature in Christ.

1 John 2:5-6, "But whoever keeps His Word, truly the love of God is perfected in him. And by this we know that we are in Him. He who says he abides in Him ought himself also to walk just as He walked." In other words, as you ACT on the Word of God, the love of God will be perfected in you, and that's when love will begin to flow from you to others.

love,

Paula