As you think on God’s love, keep the word“abide” in mind. In the
fifteenth chapter of John, Jesus is speaking to His disciples: I am the
true vine, and my Father is the husbandman. Every branch in me that
beareth not fruit he taketh away; and every branch that beareth fruit,
he purgeth it, that it may bring forth more fruit. Now ye are clean
through the word which I have spoken unto you. Abide in me, and I in
you. As the branch cannot bear fruit of itself, except it abide in the
vine; no more can ye, except ye abide in me. You cannot abide in the
Lord without His love. Abide means to remain, to stand fast, to go on
being, to stay, to reside, to continue without change. That little
word—abide—has profound meaning. Living—abiding—in Christ can only be
done through God’s love. Never could you have found God without love,
and you cannot stay with Him without His love.
I am the vine, ye are the branches: He that abideth in me, and I in him, the same bringeth forth much fruit: for without me ye can do nothing (verse 5). Without Jesus you are nothing; you have no real life. God’s love supplies it all.
If a man abide not in me, he is cast forth as a branch, and is withered; and men gather them and cast them into the fire, and they are burned (verse 6). A life without God’s love is worthless so far as God is concerned. God planned to be included in the life of man on planet earth. If you don’t abide in His love, then you are not pleasing Him. You can do nothing without Him and are good only to be cast into the fire.
Verse seven gives us, however, a fantastic promise: If ye abide in me, and my words abide in you, ye shall ask what ye will, and it shall be done unto you. This powerful scripture is one to hold in your heart with all the love of heaven.
God Cannot Be Separated from His Love
Great and wonderful are the promises of God, but they will not work for you without His love. God does not work without love. Even when He is giving judgment, that judgment comes through love. God is love! You cannot separate God from love. No matter what God is doing, He uses love, love, love; and He is right, right, right. His dealings are with heaven’s love.
Calvary: the Measure of God’s Love
The crucifixion looked unbearably cruel, but it was the only way left to salvage mankind. God had tried everything else first. All the love of God and the heart of heaven were used when God made Calvary. Never had all the love of God been used before. You want to measure God’s love? The only measuring stick is Calvary. It took all of God’s love to give us salvation; it took all of heaven’s love to bring redemption for mankind. What a price heaven paid for your redemption!
The redemption of man, of woman is the most beautifully moving and powerful story you will ever read. Redemption: help for all mankind, God’s love story through His Son Jesus—the greatest love story ever. Had God not loved you He never would have given His heart of love, Jesus, for you. Such great love simply will never be comprehended by the human mind. You can look at the measuring rod, Calvary, you can see Jesus giving life that you might have life; but you cannot really feel with mortal spirit what God felt seeing Jesus, the divine One, dying on the cross, giving life that you might have life. Love was crying out on that cross shaking heaven so mightily that no doubt the angels wept on that dark, dark day. God’s love crying…such a cry!
Father Forgive
The sound of God’s love through any human being will get the attention of heaven. When you with God’s love in your heart cry for help to your God, God hears that cry. A cry through His love touches the throne of God. Through that same love-cry that Jesus made, you can touch Him. Jesus uttered that love-cry for every man, woman, boy and girl on planet earth. What love! Many had cried out to God, but never with that kind of love. Jesus gave such an overwhelming cry of love…and God the Father could not come to the rescue. He turned His back on His only begotten Son. God shut out the scene, stopped His ears because He was so mightily affected by a cry of such desperate love; and because of God’s incredible love, He did not come down to destroy everyone on planet earth. He could have done it. God could have destroyed planet earth completely, but that love-cry reached heaven: Father forgive them, for they know not what they do!That cry of love to forgive was for those who were crucifying Him, who would not walk in His Name, who would bring shame upon His Name in the future. That love-cry of forgiveness from Calvary has echoed down through the years: Father, forgive them for my sake! Forgive! That’s the reason God has not destroyed more people than He has; that’s the reason God keeps waiting. That cry of love from Calvary still goes forth.
God’s Love Has Judgment In It
Jesus stands between man and judgment, between man and justice; but one day His magnificent love will move aside; one day that love will stand there no longer. It has a limited time—not because the love of Jesus will fail, but because the time of the end has been set, the time when Jesus no longer can stand between man and judgment. The dispensation of grace covers a set time, and the clock is about to strike the midnight hour. We are almost to the end now.
For two thousand years the love-cry from Calvary has brought saving grace to all who wanted it. The devil has tried in every way, but he hasn’t been able to stop that love flowing greater than all the mighty rivers on planet earth. Only when people refuse to accept God’s love is that flow cut off.
For a time in Old Testament days, God’s love stopped crying, Forgive! and all the inhabitants of the earth were destroyed but eight souls. God’s love has mercy and judgment both. Never forget it! God’s love carries judgment and forgiveness. Everything in God’s love is just and fair.
Come let us reason together, the Lord said. I am Lord God Almighty, but I will reason with you. By God allowing His Son to be sacrificed at Calvary, God proved that He really wants you, that He will reason with you. God desires you, but no unclean thing will live with God. Only those who are washed in the blood of Jesus are acceptable to Him. You must want God and His love.
God’s Love Means Life
Come to the realization that without God’s love, you can do nothing. Not one day are you able to add to your life. Without His love you would cease to breathe. If God were to shut off His love, every man, woman, boy and girl would suddenly die. Birds flying through the air would drop, every living creature perish. God, not the devil, is the One who gives life to this earth. Lucifer, completely without love, is the dark prince of death. Life is love, and love is life, true life. Without God, true life does not exist. Jesus could boldly say, I have come that you might have life, because He brought God’s love to us. God is love!
Love Does Not Forsake
Love remembers; love never forgets. Father, why hast thou forsaken me?As the Son of God, Jesus knew He was not forsaken, although as the Son of man, He could feel rejection. Rejection brings with it hurt; and when you allow those feelings to rule your judgment, you are open to living in a world of emotional roller coaster rides and false assumptions. Through the Spirit of the living God, you know you are not rejected when His Spirit abides in you—no matter how you feel. You know that God will never leave you or forsake you—He promised. The body feels pain, and you may think God has forgotten you; but such love as God has never forgets or abandons. Although it may look that way when a loved one is dying, even in that very moment the Life-Giver is there; and if that person has lived for God, that one has life eternal. The body stops living, but your loved one just moves on into the greatness of God’s life where God can share all of His love. Why can’t I have that love now? You couldn’t accept it. It will take an eternity to be able to accept all of His love—and you will never be able to use it all up; it is that great.
God’s Love Is Power Over Self
You have plenty of love. Why do you think otherwise? Because that little word “abide” is not in action. You are not abiding in His promises. You look to self, to promises of man; and you become confused. God’s love never confuses. God’s love is a power over the mind, the soul and the body. God’s love gives you a sound mind, clear thoughts to rise above the jungle of emotions.
