True Love (part 2)

Christ constrains us that we should walk no more knowing you in the flesh. This is the wonderful thing about it. The things you did before you were saved aren’t remembered anymore but you are seen in the born again state. Every human being is a rebel; all have sinned and come short of the glory of God. But when I see you, I see you in what you have become and where you want to go, not who you were and what you did. That’s the way Christ looks at us. That means that being born again should remove shame and weakness of the enemy trying to put you in a place that you don’t need to be. Isn’t that incredible?

​Let’s start out in 2 Corinthians 5:14, For the love of Christ constraineth us; because we thus judge, that if one died for all, then were all dead: The love of Christ constrains us so that we look at life in a certain way. If Jesus died for whoever wants life, before Jesus died on the cross, everyone was dead. Verse 15, And that he died for all, that they which live should not henceforth live unto themselves. It’s true that He died for anyone but other parts of the scripture say that He died for many. With the two combined, He died for every one of us that want Him. And that he died for all, that they which live should not henceforth live unto themselves. If we want to live, we can’t live for ourselves. …but unto him which died for them, and rose again. If we want to live, we have to live for the one who saved us. If we don’t live for Him we cannot have everlasting life. Verse 16, Wherefore henceforth know we no man after the flesh: yea, though we have known Christ after the flesh, yet now henceforth know we him no more. Many people knew Jesus in the flesh. But we don’t know people in the flesh anymore. How can I walk in such a way that I don’t know you by the flesh when I look at you and I know who you are? Christ constrains us that we should walk no more knowing you in the flesh. This is the wonderful thing about it. The things you did before you were saved aren’t remembered anymore but you are seen in the born again state. Every human being is a rebel; all have sinned and come short of the glory of God. But when I see you, I see you in what you have become and where you want to go, not who you were and what you did. That’s the way Christ looks at us. That means that being born again should remove shame and weakness of the enemy trying to put you in a place that you don’t need to be. Isn’t that incredible? Verse 17,Therefore if any man be in Christ, he is a new creature: old things are passed away; behold, all things are become new. If you don’t believe that, you’ll stay in shame and condemnation, but you don’t need to. Verse 18, And all things are of God, who hath reconciled us to himself by Jesus Christ, and hath given to us the ministry of reconciliation. When you are made right with God, or reconciled unto Him, then the old passes away and we no longer see you in that state because you become a new creation; the past is gone and the burden is lifting off of you. Once I’ve been reconciled to God, in that area I become a new creation. There are things that God is still dealing with me in reconciling me into a new place because to walk where He wants to put me I have to change. It’s like if you started out going to school to be a teacher, but then you want to move up, you have to take extra classes, then you can become a principal, and if you want to go further than that then you have to go to more school. That’s the way it is with God and us. If God calls us to a new place then we have to have a new level of cleansing.
 
2 Corinthians 6:13, Now for a recompense in the same, (I speak as unto my children,) be ye also enlarged. If you are stubborn and don’t want to progress you can stay in the same place for years. Many of the people in the church today stay so long in one place they become stale and moldy. Moldy in God is not good. So Paul says you need to become enlarged. I know God has more for me than where I’m at. That’s how I got started even in seeking God. I knew there was so much more to God than what I was being taught in the church and I wasn’t satisfied. So when I came across 1 Corinthians 2 where it says God will show you the deep things of Him I said, That’s what I want. I want the deep things of God. And every time I said that, I enlarged my capacity of hope. If you don’t have a large capacity of hope you will never increase. You need to be enlarged. Your hope needs to be bigger than what you can see being able to happen. If God says this is what I want to use you for then enlarge yourself and let God prepare you for that particular thing. Verse 14, Be ye not unequally yoked together with unbelievers: for what fellowship hath righteousness with unrighteousness? And what communion hath light with darkness? And what concord hath Christ with Belial? Or what part hath he that believeth with an infidel? And what agreement hath the temple of God with idols? For ye are the temple of the living God; as God hath said, I will dwell in them, and walk in them; and I will be their God, and they shall be my people. Wherefore come out from among them, and be ye separate. That’s the same thing that Jesus taught. Come out from those that are not moving and enlarging themselves because you will stay where they are at. Come out of there and enlarge yourself. …and touch not the unclean thing; and I will receive you, And will be a Father unto you, and ye shall be my sons and daughters, saith the Lord Almighty. When God first started breaking the world off of me I had lots of personal goals that I wanted to meet. Not that I didn’t help other people or care about other people, but most of those things were for me. So I have a question here. How do you love? Or, Why do you love? Why do you love God? Why do you love people? Is it to benefit yourself? You can love people as long as they are increasing you and you will be good buddies. But if they quit enlarging you, your love disappears. But if you love someone to benefit them, whether it’s God or people, that’s the love that comes from God. God has made it for all eternity without us. He doesn’t need us to keep on living. But He loves us and wants to fellowship with us. It says it hasn’t even entered into our ability to think and know what God has prepared for those who love Him. He’s looking for fellowship, but He also takes great pleasure in increasing anyone who wants Him. Verse 17 again, Wherefore come out from among them, and be ye separate, saith the Lord, and touch not the unclean thing; and I will receive you, And will be a Father unto you, and ye shall by my sons and daughters, saith the Lord Almighty. What does a Father do to a son? A good father teaches him how to be one that is a continual increaser. As I was studying love, the Lord put in my heart to go back and look at why I love people. Do I love them because they increase me, or do I love them to help them increase? There’s a lot of difference.
 
