(John 15:12-13)
Love......
It is the first and foremost command Jesus gave us, yet all too many believers neglect to follow it.I'm talking about believers who know the bible from Genesis to Revelation, yet insensitive to the needs of their friends and family. They're so busy "serving God," they don't have time to serve people. There is nothing, absolutely nothing that is more important than learning to love, because every other spiritual force works by love.
For example, the Bible teaches us that faith works by love. And answered prayer is almost an impossibility when a believer steps outside of love and refuses to forgive or is in strife with his brother. Without love, your giving will not work. Tongues and prophecy will not work. Faith fails and knowledge is unfruitful. All the truths that you have learned from the word works by love. They will profit you nothing unless you live the love of God. First Corinthians 13:4-8 shows us how love behaves. It's patient and kind. It's not jealous or proud. It doesn't behave rudely or selfishly and it isn't touchy. Love "bears all things, believes all things, hopes all things, endures all things."
You may have been saved many years; you may talk in tongues all day long; but if you have strife in your heart and you're not living by the love commandment of Jesus, spiritual things are foolishness to you. When you're in that condition, the Name of Jesus won't work. Faith won't work because the Bible says that faith works by love. In fact, none of the gifts of the Spirit will work if you don't have love according to 1 Corinthians 13.
Jesus loved us so much He laid down His life by dying in our place so that we could live. But He is asking us to lay down our lives in a different way. He is asking us to show our love, not by dying for others, but by living for them. We show our love by laying down our own selfish desires in order to meet the needs of someone else . Giving of ourselves with love and understanding or by spending time in prayer for someone. Romans 15:1 says "We then that are strong ought to bear the infirmities of the weak, and not to please ourselves."
When you lay down your life, you live to please God instead of yourself. You let your life be guided by His love. If love leads you to the person in the grocery store, you go. When love calls you to pray for someone in the middle of the night you obey. When you are busy all day on the computer blogging for God and your husband and children are neglected, causing problems in the home, you are not walking in love. It makes no sense trying to reach the world and you can't walk in love with those in your home, let love guide your actions. Allow the tenderness of God to flow through you and heal the wounded hearts of those around you.
Is it your desire to see the incredible power of God released through your life? It should be. Put the love command into action, start loving those around you.
Don't even think about not having enough love inside you, the word says God's love is shed abroad in our hearts by the Holy Ghost. God's love is in you, commit to remove every obstacle that would keep that love from flowing freely into the lives of others. What you need to do is make a decision to walk in it..
Ask God to teach you to love even when things go wrong. To be patient and kind when the children are driving you crazy.. To overlook the spiteful words of an angry spouse. To rejoice when someone at the office gets the raise that you thought you should receive. To lay the church gossip quietly aside and take up words of grace instead,. because where there is envy and strife, there is every evil work.
In the days ahead, ask God to cause you to increase and excel and overflow with your love. To cause you to be what this world needs most of all, a living example of love.
He has loved you with the greatest love there is. Therefore count it a privilege now to share that love with others all the time.
If you would like to know this God I am talking about say the prayer below and invite Him into your life
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