When we were children, we were taught how to think. Behavior patterns were trained into us, but no one ever taught us how to really train our emotions. Now, often our emotions and our minds are operating on two different levels; sometimes they seem to be at war. The emotions can feel hurt, but if these are not logical hurts, the mind can override them—and the hurts are not dealt with. Or if the mind isn’t disciplined, the hurt feelings override common sense and cause needless strife, irrational behavior. There is much about ourselves we don’t know, but God’s love knows everything and can heal the conflicts within. Yielding to God’s powerful love brings a unity, a wholeness to self in God.
When the Lord described love in the thirteenth chapter of First Corinthians, He was speaking about not human love but God’s love, how it works, what it will and will not do. Spend much time with the chapter. Just as the eleventh chapter of Hebrews tells us what God’s faith will do, the thirteenth chapter of First Corinthians tells us what God’s love will do. Think on the love chapter; weigh every word in it.
Worthless Without God’s Love
Without love there is no life. Without love your life doesn’t count with God at all; you’re as sounding brass and tinkling cymbals. That’s how insignificant you are to God without His love. The thing that makes you valuable to heaven is God’s love. The Word of God, the love of God in your life change you into a vessel of honor and show you clearly the things you need to do.
If you feel hopeless, stop looking to self. Jesus said, Abide in me and I will abide in you. You—the branch—must abide in Jesus—the vine. If you’re not joined to the vine, you’re in trouble, separated from true life; your branch is worthless, withered. Just as branches are useless when cut off from the main vine, raked up and cast into the fire, so is that person who will not abide in Jesus.
Some put great value on a lifestyle that offers no life at all. The rich man asked, “What shall I do? I have much goods stored. I know what! I’ll tear down my barns and build greater. Then with all my goods stored, I’ll be really living. I’ll say to my soul, ’Soul: Eat
God has sent you a love message through His only begotten Son, warning that there is no life apart from God. Your life is not preserved by your possessions. Wealth becomes powerless when the Death Angel calls. Death simply ushers the soul into a greater reality of life, an everlasting life in either heaven or hell.
Impenetrable Protection
Love, God’s great love, is an impenetrable protection to the children of God. Daniel in the lions’ den was not harmed. Why? Because of the shield of God’s love. An angel had closed the lions’ mouths. God’s love enabled it to happen. God’s love erased Daniel’s fear, and Daniel slept with the lions. Think about sleeping with just one wild, hungry lion! Daniel slept with a den full. If you can believe God’s love closed the mouth of one lion, you should be able to believe God’s love closed the mouths of many lions. In other words, with God’s love you have nothing to fear, nothing to worry about—so why worry? Why be afraid? In God’s love is no fear. The Bible tells us that Daniel was greatly loved by God. A man whom God loved was in a den of lions, and God wasn’t even disturbed about it. God did not fear. Why? Daniel trusted in His love, and God knew there was no way anything could destroy him. He was in God’s love. Lions? It didn’t matter.
Let’s look at the fiery furnace. God isn’t afraid. He is not alarmed over the three Hebrew boys who are standing up for Him. Never is God anxious about you when you use His love. It’s when you fail to use His love that trouble and despair come in…and heaven is alarmed. Would God’s love stand the test of the furnace heated seven times hotter than it had ever been heated? Of course it would! No one thought love could be great enough to withstand the inferno, but it was. “One like the Son of God” appeared in the midst of the flames to prove God’s love was in action, that the miracle was no accident. Had it not been for the love of God, the Hebrew boys would have been killed. The heat was so intense that it killed the men who threw the three boys into the furnace. In an instant they were dead. They hadn’t God’s love protection. Notice God’s love in the fiery furnace; notice the protection. Decide in this final hour, that like Daniel and the three Hebrew boys, you will trust God’s love.
The love that protected God’s children in the fiery furnace and the lion’s den is the same love that went to Calvary for you—the same love that protects you now. It’s love that had been proven again and again, tested over and over before the final test on Calvary’s tree.
Prove God’s Love
God wants you to learn to trust Him completely. Some of you trust Himuntil you get to the lions’ den. Some trust Him in the lions’ den, but can’t seem to trust Him in the fiery furnace. It’s time to trust God completely!
God’s love made an ark for a family to live in. It would only be used a little over a year and never again. But God’s love is so great, so patient that it waited a hundred twenty years for that one boat to be built. God wasn’t waiting for the people of the land to be saved—because not one was—only Noah and his family. Calvary’s love in action years before the crucifixion took place is demonstrated through Noah and the ark. The great God of the universe was that patient. How many businessmen would have waited so long for one family? It wouldn’t have been logical to them, but God’s love does not operate along the lines of man’s logic; God’s thoughts are deeper than man’s. It’s a matter of love.
God let Noah build the ark. God didn’t drive one peg or cut down one tree, but His love waited. His love gave the knowledge, the wisdom, the know-how to build an ark; and man reached out for it and used it. It’s just that simple. God’s love…it’s there for you to use.
Why not prove it? Why not use God’s love and see where and how it works? Why not use it in that den of lions to give those lions lockjaw? If God’s love won’t protect you, you have no real protection.
One little tornado can turn your home into a broken pasteboard box. Whole blocks of buildings, entire cities have been wiped out in a moment of time during an earthquake. Is that security? Learn where security is for you. Find the shelter of security in God’s love. We must have a shelter of love that will stand all the storms of life, all. When you find that shelter,abide in it, live in it. Never leave it. God’s love is great enough for every situation. Why look elsewhere for real security?
Some of you have never proven God’s love to any extent. You’re fearful and afraid. Noah could have balked at building the ark—he had never built one before; but because he really believed in God’s love, He was able to use the wisdom and knowledge flowing from that love. You use that which you believe in. You believe in electricity, and so you put your oil lamp on the shelf. When you learn how to use God’s love, He will operate it through you. All you do is yield to Him. Submit yourself to God’s love and you’re “plugged in.” Everyone who ever submitted to God’s love became so strong that no power of hell could defeat them.
Abraham Trusted God
Study God’s love in the Old Testament. Study it carefully. God allowed His love to be put to the test. It was put to the test in Abraham’s day. Would Abraham have enough love in his heart to hold on to God’s promises, waxing stronger and stronger instead of becoming weaker? Not looking at the physical circumstances, but at the promises of God…not looking at the impossibilities, but using God’s love…could Abraham do it? Only with God’s love will the promises work. Would they work for Abraham? Yes, they would.
“Abraham, you have your son. Happy?”
“Oh yes, Lord. I’m blessed! I need nothing else.”
“But I need something,” God was saying.
