God doesn’t get the "warm & fuzzies".
One sunny afternoon, while riding my motorcycle this word from the Lord came up in my spirit, it was almost as if I heard God speaking to me audibly. God doesn’t get the warm and fuzzies. I actually began to laugh thinking about things warm and fuzzy. I had been meditating all day on walking in love, and how words shape our lives. An argument between a family member and myself brought me to my knees that day, forcing me to evaluate how I responded to others. You see, Love is not an emotion, it’s a choice, and if we let Him, God will personally teach us how to Love.
If God is love, and he is, then Love cannot be an emotion because God cannot be emotional. Let’s face it; if God was moved by emotions then we'd all be in trouble. That’s certainly true for mankind, it seems like everything we do is governed by our emotions. Gods word says to love one another as Christ, (the Anointed one and His Anointing), loved us. So how exactly did Jesus love us? (With Agape Love) He certainly loves us without emotion, but by choice. What if Christ had been emotional at the cross? Don’t you think he would have wanted not to be crucified? Maybe he wouldn’t have gone to the cross at all. That was exactly what happened in the garden when Jesus said, “Father let this cup pass from me, nevertheless, not my will, but your will be done”. He could have chosen not to die on the cross, after all Jesus was a man; he had a choice just like we do. What if Jesus had said, Father it’s my life and I’ll do with it what I want to. Each of us has a choice daily; we can choose to serve God or ourselves. Everywhere you look today, the world tells you to look out for yourself, everyone thinks, “its My Life” but if we are Joint Aires with Christ, then we have the same call on our lives as Jesus does. So walking in Love is paramount. We are to lay down our lives for Gods calling. What greater love than this that we lay down our life for our brother.
If Christ had loved emotionally then walking in the God kind of love wouldn’t be possible. Aren’t we to follow Christ example, are children are taught, do as I say not as I do? Then what we call love certainly wouldn’t be Gods idea of love. Certainly it’s difficult to love someone who doesn’t loves you back. Now let those same people cross you see how you react. When someone hurts us our first thought is to hurt them back. That’s the world’s idea of love, an eye for an eye, and a tooth for a tooth. It’s hard to love someone who's hurt you, even though you might want to hurt them back. With the same measure you deal out, it will return to you. How many of us actually love our enemies as the word tells us to? Do we wait patiently for God to intervene on our behalf when someone has hurt us, or do we seek vengeance? God said vengeance is mine. Vengeance is Gods, not because he doesn’t want us to be vindicated, but because vengeance brings everlasting pain to the one who enforces it, that’s exactly why we should allow God to fight our battles.
The choice to love is a hard decision when loving someone that won’t love you back. Remember when Jesus was on the cross. He spoke these words of love, Forgive them father for they know not what they do. He had made a choice to love despite of what we did to him. In spite of all our shortcomings, he asked God to forgive us not only for our benefit, but for his. In order for him to fulfill the design God had for us, Jesus had to walk in Love, which never gets offended, hope the best for all, slow to anger, does no harm, and doesn’t remember harm done to it. He had to plead for our forgiveness. If he hadn’t asked God to forgive us, he would have taken the offence and the pain of the cross, and then sin would have once again entered into the body of Christ. Every day Jesus was on the earth He was a man, He was emotional and surely felt as we do today, but as our mighty military does each and every day He followed the orders given to Him regardless of the outcome and personal discomfort. He had no personal agenda, but lived to fulfill the scripture and Gods design for an overcoming life.
For God so loved the World, he gave. John 3:16-19 Gods’ true love gives, with no thought of reward, without condemnation. Mans idea of love has certain demands, if you do what I want then I Will Love you. Conditional love is the world’s way to self gratification. In the next verse we see the phrase, "He gave his only begotten son". Let’s examine that statement. Begotten son, which means Jesus, did have a choice; Life and Death are in the power of the tongue. Don’t you think God knew Jesus had freewill? It took an act of freewill in order for Jesus to lay down his life for us. If Gods word is true then think about this. Jesus was the Second Adam, and Adam had a choice right? God could have made the decision for Adam, but He didn’t. Same goes for Jesus. The word said, Jesus could have called legions of angels, but he also could have not gone to the cross at all. How many times have each of us avoided certain people and situations due to the scrutiny we would come under, and the persecution we would have to endure. How many lives could we change on a daily basis if we simply walked in love? If we could only stop loving like the world then the body of Christ could see God move powerfully in our lives. The world needs to see this God kind of love because they don’t want anything the church has to offer due to the lack of love they see in us, Christians, (Christ Like Ones) Jesus own disciples, the mirror image of how Christ lived as a man on this earth, and we cant even love our neighbor. Most of us can’t even walk across the street to see how our neighbors are doing, much less love them.
Gods’ true love conquers all, so love has to be a decision. In order for you to conquer something we have to choose to act, making a decision to do something. You can’t say I want to stop eating chocolate pie, all the while making chocolate pies each day, eating and eating. No you have to decide to be aggressive; you have to work at it with sweat, blood, and tears. Deny thyself, take up his cross, and walk. Crucify the flesh daily, doing all that is necessary to complete the scripture as Jesus himself commanded, which each command He has given comes directly from the father himself. God has chosen to love us and we must choose to love Him or if we want we can deny the Son and the Father. Freewill is a gift from God, distinguishing us from all other creatures.
How many of us miss church for whatever reason we can come up with, how many of us have missed this day of worship? How many blessings have we missed because of the choices we've made? So many enter the parking lot at church, fighting about the smallest things trying desperately to get out of our responsibility to love one another and not forsake the assembling of the saints. In these last days it is absolutely imperative that we walk in Love, never forgetting the scripture that says, Love One Another, Keep the love commandment because all other commandments hang on this. When we don’t walk in love nothing will work correctly for us, no matter how much prayer we send up to heaven, without love we simply cannot walk in our manifest destiny.
I Thess 3: 11-12, 4:9, 5:13-15
I Thess 4:6-8
Matt 22:37-40 Two Great Commandments
John 13:34-35 Love One Another
John 14:15 Keep Gods Commandments
John 15:9-14 Love One Another
Deut 11:1, 13 Love the Lord
Deut 30:15-20
H&HM Steven D. Hudson