Galatians 4:6, And because ye are sons, God hath sent forth the Spirit of his Son into your hearts, crying, Abba, Father. God puts in our heart the desire to love Him. He puts within us His Spirit that cries Abba, Father. When Jesus came on this earth what did He say His purpose was? He came that we might know the Father. That’s how we know Jesus had the love of the Father. He wanted others to experience what He had, and He wasn’t jealous of you coming and also being sons of His Father. Jesus came because the Father sent Him to come into your heart and to cry out for your Father. Verse 7, Wherefore thou art no more a servant, but a son; and if a son, then an heir of God through Christ. An heir takes part in what the father has. Then in verse 19, My little children, of whom I travail in birth again until Christ be formed in you. Paul said, again and again I pray for you until Christ is formed in you. The Spirit of His Son is placed in your heart, but your heart has to be conformed to the image of Jesus. Verse 20, I desire to be present with you now, and to change my voice; for I stand in doubt of you. Tell me, ye that desire to be under the law, do ye not hear the law? For it is written, that Abraham had two sons, the one by a bondmaid, the other by a freewoman. But he who was of the bondwoman was born after the flesh; but he of the freewoman was by promise. Hagar had a son that Abraham loved, and Sarah couldn’t have a child at that time, so Abraham asked God to just let Ishmael be the one. But God said, I can’t, because he was born of a bondsmaid. If we don’t die to the bondage of this world, we are bond people that have no promise. You must die from the world. If you don’t die from the world, you will die being a slave to the world and you won’t receive the promise. If you are free from the world then you have a right to the promises of God. Verse 24, Which things are an allegory: for these are the two covenants; the one from the mount Sinai, which gendereth to bondage, which is Agar. For this Agar is mount Sinai in Arabia, and answereth to Jerusalem which now is, and is in bondage with her children. But Jerusalem which is above is free, which is the mother of us all. For it is written, Rejoice, thou barren that bearest not; break forth and cry, thou that travailest not: for the desolate hath many more children than she which hath an husband. The desolate are those in bondage. There are a whole lot more people in bondage than those that are free. For you to be free is to be free from being in transgressions (owning someone else) or allowing someone else to transgress and own you. Verse 28, Now we, brethren, as Isaac was, are the children of promise. But as then he that was born after the flesh persecuted him that was born after the Spirit, even so it is now. Ishmael and all of Abraham’s children that were bondsmen are still persecuting Israel to this day. They want to destroy them. We’re children of Abraham too. Those that are born after the Spirit are persecuted. Verse 30, Nevertheless what saith the scripture? Cast out the bondwoman and her son: for the son of the bondwoman shall not be heir with the son of the freewoman. It’s another way of saying what Jesus said: that you have to love Him more than anybody else, including your family. You have to love Him more to be free so you can be one who qualifies for the promises.
 
Let’s go now to Ephesians 1:3, Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, who hath blessed us with all spiritual blessings in heavenly places in Christ: All of this is soaked in the love of God, because God is love. If you are in the promise, everything God does is blessing and increasing your tent and increasing everything you do. If you don’t fight Him but yield to Him, He will increase you. He’s crying out, Open your heart so My Son can fully be in your heart that it will conform to the image of My Son. Verse 4, According as he hath chosen us in him before the foundation of the world, that we should be holy and without blame before him in love: Having predestinated us unto the adoption of children by Jesus Christ to himself, according to the good pleasure of his will. Predestination is for those who die to the world and take on the nature of His Son. That’s when the predestination comes on you because it’s the promises. Before you die to the world there is no predestination on you because you’re not qualified. Verse 6, To the praise of the glory of his grace, wherein he hath made us accepted in the beloved. His grace carries us into a place that we are loved by God. Verse 9, Having made known unto us the mystery of his will, according to his good pleasure which he hath purpose in himself. God has wanted to share the mysteries in His heart for a long time. For six thousand years He has held the mysteries of what He wants to do with this generation in His heart and He’s now releasing it. God is releasing predestination among those who want Him with everything in them. To be predestined means His word is in you, and His word will bring you to the promise.
 