“What do you need God? Anything I have is yours.”
“I want your son Isaac. I want you to offer him as a burnt offering on Mount Moriah.” Abraham’s heart must have stopped beating momentarily; but when it started up again, it was in God’s love and God’s faith. “God,” he said, “I will do it.”
Because Abraham had so much of the love of God, he knew God’s love could not fail. God had promised him a nation from the seed of Isaac, and it didn’t matter how God did it; if God wanted Isaac to be killed, Abraham knew God would resurrect him because God had promised that seed. Abraham’s faith was great. Abraham’s love was the same love that went to Calvary, the same because it believed in the resurrection of the body, God’s resurrection power. By faith Abraham, when he was tried, offered up Isaac; and he that had received the promises offered up his only begotten son, Of whom it was said, That in Isaac shall thy seed be called: Accounting that God was able to raise him up, even from the dead; from whence also he received him in a figure (Hebrews 11:17-19). Abraham knew there would be no replacement; Isaac was the son of promise. There are no replacements for God’s promises. God’s promises are definite, absolute. Healing for soul, mind and body are promised in all of God’s love, promises that cannot be destroyed. You can be destroyed outside of those promises, but living within God’s promises you’re as secure as God Himself. This is what you must know if you are to live in God’s love. Abraham lived in that love. God’s love is sacrificial love. God’s love gives all.
Weigh Your Actions
Don’t go by the way you feel about God’s love to find whether or not you have it; weigh your actions and discover if they really demonstrate God’s love. You act out the love of God in your heart. God’s love is not lazy love, but a working, active love. If His love does not work through you it is not there; you’re just saying it is. You don’t have it; you’re bluffing. You’re like someone pretending he’s wealthy when he has no money. So carefully you spend human love, carefully you use it. If you really have God’s love, you have a sacrificial love. You’re ready to do whatever God wants, ready to spend and be spent. You’re obedient to His Word because God’s love brings you into harmony with it. “If you abide in me; if you’re in me,” Jesus said, “and the Word of God abides in you, then you can ask what you will because you ask according to the will of God.” God’s love stays in harmony with His will.
God’s love is the only love that really knows how to pray. Praying without it is a waste of time. Depend on God’s love, not yours. Your love will say, “God, don’t do it this way! God don’t take this one.” God’s love does not need you to direct it. God’s love has all wisdom, all knowledge, all understanding, all power. His is the love you must yield to, saying, “Lord, let it be according to your will in everything.” The real love of God prays that way through you. God’s love said in the Garden of Gethsemane, “Lord, not my will.” God’s love stated how the human flesh felt: “Oh, Father, if it be your will take this cup away!” There is nothing wrong in your love talking to God; but His love must prevail, must supersede any request you have. Submit to God’s love, and be steadfast.
Communion With God
Abide in the Father. It’s not enough to have God’s love only at times; you must abide in it. When you abide in God’s love your prayer life falls into wonderful communion with God. Prayers are answered. When you abide in God’s love, the will of God is a holy, sacred thing to you. When you abide in God’s love, His yoke is indeed an easy one, a light one.
If the load always seems too heavy, you aren’t abiding in God’s love. God’s love is never too heavy when it benefits the human race. The cross for heaven to bear was not too heavy because the human race was involved. Where your welfare is concerned, there is nothing too hard, too longsuffering for God to use.
God’s love is longsuffering, tender, full of pity, kind. So soft-spoken is His love that failing to hear His love-words is easy. The great God of the universe speaks through love in such a tender tone that it often is not identified as God-talk. God has spoken His will in a plain, wonderful way in His Holy Book, and yet many people deny it to be the divine Word, the infallible Word of the living God. God’s love moves in so many different ways it is not always recognized in action, and the great depth and scope of it are ignored.
Does the Old Testament have a voice in your life? It is the voice of God communing with you, telling you of God’s great love and tender care in dealing with a multitude of Israelites who had failed God, worshiped idols. God stood up for them. They were valuable to the Egyptians only as slaves, objects to be used. God’s love does not work like that. God doesn’t use and then discard you. God’s love looks to see what He can do for you, how He can move for you, how He can make you into a fit citizen for heaven. He wants that holy communion with you, for you to know you are a part of Him. God loves to make a human being over, taking out ugliness and replacing it with beauty. That’s God’s love.
Some of you were drunkards, some drug addicts. To receive salvation, all of you had to be born again. God’s love took you over—not by the multitudes, but one at a time. No matter how many stand before Him crying for mercy, He accepts them one by one. That’s love. God’s love never is spread thin—it doesn’t know how to be spread thin.
Identify God’s Love
God’s mighty love flows. All you have to do is recognize it and yield to it. You don’t know how to yield? Isn’t it strange you don’t know how to yield to God, but could learn how to yield to human love? You learned how to yield to human love until many of you picked someone to be your mate for life. That’s love. Out of all the people you met, you decided: this one I love. In other words you can recognize love, you can yield to it, give your whole life for it. Why let the devil convince you that you don’t understand how to yield to God’s love, that you can’t really learn how to live with the love of God? You learned to live with a human being; you found you could make a life with another. Why? Because of love. True love makes the home—you learned that. You separated Mother’s love, Father’s love. If you had a brother or sister, you could identify that love, separate it. God’s love can be separated and identified. Why don’t you recognize God’s love? You recognized Daddy’s love, what it would and wouldn’t do. You knew how far Mother’s love would reach and when it would stop; you discovered this as a child—you learned it to save your hide. Now learn God’s love to save your eternal life, to save your soul. Learn God’s love so that you can make a real life.
Some of you have not tried to make a life with God. You’re like a man who decided to marry the first person he saw on the street. “I’ll just marry that girl; I don’t care. I’m not going to pick through all the girls. I believe I can find happiness with anyone.” It’s just as ridiculous to decide you can make a happy life with any kind of love. You can’t. Only one kind of love makes a real life—God’s love. His love created the first life, the first home. God’s love is the only love with all the ingredients to make a life whole. Mother’s love couldn’t make you whole. Even when you were sick, she could not get you well, but only treat the symptoms. This love of God, however, is for the body; it’s for the soul, the mind, the spirit, the whole person.
Love That Heals
God’s love came with a powerful voice to planet earth, saying, Wilt thou be made whole? Never had a voice of love promised so much and delivered so much. That love-voice could do everything it claimed. When it said, Blind man, receive your sight, that love-voice had the power to give vision. The love-voice said, Oh crippled one, stand up and walk! and it happened. That love-voice had authority over all demons, all darkness. It’s the same love that said, Let there be light; and there was light. It’s the same love that said, Let there be a moon; let there be stars; let there be…let there be…and it happened. That love-voice is still speaking today, still performing miracles.
