I wanted to share this special conversation I had with God, where He opened my eyes to see, my ears to hear, and my heart to understand the depths of true love and how He desires us to administer this gift upon this earth.
Many of us, pursuers of God, do not understand what true, godly love is to look like in practice. Here, I let you eavesdrop on my devotional conversation with God where He shares His heart with me about How He wants us who love Him to love others, revealing perspectives I had never perceived before. It changed my life! It changed my relationships! I wanted to share this wonderful blessing with you. My prayer is that this will not only encourage you, inspire you and bless you today, but also transform you!
1 Corinthians 13 - How to love God's way
Joy:
“Lord, teach me how to love—truly love. How do I love with Your heart? My love is so imperfect. I watched the movie The Hiding Place and I can identify with Corrie ten Boom, with the way she loved. But, Father, I'd like to have the courage and strength of faith and character to love like Corrie's little sister Betsie did. She was committed to loving others with Your love and refused to hate those who caused her pain and made her life a living hell.
“My love is like Corrie's was at that time. It is so easy to dislike, avoid, wish ill, speak evil of—and sometimes even hate, those who've hurt us so terribly or have done horrible, evil things.
“What would You like to tell me about love, Father?”
Holy Spirit:
“Joy, it pleases Me that you want to know how to love with My heart. It also pleases Me that you acknowledge that your love is imperfect and that you want to love others the way I love them. I AM both the essence and the fullness of Love. I am God, the Creator, and Love is My nature. To truly love is to partake of My nature. Anything you do moved by My love captures My heart. This kind of love is the reason I created everything. Nothing was created without this love. This love is the beginning and the end—it is eternal. This is heaven's love, it is true Christian love and it is life itself.
“This love does not blame. This love does not criticize. This love does not gossip. This love always forgives. This love does not reproach. Now, go to 1 Corinthians 13 and let us go over it together. Today, I want to give you a fresh perspective. Let me share more of My heart with you as you read it.
“Scenario 1:
Let's say you had the full power of the Holy Spirit to speak all the languages that exist in heaven and on earth, and even the languages of everything in nature (because even the rocks and the dirt under your feet speak in a language only heaven can hear and understand). But if what you speak does not come from a heart filled with My love, your words would be just noise, too awful to listen to. You live in time, I live in eternity. You hear sounds in a progression of time, I hear all your words together. So, if you spoke unkind words one morning to someone, and spoke kind words to another in the afternoon. I would hear it all as one horrible sound. It is extremely unpleasant to my ears. Remember, you live in time and I live in eternity. Here, everything simply IS—always present before Me.
“Scenario 2:
Let's say you could fully operate in the prophetic and in the gifts of miracles of the Holy Spirit: prophesying; having divine wisdom and knowledge of things that are hidden; having a faith with the power to move mountains; and performing all manner of miracles. If you were not motivated by godly love in all this, even though you thought you were doing great things in My eyes, you would have no reward in heaven because godly love is My greatest commandment to you. You only see appearances, but I see the heart at all times. I know every misguided motivation and every deception. I know your heart, better than you do.
“Scenario 3:
Let's say you gave away all your money and possessions, all your time and resources, and all your energy and strength for causes that are very dear to My heart such as telling others about My kingdom, showing compassion to the needy and helping those who suffer. And let's say you've even sacrificed your future and your life in the process. If you did not do all this motivated by heaven's love and compassion and instead did something maybe out of guilt, or to make up for past mistakes, or to look good, or to gain honor and recognition; then, you will have really gained nothing at all because forgiveness is My gift to you. I already paid that price. And, when your heart is in the wrong place, you receive no rewards. Having godly love is more important than most people realize.
Created to Truly Love Others
Holy Spirit continues:
“I created mankind in My own image. This means that I created you all with the capacity to love the way I love. But, this love needs to be nurtured by changing the way you think and then living it out. So, it is not impossible for you to love this way; it just does not happen naturally. Like everything else, it just takes practice and faithfulness—and following Jesus wholeheartedly. It means you have to learn what true love is and change your emotional habits. Jesus was My avatar into your physical world. He is My reflection: a Me you can see. This is why Jesus and I are one and the same. You see Him, you see Me. We are your example. Look at Him. Study Him. Jesus is the Living Word from heaven. Learn from Him. Follow in Our footsteps. You are fully able to do this. When you do, you will have no difficulty knowing what My good and perfect will is, and also no difficulty doing it.