Ephesians 3:16, That he would grant you, according to the riches of his glory, to be strengthened with might by his Spirit in the inner man; He will strengthen our inner being, which is our heart, with the promises and the ability to accomplish His will. Verse 17, That Christ may dwell in your hearts by faith; that ye, being rooted and grounded in love. When God gives us something He gives us a seed that has to grow. If you have faith in God, you also have love. The seed placed within you will be rooted and grounded in the love of God. Think of the strength that you will have if the soil of the seed is the love of God. Verse 19, And to know the love of Christ, which passeth knowledge, that ye might be filled with all the fullness of God. That’s what it will take to make it through to the end.
 
1 John 1:5, This then is the message which we have heard of him, and declare unto you, that God is light, and in him is no darkness at all. If we have the fullness of God in us it will drive out every bit of darkness. God’s love is absolutely pure. God doesn’t have a motive to own you like the human being does.
 
1 John 2:5, But whoso keepeth his word, in him verily is the love of God perfected: hereby know we that we are in him. If you keep the word in your heart, you will be perfected in the love of God. Let’s put that with the question we talked about earlier, how do you love? The Bible says that if you give food to those that have food, that’s fine, but if you give to those who don’t have, you will be blessed by the Lord. If you help one of God’s children become prosperous, you are helping His children to become partakers of the promises. The only way that we can thank the Lord for what He’s done for us is to do the same for someone else. If we do that, then we know we are in Him, because that’s what He does. But if you’re loving someone because they are increasing you, you just get whatever you get, but you don’t get anything from God. Verse 6, He that saith he abideth in him ought himself also so to walk, even as he walked. The only way you can walk as He walked is if you keep His word in you. His word in you will bring you to perfection. It’s not hard in today’s world to become discouraged. But when I become discouraged, I’ll sit down and read the Bible. When I get up I’m all charged up again. I’ve put the word in my heart and I believe the word and the word begins to lift off the burdens of the world. It really works.
 
Do you think God loves the world the way it is? If He did, why would He tell you to get out of it? 1 John 2:15, Love not the world, neither the things that are in the world. If any man love the world, the love of the Father is not in him. Love perfects you to love Him. That’s the way His love works. Verse 16, For all that is in the world, the lust of the flesh, and the lust of the eyes, and the pride of life, is not of the Father, but is of the world. Ever since the fall of man those three things have been destroying the souls, and it all has to do with the flesh. But if we become a new creation we no longer judge people by their past and we look to who they are now in the recreation. I’m thankful that I’m known in heaven for who I am now, not who I was. 1 John 2:25, And this is the promise that he hath promised us, even eternal life. The most important thing He promised those who walk in the promises is eternal life. Verse 26, These things have I written unto you concerning them that seduce you. But the anointing which ye have received of him abideth in you, and ye need not that any man teach you: but as the same anointing teacheth you of all things, and is truth, and is no lie, and even as it hath taught you, ye shall abide in him. There is an anointing God gives every person who has everlasting life. There is a corporate vision that I teach as a pastor, but I don’t teach individuals their calling. That’s your job. You don’t need me to teach you what your calling is because the same anointing that saved you will teach you of all things. If you follow through on that, and God raises you up, no one can stop you. It’s up to you whether you want to be perfected in the love of God and if that takes place then it will be seen by everyone. Everyone will know the anointing has taken you into a place of your calling.
 