The Rough Road of Not Yielding
When God says, Let it be, it will be done—if His Words are accepted. Wasn’t it done when you cried out to God for your salvation and then accepted His love? Suddenly the burden of sin lifted and you joined with Jesus Christ, taking Him home with you. “It is not I that liveth, but He liveth in me,” Paul said. “It’s His life, His love that I have.” Had Paul not really possessed and been possessed by the love of God, he never would have submitted to all the trials he did. He wasn’t a man born to bow down. He was educated, held a position of high prestige in the world and no doubt was wealthy. But he submitted himself to God. Comparing all man’s values to the great love of Jesus Christ, Paul said he would take Jesus and His love. What the world held out for him he counted as nothing that He might have everything Jesus offered.
When you don’t yield to God’s love, you shut the door on your blessings. Not submitting to God’s love delays the answers to prayers and brings unhappiness. Why unhappiness? Because God will be forced to take you on rough roads to bring you under subjection to His Spirit and His love. He will have to stand by, watching as you ram your head into brick walls again and again until you learn how to yield to His love. Mom and Dad, didn’t you tell your children that if they disobeyed they would have to pay? You told them certain things were expected; and you told them what God required of them—if you had the knowledge and the love of God in you. You pointed out the paths you didn’t want them to travel, and when they were little you chased them down if they strayed. Now they’re grown. If they go on paths God doesn’t want them on, God is after them, trying to head them away from danger. Whenever you, as a child of God, are stubborn with God, a coming payday, a rough one, is put into motion.
So many of God’s people are bringing about their own unhappiness and wondering why. Come let us reason together. If you’re an unhappy person, why not meet with God and let Him tell you the truth about yourself? If you don’t have joy and peace, there’s a reason—not an excuse, but a reason. Have you endured more than Jesus Christ when He was tortured, crucified and rejected of men—Jesus the Son of the living God? He had joy even while carrying the cross because His eyes were fixed on the results of redemption for you. Can you imagine such love that Jesus counted it joy to carry the cross for you?
Lead Me to the Rock!
When you really have the love of God, it’s marvelous how you enjoy doing God’s work. You love to be of service to God. His love on the inside of you is so wonderful it bubbles into joy, it gives peace. How glorious to have such love! Accepting God’s love and yet being unhappy is a contradiction, an impossibility. Do you feel God’s love only after someone else has “sung you happy?” There should be joy and gladness in your own heart, music of love singing on the inside of you because you are abiding in God’s love.
God’s love has been proven. The Psalmist said, when my heart is overwhelmed: lead me to the rock that is higher than I (Psalm 61:2). Lead me to Christ Jesus! He is my love; He is my understanding, my hope, my life. Lead me to the Rock. Be glad, happy, bubbling with joy as you reach out for the fantastic love available to you. God’s love. Abide in it.
Does God’s love look like steel cables for others but threads for you? Has God’s love held everyone else’s weight who trusted it? If so, why can’t it hold yours? God’s love is strong enough to make a ship for multitudes who sail the seas of life—why not for you? It has never gone down in time of disaster.
No soul has been rushed off to hell who trusted in God’s love. Never has the devil been able to take over a soul until he could get the love of God out of it. He’ll do everything he can to cause you to turn away from God’s love, to run from your brothers and sisters in Christ Jesus, to shun God’s people who are really serving God. He knows he has no chance with you as long as you have God’s love in your heart.
Lucifer Deceived Himself
Lucifer cannot defeat the love of God. No doubt every demon, every devil—and Lucifer himself—was at the crucifixion of Jesus; but God’s love could not be defeated. The devil knew if Jesus died, if he could keep Jesus from being resurrected, he had won. I believe the devil deceived himself into thinking that Christ wouldn’t come out of the grave—it wasn’t the first time he was tripped up by his own lies. Ages before Christ walked the earth, Lucifer had deceived himself when he said, “I will ascend above God; I will be like God Himself.” He believed his own deceit or he wouldn’t have tried to rebel against God. Deceived, he was cast out of heaven.
God’s love has no deceit. Love, God’s love, knows no defeat. God’s love wins the final battles. God’s love will be victorious over this whole big mess of Lucifer’s on planet earth today. God will do all He said He would do.
Live In His Promises
Look unto Him. Abide in Him. If you abide in Him…it isn’t enough to say you have Jesus, you must abide in the promises, live in the promises. Accept God’s Word: If you abide in me, and my words abide in you…. Use God’s love to believe, and God will work for your good. All things work together for good for them that love, that love, that love. Only those who love with God’s love can expect all things to work for their good.
Circumstances work against you when you are out of God’s love; anytime you are out of God’s love, you can cause great disaster. Many Christians have done it—and are doing it—and blaming God. They irresponsibly make a mess and then expect God to work something good out of it while they stand in the wings, feeling sorry for themselves. If you made the mess, God might not work out anything good. It may all need to be dumped. If you don’t clean up and rid yourself of stubbornness, He may have to dump you, too.
All things work together for good to them that love God, to them who are the called according to his purpose (for those who are doing what He has called them to do). He has called you on paths of righteousness, and on those paths He has promised to lead you. He never promised to walk a sinful path with anyone, or a disobedient path. The Psalmist said, He leadeth me in the paths of righteousness for his name’s sake. Through His great love, with His mighty heart of love He leads you. With His tender love, with great kindness He leads you.
Abide in Jesus; live in His love every day, and every day will be marvelous. No matter what happens, if you lived that day in God’s love, God will get the glory out of the day. Live in His glory; live in His love; live in His ways. Don’t ever think any other way.
Do you have the love of God? Don’t be deceived about God’s love. God’s love has been described again and again in this Holy Bible. Look at God’s love in His Word first and then look for it in your heart. After you find it in your heart, you will recognize it wherever it appears. But until God’s love lives in your own heart, you may not recognize it at all. To really recognize God’s love in all its greatness you must have it inside. God’s love gives your eyes vision that comes from within. God’s love on the inside will use your tongue in a wonderful, beautiful way that will edify and bless.
Because God’s great love-plan—the sacrifice at Calvary—was made for you, the blood of Jesus will wash away all your sins if you ask Him into your heart and live for Him.
Start talking to God in the name of His Son Jesus. Abide in Jesus and let the Word abide in you. Abide in His love, His faith, His greatness.
Thus Saith the Lord:
Yea, saith the Spirit of God: My love is yours. My faith is yours. My promises are yours. I have given myself to you, saith the Lord; but only through my love can you receive. Only through my love will it be done. Yield to my promises. Yield to my love, and my faith will work; but my faith will not work without my love.
I will go before you, and I will make your paths plain. You will walk my paths, and you will know that I am with you. And I will do great and mighty wonders. And I will reveal my greatness. I will reveal my love for all mankind in this your final hour.
