The Power of Love part 4
The power of love is giving everything you have and everything you are and expecting nothing in return. That's the nature of love. Because love is not about getting anything. Love IS giving. Sharing what you've got. Esteeming others higher than yourself and taking care of THEM instead of worrying about yourself. It's the difference between being Christ-centered (people-centered) and self-centered. And if God... if LOVE... wasn't all-powerful, I'll tell you right now there is no way anybody could love anybody. Not in that selfless, agape way. Not in the way that Jesus loved us. He loved us so much that He would literally rather die than be without us. Not because of what we could offer Him, but because of what He could offer us. God wanted the best for us--as any Father would for His Son--so He gave the best to us. He gave us His Spirit. His name. His nature. His life. Himself. He gave us everything we could ever need. So that we might stop trying to get something else. God knows that love is the desire of our heart. He created our heart, and He put that desire there. And He also gave us the very thing we needed in order to stop looking for love in all the wrong places. The Holy Spirit. The Spirit of truth that leads and guides us into all truth. The Spirit that testifies of our true identity by testifying of Jesus. Nobody comes to the Father but by the Son. How could anybody? You can't UNDERSTAND Him as Father unless you understand yourself as Son. And when you enter into that unconditional love relationship... that's when you begin to experience the abundant, everlasting, eternal, Resurrection Life of God. Because that's what the everlasting, eternal, abundant, Resurrection Life of God IS; It's a life of love. Being loved, and loving God (by loving others) with that same love. Receiving and releasing the gift that you've been given. Experiencing and enjoying it by giving it away. By sharing it. But, again, none of this is possible until you know and believe that you ARE loved. You can't give what you don't have. And you can only give what you do have. So first you hear it, then you have faith in it. Because faith comes from hearing, and hearing from the Word (Jesus, love) of God. Someone shows you love (by loving you, not by preaching at you necessarily), and then you have love to show someone else. Instead of trying to get something, you have something to give. That's the power of love. Giving. Laying your life down for your friends. And understanding that your "enemies" are just people who aren't friends yet. We destroy our enemies by making them our friends. That's why love is all-powerful. That's why love never fails. Love is a consuming fire that can melt even the hardest heart. But you have to walk by faith. You can't be afraid. You can't be afraid to lose what you've got, and you can't be afraid of what will happen after you give it away. That's love's purpose, and His power. Perfect love casts out fear. And it doesn't matter what happens after you give it away. You experience it BY giving it away. By giving everything you are and everything you have no matter what. There's nothing more powerful than that!