1 John 3:1, Behold, what manner of love the Father hath bestowed upon us, that we should be called the sons of God: therefore the world knoweth us not, because it knew him not. Don’t expect the world to understand you because they don’t know God. Just like a small child doesn’t understand the world, neither does anyone who is not born of God understand your world that you live in. Verse 2, Beloved, now are we the sons of God. When you enter into the promises you become a son. …and it doth not yet appear what we shall be: but we know that, when he shall appear, we shall be like him; for we shall see him as he is. And every man that hath this hope in him purifieth himself, even as he is pure. Anybody that has the hope of eternity, anybody that sees God and His Son and the righteousness of Him, will automatically begin to cleanse and purify himself in that hope. The word that is in you gives you the power. Love is mixed with everything God does. To those who don’t want to change it doesn’t feel like love, because anything you resist is not love in your mind. Verse 17, But whoso hath this world’s good, and seeth his brother have need and shutteth up his bowels of compassion from him, how dwelleth the love of God in him? My little children, let us not love in word, neither in tongue; but in deed and in truth. To operate in truth you must have the love of God in it. Truth by itself will drive people away but love in truth disengages the shotgun. What I mean is, if you stole, the truth is you stole something and you deserve to be punished. But in truth mixed with love, you stole something and if you want to quit stealing I’ll show you how to become prosperous. Verse 19, And hereby we know that we are of the truth, and shall assure our hearts before him. For if our heart condemn us, God is greater than our heart, and knoweth all things. Beloved, if our heart condemn us not, then have we confidence toward God. If we have a love for God, there’s nothing that can condemn us in that relationship. If you feel condemned, it’s because you haven’t allowed the love of God to come into your heart to conform you to the image of Christ. You’re still a child if that takes place.
 
1 John 4:7, Beloved, let us love one another: for love is of God; and every one that loveth is born of God, and knoweth God. If you want to find out what true love is you have to love the Lord and conform to Jesus so that you love out of a giving heart and not a self-centered heart. Verse 8, He that loveth not knoweth not God for God is love. Verse 16, And we have known and believed the love that God hath to us. God is love; and he that dwelleth in love dwelleth in God, and God in him. How important is it to have the love of God in you!? To have the love of God dwelling in us is to know God. Verse 17, Herein is our love made perfect, that we may have boldness in the day of judgment: because as he is, so are we in this world. When our love is made perfect we have boldness in the day of judgment because the judgment won’t be on us if we have made everything right with God; we have been made perfect in love. That’s how love casts out fear. Verse 18, There is no fear in love; but perfect love casteth out fear: because fear hath torment. He that feareth is not made perfect in love. God takes us to new depths of that love and faith. About the time you think the enemy is pretty well gone he raises his ugly head and throws out more crap. But we have to stay in peace and love with God. Verse 19, We love him, because he first loved us. The reason He first loved us is because we didn’t know how to love. Ours is a self-centered love. He came and put His love in us so we can learn how to love as the Father and Son and Holy Spirit love us. It makes us perfect towards Him and in this world. Verse 20, If a man say, I love God, and hateth his brother, he is a liar: for he that loveth not his brother whom he hath seen, how can he love God whom he hath not seen? If you have somebody in your life that’s hard to love, God may be testing you and ushering you into a new place of love that disengages the anger. If we have the love of God it disengages wanting to do harm to someone else.
 
1 John 5:1, Whosoever believeth that Jesus is the Christ is born of God: and every one that loveth him that begat loveth him also that is begotten of him. By this we know that we love the children of God, when we love God, and keep his commandments. For this is the love of God, that we keep his commandments: and his commandments are not grievous. For whatsoever is born of God overcometh the world: and this is the victory that overcometh the world, even our faith. Who is he that overcometh the world, but he that believeth that Jesus is the Son of God? If you believe then you will love the Lord and you will overcome the world. The deeper you go into the love of God the more disgusting the world becomes. Verse 6, This is he that came by water and the blood, even Jesus Christ; not by water only, but by water and blood. And it is the Spirit that beareth witness, because the Spirit is truth. Jesus came with three things: water to cleanse us, blood to pay the price of our wickedness, and the Spirit of Truth to help you get out of where you were at and stay out of it. Verse 7, For there are three that bear record in heaven, the Father, the Word, and the Holy Ghost: and these three things are one. And there are three that bear witness in earth, the Spirit, and the water, and the blood: and these three agree in one. We have three things in heaven: the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. And three things on earth that bear witness of God: the Spirit of Jesus, that His Spirit enters into our heart to conform our heart to the image of His Son, and the water is to cleanse, and the blood is to pay for the sins that we committed. It’s a crucial thing for us to understand the love of God; how it works and what it will do for us if we open our hearts and let the love of God flow in our hearts. It will bring us to a place of purity as we read the word. The word washes us with water, the blood removes our guilt, and the truth takes us out of the world into a new realm in heavenly places so we can be like His Son Jesus. And then we walk in the promises.

True Love
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