Oh my people, see with my love. Hear with my love. Talk with my love, and you will know that this is your hour. You will know that my promises are true, and you will know that I, the Lord thy God am faithful to all my promises; and you will know that I have my arms of love around you, and you will know that I am your shelter. I am your shelter in time of storm, and I am your help in time of need, saith the Lord.
I am the vine, ye are the branches: He that abideth in me, and I in him, the same bringeth forth much fruit: for without me ye can do nothing (verse 5). Without Jesus you are nothing; you have no real life. God’s love supplies it all.
If a man abide not in me, he is cast forth as a branch, and is withered; and men gather them and cast them into the fire, and they are burned (verse 6). A life without God’s love is worthless so far as God is concerned. God planned to be included in the life of man on planet earth. If you don’t abide in His love, then you are not pleasing Him. You can do nothing without Him and are good only to be cast into the fire.
Verse seven gives us, however, a fantastic promise: If ye abide in me, and my words abide in you, ye shall ask what ye will, and it shall be done unto you. This powerful scripture is one to hold in your heart with all the love of heaven.
God Cannot Be Separated from His Love
Great and wonderful are the promises of God, but they will not work for you without His love. God does not work without love. Even when He is giving judgment, that judgment comes through love. God is love! You cannot separate God from love. No matter what God is doing, He uses love, love, love; and He is right, right, right. His dealings are with heaven’s love.
Calvary: the Measure of God’s Love
The crucifixion looked unbearably cruel, but it was the only way left to salvage mankind. God had tried everything else first. All the love of God and the heart of heaven were used when God made Calvary. Never had all the love of God been used before. You want to measure God’s love? The only measuring stick is Calvary. It took all of God’s love to give us salvation; it took all of heaven’s love to bring redemption for mankind. What a price heaven paid for your redemption!
The redemption of man, of woman is the most beautifully moving and powerful story you will ever read. Redemption: help for all mankind, God’s love story through His Son Jesus—the greatest love story ever. Had God not loved you He never would have given His heart of love, Jesus, for you. Such great love simply will never be comprehended by the human mind. You can look at the measuring rod, Calvary, you can see Jesus giving life that you might have life; but you cannot really feel with mortal spirit what God felt seeing Jesus, the divine One, dying on the cross, giving life that you might have life. Love was crying out on that cross shaking heaven so mightily that no doubt the angels wept on that dark, dark day. God’s love crying…such a cry!
Father Forgive
The sound of God’s love through any human being will get the attention of heaven. When you with God’s love in your heart cry for help to your God, God hears that cry. A cry through His love touches the throne of God. Through that same love-cry that Jesus made, you can touch Him. Jesus uttered that love-cry for every man, woman, boy and girl on planet earth. What love! Many had cried out to God, but never with that kind of love. Jesus gave such an overwhelming cry of love…and God the Father could not come to the rescue. He turned His back on His only begotten Son. God shut out the scene, stopped His ears because He was so mightily affected by a cry of such desperate love; and because of God’s incredible love, He did not come down to destroy everyone on planet earth. He could have done it. God could have destroyed planet earth completely, but that love-cry reached heaven: Father forgive them, for they know not what they do!That cry of love to forgive was for those who were crucifying Him, who would not walk in His Name, who would bring shame upon His Name in the future. That love-cry of forgiveness from Calvary has echoed down through the years: Father, forgive them for my sake! Forgive! That’s the reason God has not destroyed more people than He has; that’s the reason God keeps waiting. That cry of love from Calvary still goes forth.
God’s Love Has Judgment In It
Jesus stands between man and judgment, between man and justice; but one day His magnificent love will move aside; one day that love will stand there no longer. It has a limited time—not because the love of Jesus will fail, but because the time of the end has been set, the time when Jesus no longer can stand between man and judgment. The dispensation of grace covers a set time, and the clock is about to strike the midnight hour. We are almost to the end now.
For two thousand years the love-cry from Calvary has brought saving grace to all who wanted it. The devil has tried in every way, but he hasn’t been able to stop that love flowing greater than all the mighty rivers on planet earth. Only when people refuse to accept God’s love is that flow cut off.
For a time in Old Testament days, God’s love stopped crying, Forgive! and all the inhabitants of the earth were destroyed but eight souls. God’s love has mercy and judgment both. Never forget it! God’s love carries judgment and forgiveness. Everything in God’s love is just and fair.
Come let us reason together, the Lord said. I am Lord God Almighty, but I will reason with you. By God allowing His Son to be sacrificed at Calvary, God proved that He really wants you, that He will reason with you. God desires you, but no unclean thing will live with God. Only those who are washed in the blood of Jesus are acceptable to Him. You must want God and His love.
God’s Love Means Life
Come to the realization that without God’s love, you can do nothing. Not one day are you able to add to your life. Without His love you would cease to breathe. If God were to shut off His love, every man, woman, boy and girl would suddenly die. Birds flying through the air would drop, every living creature perish. God, not the devil, is the One who gives life to this earth. Lucifer, completely without love, is the dark prince of death. Life is love, and love is life, true life. Without God, true life does not exist. Jesus could boldly say, I have come that you might have life, because He brought God’s love to us. God is love!
Love Does Not Forsake
Love remembers; love never forgets. Father, why hast thou forsaken me?As the Son of God, Jesus knew He was not forsaken, although as the Son of man, He could feel rejection. Rejection brings with it hurt; and when you allow those feelings to rule your judgment, you are open to living in a world of emotional roller coaster rides and false assumptions. Through the Spirit of the living God, you know you are not rejected when His Spirit abides in you—no matter how you feel. You know that God will never leave you or forsake you—He promised. The body feels pain, and you may think God has forgotten you; but such love as God has never forgets or abandons. Although it may look that way when a loved one is dying, even in that very moment the Life-Giver is there; and if that person has lived for God, that one has life eternal. The body stops living, but your loved one just moves on into the greatness of God’s life where God can share all of His love. Why can’t I have that love now? You couldn’t accept it. It will take an eternity to be able to accept all of His love—and you will never be able to use it all up; it is that great.
God’s Love Is Power Over Self
You have plenty of love. Why do you think otherwise? Because that little word “abide” is not in action. You are not abiding in His promises. You look to self, to promises of man; and you become confused. God’s love never confuses. God’s love is a power over the mind, the soul and the body. God’s love gives you a sound mind, clear thoughts to rise above the jungle of emotions.
