Awaken to His Love
On 9/20/2022 I was in prayer for our city and region, and I clearly heard: “I want to pour My love out over the people.” I immediately said, “YES GOD, DO IT!” and He immediately responded, “I do it through My people! My Church needs to be awakened to My love.” After setting on that for a moment, I began to feel this grieving in the depths of my spirit. I stopped everything and repented for not being a conduit of His love. My heart was truly hurting.
He went on to speak and said…
“There’s been a cry for an awakening of My power and authority in the Church, but outside of My love, you can have neither. You’ve been praying for harmony amongst the churches, but outside of My love, you will never see it.”
This stopped me in my tracks. God does that to me often. Probably because I’m always seeing things 1000 steps ahead. Anyway, I began to see what He was talking about so clearly. I began to study the scriptures once again about the love of God, the agape that we are called to walk in. The unconditional love that is God! If God is unconditional love and Jesus walked in unconditional love, who are we to believe we are to do any less?
The Spirit of the Living God is INSIDE of us, His Body, His Church… therefore, His love should be as a rushing river that flows into every person we come into contact with. But we don’t! How do I know? Well, I dare you to just take a look around. We love those inside our four walls until they disagree with us… that’s conditional love… and we look at those in the world, judge them and walk away… that’s hate.
You may say ‘hate’ is a strong word, but according to the Greek, hate simply means to love less. Let that sink in.
The first and greatest commandment is this… Love the Lord your God with ALL of Your heart, ALL of your soul and ALL of your might! The second is this… you are to love your neighbor AS you love yourself.
1. Love God
2. Love yourself
3. Love others
John 15:12, Jesus says, “This is My commandment, that you love one another as I have loved you.”
Here’s the thing Body of Christ, we are really good at loving those who are like us and snuffing those who are not. How do I know that? I see the clicks, I hear the conversations… I’ve been there and it’s time to repent.
The love of God is unlike the love of the world. Let me give you a picture of God’s love:
God’s love is large and incredibly patient
God’s love is gentle and consistently kind to all
God’s love joyfully celebrates honesty and finds NO delight in what is wrong
God’s love is a safe place, a shelter
God’s love never stops believing the best for others
God’s love never takes failure as defeat, for it never gives up
God’s love never stops loving
God’s love REFUSES to be jealous of others
God’s love does NOT brag
God’s love IS NOT arrogant and prideful
God’s love does NOT inflate its own importance
God’s love does NOT traffic in shame and disrespect, nor selfishly seek its own honor
God’s love is NOT easily irritated or quick to offense
Can you see a difference in God’s love and the love we tend to carry through our fleshly ways?
We see more of the fleshly ways of love in the Church then we do the agape (love) of God. There is something greatly wrong and it needs to end. I do not know how often I hear “I’m just done with people!” or “I just can’t people today.” or even the memes and posts that I often see from Christians that say, “I love Jesus, but I hate people.” Ya’ll, these are things I see on the social media pages of those who call themselves the Body of Christ. I was looking through the internet today and ran across a shirt that says, “I love Jesus but I’ll punch a hoe..” Good grief! What in the world!?! There was also an actual line of clothing that has a picture of Jesus on the cross on it. Above the cross it says, “Jesus loves you.” Under that it says, “But I don’t.. go f*** yourself.” My heart sank.
We wonder why there’s a generation that wants nothing to do with the Church. It’s because we’ve made it clear that the Church wants nothing to do with them. We’ve made it clear that we choose to walk in idolatry, worshiping the idol of self, self-emotions, self-ambition, self-love, self-everything and we call it ‘Christianity’.
We claim we serve the King of kings, who is LOVE… but do we really?
Here’s the test for you to evaluate your love walk…
Let love be without hypocrisy, abhor evil and cling to what is good. (Ro. 12:9)
Do not love the world or the things in the world. If anyone loves the world, the love of the Father is not in him. For all that is in the world, the lust of the flesh and the lust of the eyes and the boastful pride of life, is not from the Father, but from the world. (1 Jo 2:15-16)
“Beloved, let us love one another, for love is of God and everyone who loves IS BORN OF GOD and KNOWS GOD. HE WHO DOES NOT LOVE DOES NOT KNOW GOD, FOR GOD IS LOVE. In this the love of God was manifested toward us, that God has sent His only begotten Son into the world, that we might live through Him. In this is love, not that we loved God, but that He loved us and sent His Son to be the propitiation for our sins. Beloved, if God so loved us, we also ought to love one another…. If someone says, “I love God,” and hates (to detest, to love less) his brother, he is a liar; for he who does not love his brother, whom he has seen, how can he love God whom he has not seen?” (1 Jo 4:7-11, 20)
Think about that for a moment! It literally says, “If you don’t love your brother, you don’t love God!” Therefore, running around saying “Oh I love God so much”, yet choosing not to love people, like, being patient with them, kind to them, being honest with them, celebrating them instead of being jealous of them, humbling yourself before others instead of exalting yourself in pride ahead of them… taking the hand of that homeless person on the street, listening to their story and offering them a love that they may have never had or maybe they did but felt they could never return.
What is your love walk like?
Until we choose to evaluate our love walk, we will not be able to walk in the fullness of Christ, this is how we know this Truth… Paul prayed that we would KNOW the love of Christ which surpasses knowledge, THAT WE MAY BE FILLED up to all the fullness of God. (Eph 3:19) We also are told to walk in the same love that Jesus had toward us and was willing to give His life for and when we do, it is an offering and a sacrifice to God for a sweet-smelling aroma. (Eph 5:2) As a child of God, we are called to live a life of sacrifice, death to self and love towards all. That’s a sacrifice.
Lastly, we have this instruction: Let all that you do be done with love. (1 Cor 16:14)
What is your love life like? Is it agape or is it fleshly?
He wants to pour His love out over the people in this world and we are that conduit! It’s time to get our love walk in check! This goes so far beyond what we can do without Holy Spirit working in us. The Word says that the FRUIT of the Spirit it LOVE… then joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, and self-control. Doesn’t that sound familiar? It’s the same as 1 Cor. 13. When we walk in the true, agape love of His Spirit in us, all the rest will flow in us and through us naturally.
Church, we will not see our church families, our cities, our regions, our nation, nor this world REVIVED without an awakening of His love in our individual lives. His love transforms lives! As the Body, we must repent of the works, the busyness, and the playing around with God and we must return to our first love! We must return to the first and greatest commandment! We must know our God.
Father, I repent for not walking in Your love. I repent for not loving You with all of my heart, all of my soul, and all of might. I repent for not loving myself as You love me and I repent for not loving others as Jesus loves us all. Father, I repent for walking in a love full of hypocrisy. I ask Holy Spirit to fill me and awaken my heart and life to YOUR LOVE! Father, awaken the Church, to Your LOVE! In Jesus name, amen.