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 February 2007 Rhema
Word...
Get Addicted
to Love
Foundational Text:
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
neighbour as thyself. On these two commandments
hang all the law and the prophets. Matthew
22:37-40 KJV
Love. It will be all the
rage this month, with the chocolate and flower
ads bombarding us from all directions. Ads trying
to convince men that if they really love their
wife or girlfriend, buy her something. Preferably
something shiny, or, at minimum, something she
can share.
In our foundational text,
Jesus was answering the question a lawyer raised,
“…which is the great commandment of the
law…” Here, in Matthew, Jesus sums it
up for him and for us: love. Love God with all
you have and love everyone else like you do
yourself.
Why is that? In verse 40,
Jesus tells us why: everything (all the laws and
everything the Prophets have told us) is based on
the law of love. Something so simple, yet
profound. If we loved God with everything we had,
we wouldn’t transgress or rebel against Him.
If we loved everyone the way we love ourselves,
we would be patient, kind, long suffering,
tender-hearted!
Love is the foundation upon
all is built. It was love that moved God to
create a family. It was love that moved God to
have a Kinsman Redeemer already in place to bring
us back to Him. It was love that gave the laws
(the commandments) so that, in the meantime, as
we adhered to them, we would live a long,
healthy, wealthy, whole life (just read those
promises in Deuteronomy!) It was love that not
only saved us from eternal damnation, but freed
us from sickness and disease as Christ carried it
on His back; freed us from demonic oppression as
the Blood of the Lamb poured; freedom from
poverty as He took the crown of thorns, the
symbol of poverty, upon His head. He became poor
(He was in heaven where there are no deficits) so
that we, through His poverty (let’s face it,
even Bill Gates compared to God’s wealth is
poor) might be rich. Love poured itself out for
us. So what do we do in return?
For the pastors are
become brutish, and have not sought the LORD:
therefore they shall not prosper, and all their
flocks shall be scattered. Jeremiah 10:21
You might be thinking,
“Okay. But I’m not a pastor.” We
are all called to be a priest and king unto Him
(Revelation 1), so, in a sense, you are. You are
a priest unto Him. For some people, you are the
only Jesus they will see. And yet, for many in
the body of Christ, they have turned from being
saints to brutes. We don’t make peace with
God (by repenting); we don’t pray; we
don’t seek His providence; we don’t
seek His counsel; we don’t acknowledge when
God is speaking to us nor do we expect
deliverance to come from His hand. So what
happens to us: we do not prosper. We don’t
prosper in our bodies, in our souls, in our
circumstances. We do not prosper because we do
not love: we have become brutes. And the number
one thing we don’t do is:
A
new commandment I give unto you, That ye love one
another; as I have loved you, that ye also love
one another. By this shall all [men] know that ye
are my disciples, if ye have love one to another.
John 13: 34-35 KJV
Character assignation.
This is the number one thing that surprises other
people who aren’t Christians, but are
seeking God. It’s also the number one reason
people leave the church. They might not turn
their backs on God, but they certainly receive
such wounds they really don’t want to be
connected to any church. They can’t
understand how we treat each other. What an
abomination this is to the Lord, to sow discord
among the brethren (Proverbs 6:19). I know that
there are groups out there who believe they are
to “expose” what they believe are
“false teachers” or “false
prophets”. Oh, brothers and sisters, we need
to be so careful. It is not our jobs to play Holy
Ghost Jr. If you see something that you might
believe is not right, then you need to be quiet
and take it to the Lord. He will expose it:
Let both grow together
until the harvest: and in the time of harvest I
will say to the reapers, Gather ye together first
the tares, and bind them in bundles to burn them:
but gather the wheat into my barn. Matthew
13:30
When you try to “weed
out” what you think is not of God, you end
up hurting the people connected to the situation
so much worse. If you allow God to handle it, He
will! He loves us so much that He grants us time
to repent and make amends. If we do not, He will
expose us Himself. You have seen this on
television time and time again. Someone’s
own actions will eventually be brought to light
for all to see if they do not repent. And even
then, we are to love them as we would ourselves:
forgive them and pray for them to be whole again.
I have experienced this
for myself. Years ago, my family and I were going
to a church. One of the associate
pastor’s had made me very uncomfortable
whenever we saw him. I felt as though he was
being inappropriate. After it happening a few
times consistently, I spoke to my husband about
it, as I thought I was reading into
something. My husband is an extremely
discerning individual and had noticed as
well. As the priest of our house, he led
me into prayer and took it to the Lord.
We felt the leading of God to
not do anything about it, but to pray for
the pastor. This continued for one full year. It
was getting more difficult for us to hold
our peace about the situation. We almost
stopped going to church, as we didn't want
to cause any strife. We couldn’t understand
why we had to be quite and pray, but we stayed
obedient. At the end of one year’s time, he
resigned from his post as associate pastor, for
he failed to adhere to the loving nudging of God
to cut it out. His own actions toward another had
exposed him. Some left the church because they
were so hurt, but, eventually, many came back.
The church I was going to handled this difficult
situation very well and healing was manifested in
the lives of those connected to this associate
pastor and his unfortunate choices.
What if we had decided to
“expose” this brother? Maybe the ones
that left would have never come back to church,
and we would be partly responsible for it.
Instead, we choose to walk in love and love this
brother as we loved ourselves. We trusted God and
gave this dear soul over to Him knowing that
sooner or later, it will be taken care of. And it
was to the glory of God! Now, don't
misunderstand. There might be a time when God
tells you to speak, but again, we need to be
sensitive to His timing; His leading. We need to
check our own motives and examine them under the
law of love. We need to check our own motives and
examine them under the law of love.
If you have been involved
in gossip (only because something is true
doesn’t mean it needs to be repeated) or
slander, turn today and repent for it.
We need to go back to our
Jewish roots. I read this from an article on how
to stop gossiping in the workplace from aish.com
“…The Psalms state that a person who
desires life will avoid speaking ill of others
(Psalms 34:13-14)); and our sages stated,
"Gossip kills three: the teller, the
listener, and the subject." A
"vain" story doesn't have to be false
or even slanderous; as long as the subject would
prefer not to have the story broadcast, it is
considered gossip and it's none of your
business.”. The Jews take gossip very
seriously. So should we.
God loves you. Stay
pliable. Walk in love. That old saying,
“What would Jesus do?” is so simple,
and yet profound. Before you act or speak, think
about what would Love do? Would love talk about
it? Think about? Act upon it? Let the Holy Spirit
heal you where you hurt and show you how to begin
anew. Allow the gentle Spirit of God to love you
and show you how to love others. Get addicted to
love and watch your whole world change for the
better.
In His Grip,
Raquel
(For Previous Rhema
Teachings, please visit our Articles Page)
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