When we were children, we were taught how to think. Behavior patterns were trained into us, but no one ever taught us how to really train our emotions. Now, often our emotions and our minds are operating on two different levels; sometimes they seem to be at war. The emotions can feel hurt, but if these are not logical hurts, the mind can override them—and the hurts are not dealt with. Or if the mind isn’t disciplined, the hurt feelings override common sense and cause needless strife, irrational behavior. There is much about ourselves we don’t know, but God’s love knows everything and can heal the conflicts within. Yielding to God’s powerful love brings a unity, a wholeness to self in God.
When the Lord described love in the thirteenth chapter of First Corinthians, He was speaking about not human love but God’s love, how it works, what it will and will not do. Spend much time with the chapter. Just as the eleventh chapter of Hebrews tells us what God’s faith will do, the thirteenth chapter of First Corinthians tells us what God’s love will do. Think on the love chapter; weigh every word in it.
Worthless Without God’s Love
Without love there is no life. Without love your life doesn’t count with God at all; you’re as sounding brass and tinkling cymbals. That’s how insignificant you are to God without His love. The thing that makes you valuable to heaven is God’s love. The Word of God, the love of God in your life change you into a vessel of honor and show you clearly the things you need to do.
If you feel hopeless, stop looking to self. Jesus said, Abide in me and I will abide in you. You—the branch—must abide in Jesus—the vine. If you’re not joined to the vine, you’re in trouble, separated from true life; your branch is worthless, withered. Just as branches are useless when cut off from the main vine, raked up and cast into the fire, so is that person who will not abide in Jesus.
Some put great value on a lifestyle that offers no life at all. The rich man asked, “What shall I do? I have much goods stored. I know what! I’ll tear down my barns and build greater. Then with all my goods stored, I’ll be really living. I’ll say to my soul, ’Soul: Eat
God has sent you a love message through His only begotten Son, warning that there is no life apart from God. Your life is not preserved by your possessions. Wealth becomes powerless when the Death Angel calls. Death simply ushers the soul into a greater reality of life, an everlasting life in either heaven or hell.
Impenetrable Protection
Love, God’s great love, is an impenetrable protection to the children of God. Daniel in the lions’ den was not harmed. Why? Because of the shield of God’s love. An angel had closed the lions’ mouths. God’s love enabled it to happen. God’s love erased Daniel’s fear, and Daniel slept with the lions. Think about sleeping with just one wild, hungry lion! Daniel slept with a den full. If you can believe God’s love closed the mouth of one lion, you should be able to believe God’s love closed the mouths of many lions. In other words, with God’s love you have nothing to fear, nothing to worry about—so why worry? Why be afraid? In God’s love is no fear. The Bible tells us that Daniel was greatly loved by God. A man whom God loved was in a den of lions, and God wasn’t even disturbed about it. God did not fear. Why? Daniel trusted in His love, and God knew there was no way anything could destroy him. He was in God’s love. Lions? It didn’t matter.
Let’s look at the fiery furnace. God isn’t afraid. He is not alarmed over the three Hebrew boys who are standing up for Him. Never is God anxious about you when you use His love. It’s when you fail to use His love that trouble and despair come in…and heaven is alarmed. Would God’s love stand the test of the furnace heated seven times hotter than it had ever been heated? Of course it would! No one thought love could be great enough to withstand the inferno, but it was. “One like the Son of God” appeared in the midst of the flames to prove God’s love was in action, that the miracle was no accident. Had it not been for the love of God, the Hebrew boys would have been killed. The heat was so intense that it killed the men who threw the three boys into the furnace. In an instant they were dead. They hadn’t God’s love protection. Notice God’s love in the fiery furnace; notice the protection. Decide in this final hour, that like Daniel and the three Hebrew boys, you will trust God’s love.
The love that protected God’s children in the fiery furnace and the lion’s den is the same love that went to Calvary for you—the same love that protects you now. It’s love that had been proven again and again, tested over and over before the final test on Calvary’s tree.
Prove God’s Love
God wants you to learn to trust Him completely. Some of you trust Himuntil you get to the lions’ den. Some trust Him in the lions’ den, but can’t seem to trust Him in the fiery furnace. It’s time to trust God completely!
God’s love made an ark for a family to live in. It would only be used a little over a year and never again. But God’s love is so great, so patient that it waited a hundred twenty years for that one boat to be built. God wasn’t waiting for the people of the land to be saved—because not one was—only Noah and his family. Calvary’s love in action years before the crucifixion took place is demonstrated through Noah and the ark. The great God of the universe was that patient. How many businessmen would have waited so long for one family? It wouldn’t have been logical to them, but God’s love does not operate along the lines of man’s logic; God’s thoughts are deeper than man’s. It’s a matter of love.
God let Noah build the ark. God didn’t drive one peg or cut down one tree, but His love waited. His love gave the knowledge, the wisdom, the know-how to build an ark; and man reached out for it and used it. It’s just that simple. God’s love…it’s there for you to use.
Why not prove it? Why not use God’s love and see where and how it works? Why not use it in that den of lions to give those lions lockjaw? If God’s love won’t protect you, you have no real protection.
One little tornado can turn your home into a broken pasteboard box. Whole blocks of buildings, entire cities have been wiped out in a moment of time during an earthquake. Is that security? Learn where security is for you. Find the shelter of security in God’s love. We must have a shelter of love that will stand all the storms of life, all. When you find that shelter,abide in it, live in it. Never leave it. God’s love is great enough for every situation. Why look elsewhere for real security?
Some of you have never proven God’s love to any extent. You’re fearful and afraid. Noah could have balked at building the ark—he had never built one before; but because he really believed in God’s love, He was able to use the wisdom and knowledge flowing from that love. You use that which you believe in. You believe in electricity, and so you put your oil lamp on the shelf. When you learn how to use God’s love, He will operate it through you. All you do is yield to Him. Submit yourself to God’s love and you’re “plugged in.” Everyone who ever submitted to God’s love became so strong that no power of hell could defeat them.
Abraham Trusted God
Study God’s love in the Old Testament. Study it carefully. God allowed His love to be put to the test. It was put to the test in Abraham’s day. Would Abraham have enough love in his heart to hold on to God’s promises, waxing stronger and stronger instead of becoming weaker? Not looking at the physical circumstances, but at the promises of God…not looking at the impossibilities, but using God’s love…could Abraham do it? Only with God’s love will the promises work. Would they work for Abraham? Yes, they would.
“Abraham, you have your son. Happy?”
“Oh yes, Lord. I’m blessed! I need nothing else.”
“But I need something,” God was saying.
“What do you need God? Anything I have is yours.”
“I want your son Isaac. I want you to offer him as a burnt offering on Mount Moriah.” Abraham’s heart must have stopped beating momentarily; but when it started up again, it was in God’s love and God’s faith. “God,” he said, “I will do it.”