“My love for My creation is passionate and holy. It is part of My holiness. This love is like a holy fire. My passionate love will consume anything and everything that was not built with heaven's love. So, Love will be present on the day I judge the works of those who love Me, Only what was done in godly love will remain in eternity. Everything you do will be judged by the standard of love with which it was done—heaven's love or earthly love. Heaven's love starts with Me. When I am invited into a person's life, heaven's love enters in with Me and begins the process of changing that person's heart. It is usually a gradual transformation because it involves making new choices and changing old habits. To love in a way that pleases Me, you must do more than just have love—you must become love! Your nature must change to be love. It is not a feeling, it is a choice.
“You cannot have godly love when your emotions control you. To become love, you must be in control of your emotions. I want My people to know what love is and how to live it out.
A Quick Note from Joy:
I highly recommend the following two books to help you go through the transformation of being the embodiment of God's love to this world:
- Love Focused: Living Life to the Fullest by Bob & Judy Hughes. If you can, get it with the study guide (Scroll down to "Frequently bougth together"). The set is very helpful.
- Love: The Way to Victory by Kenneth E. Hagin. And this book is also available on Audio CD!
These books are awesome! (Just check out the reviews.) They will take you by the hand and lead you into living out God's love. You will be VERY, VERY blessed by them. Check them out for yourself.
God Teaches Us Love
Holy Spirit:
“What is love? What is true Christian love?
“Love is patient. Love is kind. Love is not jealous and does not envy. Love does not brag about self. Love does not show off, and is not proud about self. Love does not think self is better than anyone else. It does not consider others to be more evil or more at fault than self, no matter what they've done. Love is not stubborn, arrogant, or self inflated.
Love is not disrespectful or rude. Love is not self-centered or selfish. Love cannot be provoked to anger—it does not get upset or angry with others. Love does not hold on to every single wrong done to self. It does not seek vengeance or payback. It simply forgives.
“Love does not find happiness in desiring, doing, or supporting wrong in any way. It never wishes evil upon another. It does not manipulate, steal, lie, or harm anyone to move ahead, get a benefit, get its own way, or to get revenge or justice. Love finds no joy or satisfaction in these things. Love only finds happiness by living in line with eternity, by walking in forgiveness, peace, humility, truth and righteousness.
“Love patiently lives through any circumstance—it deals with all challenges. It always trusts in My plan. It always hopes in My faithfulness and deliverance. It always endures victoriously until My appointed end. Everything is made perfect in My time.
“Love has no end—it will continue into eternity. But the special gifts of the Spirit will come to an end because you will not have need of them in eternity. You will have complete wisdom, complete knowledge, complete creative ability, complete discernment and complete communication skills. These gifts will no longer be needed as a ministry to others. You will all be complete. In your physical realm, all the spiritual gifts are in imperfect form; you only operate in them to a limited degree. You can't perform them to their fullest potential because you yourselves are imperfect. So, whatever you do only comes out imperfectly.
“But when you have received the perfection that Jesus died and rose again to give you (resurrection and a new eternal body), imperfection will come to an end. Then, you will operate fully in all the knowledge and power I intended you to have since the beginning. The expression of the gifts will then be much greater than what is currently evident in you through the Holy Spirit."
Holy Spirit: "You Are Really Still Just Children"
“In your physical world, from heaven's perspective, you are really still just children—albeit of the kingdom. You speak from an immature mind (when compared to an eternal, all-knowing mind.) In your inner-being you think and reason like children. But your maturity will come when you receive the gift of perfection and you will no longer be limited in understanding and ability, as children are. For at this time, and in this earthly form, your vision and understanding are limited. You only see bits and pieces as if looking through a lattice, or through the narrow spaces between a fence, or through the holes in a fence. But at that time, in your perfected heavenly form, you will see and know everything clearly and fully, as they really are—there will be no blind spots.
“Now you understand why love is the greatest of the three that remain: faith (trust), hope (expectation), and love (unselfishness). First, it is the one thing that will unite you with the identity and the heart of Jesus, which is My own heart. This is what will identify you as My own. And, second, any works done with godly love—with true Christian love—will survive into eternity and there will be a reward. Faith brings things out of the eternal, spiritual realm into the temporal, material realm. But love carries your achievements safely from this temporal realm into heaven's eternal realm.
“Joy, my beloved, continue to pursue this love and I will fill you up. Let it be the foundation of everything you do. And share with others how to love this way. This is the kind of love that makes the Bride My peculiar people and will empower Her to become a true witness of Me in the earth.”
End of Conversation
My beloved brothers and sisters, I hope this conversation with God has blessed you. We are loved by God, even though we do not deserve it. So, let's pass it on. And GET the books/audio CD I recommended. You will not regret it:
- Love Focused: Living Life to the Fullest by Bob & Judy Hughes. If you can, get it with the study guide (Scroll down to "Frequently bougth together"). The set is very helpful.
- Love: The Way to Victory by Kenneth E. Hagin. And this book is also available on Audio CD!
Walk in His love and be blessed!
