But as Paul said, all those things are meaningless unless you are primarily a Holy “lover”—one who is first and foremost filled with deep love as the very wind in your sails. Do you want to be a “great man” or a “great woman” in God’s sight? Well...God is love. So how can we be endued with power from on High if we are not primarily lovers? A “great man” or “great woman” is NOT primarily one who performs miracles, or understands or teaches all the great mysteries, or is willing to give their body to be burned. According to God, a great man or woman is one who primarily loves very, very much.
Many or maybe even ALL the problems that any of us would ever have would be taken care of if we Loved more! As Jesus said, all the law and the commandments are summed up in these two things: Love God and love everybody else. Besides that, you don’t need any other commands. Why is that? Because if you fall in love with God and with everyone else, you’ll not be a self-centered person anymore. You’ll not be so concerned about prophesying the future or casting mountains into the sea. If you’re primarily a lover, you’ll want to LOVE PEOPLE. You will find ways to give and ways to be creative. Your personality, your patience level, your pain-tolerance level, and many things will drastically change. Your personality will change. Like if you’re basically a fearful person, there may come a time when Real Love begins to bloom and blossom and manifest itself—and then maybe you just won’t be so fearful anymore. You won’t be so self-centered and inward, thinking about yourself all the time. “Phooey on all that!” You’ll just bust out of that when Real Love comes in.
So many different things have caused us to fall short over time, like being totally intellectual or getting caught in our thoughts all the time. You’re not going to do that if your passion is for loving people around you. If that’s your primary purpose in life—to love people—you won’t be caught in this intellectual cycle and three-ring circus in your mind that you’ve been a slave to. The mind games in your head and so many other things just won’t be important anymore, when you love. That doesn’t mean everything else is without meaning or value. But on the other hand, if the primary force in your life is to be a lover—one who’s desperate to find ways to express the love of Jesus—then most of the other stuff goes by the wayside. Name your sin: whether legalism, selfishness, vices, or whatever. If you’ve really opened yourself up to the Father’s Love for people (brothers and sisters, people in your neighborhood, your city, country, or planet), you’ll be HIGHLY motivated to put aside foolish sin in your life.
If you can feel a true love in your heart for those who God has redeemed by the Blood of His Son, then you know there’s a part you can play in their lives. And you can play a part by sanctifying yourself for them. As Jesus said, “For them I sanctify myself.” By putting aside your vices—the way you think, the stuff you permit into your eyes and ears and thoughts—you can actually contribute to someone’s life on the other side of the world. You put sins aside because you LOVE them and you want the best for them. They are more important to you than your own selfish things. If you really love, you’re going to have an impact on other people’s lives. You’ll even have an impact on people you’ve never met because of that principle of sanctifying ourselves for others.
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Just reading through this teaching this morning and seeing more of what GOD has been showing me. This is what I want, I want to have a heart that loves HIM and by HIS strength loves others. I want to put others before myself and care about them and to demonstrate HIS love to those around me.
Just wanted to also say thank you to those who shared here with me on this topic.
God bless
maryjane