Because Abraham had so much of the love of God, he knew God’s love could not fail. God had promised him a nation from the seed of Isaac, and it didn’t matter how God did it; if God wanted Isaac to be killed, Abraham knew God would resurrect him because God had promised that seed. Abraham’s faith was great. Abraham’s love was the same love that went to Calvary, the same because it believed in the resurrection of the body, God’s resurrection power. By faith Abraham, when he was tried, offered up Isaac; and he that had received the promises offered up his only begotten son, Of whom it was said, That in Isaac shall thy seed be called: Accounting that God was able to raise him up, even from the dead; from whence also he received him in a figure (Hebrews 11:17-19). Abraham knew there would be no replacement; Isaac was the son of promise. There are no replacements for God’s promises. God’s promises are definite, absolute. Healing for soul, mind and body are promised in all of God’s love, promises that cannot be destroyed. You can be destroyed outside of those promises, but living within God’s promises you’re as secure as God Himself. This is what you must know if you are to live in God’s love. Abraham lived in that love. God’s love is sacrificial love. God’s love gives all.
Weigh Your Actions
Don’t go by the way you feel about God’s love to find whether or not you have it; weigh your actions and discover if they really demonstrate God’s love. You act out the love of God in your heart. God’s love is not lazy love, but a working, active love. If His love does not work through you it is not there; you’re just saying it is. You don’t have it; you’re bluffing. You’re like someone pretending he’s wealthy when he has no money. So carefully you spend human love, carefully you use it. If you really have God’s love, you have a sacrificial love. You’re ready to do whatever God wants, ready to spend and be spent. You’re obedient to His Word because God’s love brings you into harmony with it. “If you abide in me; if you’re in me,” Jesus said, “and the Word of God abides in you, then you can ask what you will because you ask according to the will of God.” God’s love stays in harmony with His will.
God’s love is the only love that really knows how to pray. Praying without it is a waste of time. Depend on God’s love, not yours. Your love will say, “God, don’t do it this way! God don’t take this one.” God’s love does not need you to direct it. God’s love has all wisdom, all knowledge, all understanding, all power. His is the love you must yield to, saying, “Lord, let it be according to your will in everything.” The real love of God prays that way through you. God’s love said in the Garden of Gethsemane, “Lord, not my will.” God’s love stated how the human flesh felt: “Oh, Father, if it be your will take this cup away!” There is nothing wrong in your love talking to God; but His love must prevail, must supersede any request you have. Submit to God’s love, and be steadfast.
Communion With God
Abide in the Father. It’s not enough to have God’s love only at times; you must abide in it. When you abide in God’s love your prayer life falls into wonderful communion with God. Prayers are answered. When you abide in God’s love, the will of God is a holy, sacred thing to you. When you abide in God’s love, His yoke is indeed an easy one, a light one.
If the load always seems too heavy, you aren’t abiding in God’s love. God’s love is never too heavy when it benefits the human race. The cross for heaven to bear was not too heavy because the human race was involved. Where your welfare is concerned, there is nothing too hard, too longsuffering for God to use.
God’s love is longsuffering, tender, full of pity, kind. So soft-spoken is His love that failing to hear His love-words is easy. The great God of the universe speaks through love in such a tender tone that it often is not identified as God-talk. God has spoken His will in a plain, wonderful way in His Holy Book, and yet many people deny it to be the divine Word, the infallible Word of the living God. God’s love moves in so many different ways it is not always recognized in action, and the great depth and scope of it are ignored.
Does the Old Testament have a voice in your life? It is the voice of God communing with you, telling you of God’s great love and tender care in dealing with a multitude of Israelites who had failed God, worshiped idols. God stood up for them. They were valuable to the Egyptians only as slaves, objects to be used. God’s love does not work like that. God doesn’t use and then discard you. God’s love looks to see what He can do for you, how He can move for you, how He can make you into a fit citizen for heaven. He wants that holy communion with you, for you to know you are a part of Him. God loves to make a human being over, taking out ugliness and replacing it with beauty. That’s God’s love.
Some of you were drunkards, some drug addicts. To receive salvation, all of you had to be born again. God’s love took you over—not by the multitudes, but one at a time. No matter how many stand before Him crying for mercy, He accepts them one by one. That’s love. God’s love never is spread thin—it doesn’t know how to be spread thin.
Identify God’s Love
God’s mighty love flows. All you have to do is recognize it and yield to it. You don’t know how to yield? Isn’t it strange you don’t know how to yield to God, but could learn how to yield to human love? You learned how to yield to human love until many of you picked someone to be your mate for life. That’s love. Out of all the people you met, you decided: this one I love. In other words you can recognize love, you can yield to it, give your whole life for it. Why let the devil convince you that you don’t understand how to yield to God’s love, that you can’t really learn how to live with the love of God? You learned to live with a human being; you found you could make a life with another. Why? Because of love. True love makes the home—you learned that. You separated Mother’s love, Father’s love. If you had a brother or sister, you could identify that love, separate it. God’s love can be separated and identified. Why don’t you recognize God’s love? You recognized Daddy’s love, what it would and wouldn’t do. You knew how far Mother’s love would reach and when it would stop; you discovered this as a child—you learned it to save your hide. Now learn God’s love to save your eternal life, to save your soul. Learn God’s love so that you can make a real life.
Some of you have not tried to make a life with God. You’re like a man who decided to marry the first person he saw on the street. “I’ll just marry that girl; I don’t care. I’m not going to pick through all the girls. I believe I can find happiness with anyone.” It’s just as ridiculous to decide you can make a happy life with any kind of love. You can’t. Only one kind of love makes a real life—God’s love. His love created the first life, the first home. God’s love is the only love with all the ingredients to make a life whole. Mother’s love couldn’t make you whole. Even when you were sick, she could not get you well, but only treat the symptoms. This love of God, however, is for the body; it’s for the soul, the mind, the spirit, the whole person.
Love That Heals
God’s love came with a powerful voice to planet earth, saying, Wilt thou be made whole? Never had a voice of love promised so much and delivered so much. That love-voice could do everything it claimed. When it said, Blind man, receive your sight, that love-voice had the power to give vision. The love-voice said, Oh crippled one, stand up and walk! and it happened. That love-voice had authority over all demons, all darkness. It’s the same love that said, Let there be light; and there was light. It’s the same love that said, Let there be a moon; let there be stars; let there be…let there be…and it happened. That love-voice is still speaking today, still performing miracles.
The Rough Road of Not Yielding
When God says, Let it be, it will be done—if His Words are accepted. Wasn’t it done when you cried out to God for your salvation and then accepted His love? Suddenly the burden of sin lifted and you joined with Jesus Christ, taking Him home with you. “It is not I that liveth, but He liveth in me,” Paul said. “It’s His life, His love that I have.” Had Paul not really possessed and been possessed by the love of God, he never would have submitted to all the trials he did. He wasn’t a man born to bow down. He was educated, held a position of high prestige in the world and no doubt was wealthy. But he submitted himself to God. Comparing all man’s values to the great love of Jesus Christ, Paul said he would take Jesus and His love. What the world held out for him he counted as nothing that He might have everything Jesus offered.
When you don’t yield to God’s love, you shut the door on your blessings. Not submitting to God’s love delays the answers to prayers and brings unhappiness. Why unhappiness? Because God will be forced to take you on rough roads to bring you under subjection to His Spirit and His love. He will have to stand by, watching as you ram your head into brick walls again and again until you learn how to yield to His love. Mom and Dad, didn’t you tell your children that if they disobeyed they would have to pay? You told them certain things were expected; and you told them what God required of them—if you had the knowledge and the love of God in you. You pointed out the paths you didn’t want them to travel, and when they were little you chased them down if they strayed. Now they’re grown. If they go on paths God doesn’t want them on, God is after them, trying to head them away from danger. Whenever you, as a child of God, are stubborn with God, a coming payday, a rough one, is put into motion.
So many of God’s people are bringing about their own unhappiness and wondering why. Come let us reason together. If you’re an unhappy person, why not meet with God and let Him tell you the truth about yourself? If you don’t have joy and peace, there’s a reason—not an excuse, but a reason. Have you endured more than Jesus Christ when He was tortured, crucified and rejected of men—Jesus the Son of the living God? He had joy even while carrying the cross because His eyes were fixed on the results of redemption for you. Can you imagine such love that Jesus counted it joy to carry the cross for you?
Lead Me to the Rock!
When you really have the love of God, it’s marvelous how you enjoy doing God’s work. You love to be of service to God. His love on the inside of you is so wonderful it bubbles into joy, it gives peace. How glorious to have such love! Accepting God’s love and yet being unhappy is a contradiction, an impossibility. Do you feel God’s love only after someone else has “sung you happy?” There should be joy and gladness in your own heart, music of love singing on the inside of you because you are abiding in God’s love.
God’s love has been proven. The Psalmist said, when my heart is overwhelmed: lead me to the rock that is higher than I (Psalm 61:2). Lead me to Christ Jesus! He is my love; He is my understanding, my hope, my life. Lead me to the Rock. Be glad, happy, bubbling with joy as you reach out for the fantastic love available to you. God’s love. Abide in it.
Does God’s love look like steel cables for others but threads for you? Has God’s love held everyone else’s weight who trusted it? If so, why can’t it hold yours? God’s love is strong enough to make a ship for multitudes who sail the seas of life—why not for you? It has never gone down in time of disaster.
No soul has been rushed off to hell who trusted in God’s love. Never has the devil been able to take over a soul until he could get the love of God out of it. He’ll do everything he can to cause you to turn away from God’s love, to run from your brothers and sisters in Christ Jesus, to shun God’s people who are really serving God. He knows he has no chance with you as long as you have God’s love in your heart.
Lucifer Deceived Himself
Lucifer cannot defeat the love of God. No doubt every demon, every devil—and Lucifer himself—was at the crucifixion of Jesus; but God’s love could not be defeated. The devil knew if Jesus died, if he could keep Jesus from being resurrected, he had won. I believe the devil deceived himself into thinking that Christ wouldn’t come out of the grave—it wasn’t the first time he was tripped up by his own lies. Ages before Christ walked the earth, Lucifer had deceived himself when he said, “I will ascend above God; I will be like God Himself.” He believed his own deceit or he wouldn’t have tried to rebel against God. Deceived, he was cast out of heaven.
God’s love has no deceit. Love, God’s love, knows no defeat. God’s love wins the final battles. God’s love will be victorious over this whole big mess of Lucifer’s on planet earth today. God will do all He said He would do.
Live In His Promises
Look unto Him. Abide in Him. If you abide in Him…it isn’t enough to say you have Jesus, you must abide in the promises, live in the promises. Accept God’s Word: If you abide in me, and my words abide in you…. Use God’s love to believe, and God will work for your good. All things work together for good for them that love, that love, that love. Only those who love with God’s love can expect all things to work for their good.
Circumstances work against you when you are out of God’s love; anytime you are out of God’s love, you can cause great disaster. Many Christians have done it—and are doing it—and blaming God. They irresponsibly make a mess and then expect God to work something good out of it while they stand in the wings, feeling sorry for themselves. If you made the mess, God might not work out anything good. It may all need to be dumped. If you don’t clean up and rid yourself of stubbornness, He may have to dump you, too.
All things work together for good to them that love God, to them who are the called according to his purpose (for those who are doing what He has called them to do). He has called you on paths of righteousness, and on those paths He has promised to lead you. He never promised to walk a sinful path with anyone, or a disobedient path. The Psalmist said, He leadeth me in the paths of righteousness for his name’s sake. Through His great love, with His mighty heart of love He leads you. With His tender love, with great kindness He leads you.
Abide in Jesus; live in His love every day, and every day will be marvelous. No matter what happens, if you lived that day in God’s love, God will get the glory out of the day. Live in His glory; live in His love; live in His ways. Don’t ever think any other way.
Do you have the love of God? Don’t be deceived about God’s love. God’s love has been described again and again in this Holy Bible. Look at God’s love in His Word first and then look for it in your heart. After you find it in your heart, you will recognize it wherever it appears. But until God’s love lives in your own heart, you may not recognize it at all. To really recognize God’s love in all its greatness you must have it inside. God’s love gives your eyes vision that comes from within. God’s love on the inside will use your tongue in a wonderful, beautiful way that will edify and bless.
Because God’s great love-plan—the sacrifice at Calvary—was made for you, the blood of Jesus will wash away all your sins if you ask Him into your heart and live for Him.
Start talking to God in the name of His Son Jesus. Abide in Jesus and let the Word abide in you. Abide in His love, His faith, His greatness.
Thus Saith the Lord:
Yea, saith the Spirit of God: My love is yours. My faith is yours. My promises are yours. I have given myself to you, saith the Lord; but only through my love can you receive. Only through my love will it be done. Yield to my promises. Yield to my love, and my faith will work; but my faith will not work without my love.
I will go before you, and I will make your paths plain. You will walk my paths, and you will know that I am with you. And I will do great and mighty wonders. And I will reveal my greatness. I will reveal my love for all mankind in this your final hour.
Oh my people, see with my love. Hear with my love. Talk with my love, and you will know that this is your hour. You will know that my promises are true, and you will know that I, the Lord thy God am faithful to all my promises; and you will know that I have my arms of love around you, and you will know that I am your shelter. I am your shelter in time of storm, and I am your help in time of need, saith the Lord.
