The More Excellent Way – His Love

Ron:

I guess it just hit me: the tremendous love of God that's beamed at us 24/ 7. He loved us when we hated Him. He loved us when we despised Him. He loved us when we totally rejected Him. That was His answer. That was His answer to humanity to love them, and keep loving them, and loving them. And that love, because it's so powerful, begins to melt our walls and starts to get into us, starts filtering in.

As it does, then of course we open up to His love. That was His methodology to meet humanity and still is, His love. And it's not going to be any different for us loving one another. It's the same methodology. We receive His love and we reflect His love to one another, when you run up against walls, when you run up against personality conflicts.

The methodology is to draw God's love. It's reflecting His love to one another. It's just this deep love that He has that changes everything. It's not really complicated. We complicate it, but it's really not complicated. He just plain old loves us beyond human understanding, human concepts, really beyond our belief. We have unbelief towards His love. How can anyone or any being love us that much, when we're aware of our state? I just started praying. Lord, I want to open up to Your love more. We have the opportunity to receive His love and redirect that back to Him.

Dale:

We have to understand that God thinks differently than we do. And what you're saying is God spoke His Word. He sends out His love. And what does He want back? That's what He wants back. He wants His love back. He wants His Word back. He wants it to circulate. He wants it to bear fruit. There is a greater depth of love that's Spirit and not flesh. And that's difficult to understand. And one of the things that I've come to the point of is I don't want to say "I love you" anymore. I want to have an action connected to that love, to where I walk out that action. That's really what we're looking for, what God's looking for. Because I can say, "I love you," that in many times that can be a way of getting out of something. Instead of saying "I love you" and you're really going through it - am I there with you? Is there something that expresses my love that you can feel ? Love has to have action or it's not love.

Ron:

I don't think it's supposed to be complicated. To me, the provision is there and all we need to do is have the faith to appropriate it. All we need to do is ask for it; it's no more complicated than that. Father, I need Your love in this situation. I need Your love for this person, whatever it is. It can't be any more complicated than that, because it's really not up to us. He is already - and has already - and has been loving us from the foundation of the earth. Nothing's changed on His part.

Mike:

You have to have the revelation of it. See, God is love. And it takes a revelation to understand that He is what He says He is. He is love. When He created us, I believe, that love was imparted to us the moment He created us. It's the part of Him that is always there. Now, when He sent us down here, and we were born into this mantle of flesh and soul, and we're raised up in various situations, that's where the lies and deceptions of the world and the enemy in the world covered up the truth about His love.

But if you truly look at the Father and how He responded to the people in the Old Testament, the one thing that keeps coming through consistently is His love. He constantly forgave. He constantly showed mercy and grace. The moment the people had a humility in their hearts, the love was right there. And that's the part that ministered life to me.

I go back to my first experience losing our firstborn a week after he was born. It was a devastating thing for both my wife and I. God gave me something of a revelation of Himself to me, of who He really is. It was the start of something of a relationship between Him and me. His revealing Himself to me during that time through the Word, solidified the beginning of a relationship. Then you start with that premise, and when I read in the scriptures in Ephesians, that He speaks to you and I shortly after He created us in the image of His Son, tells us, “I've blessed you with every Spiritual blessing in the heavenly places. You will stand before Me holy and blameless by the blood of the Lamb. You have been predestined to adoption as sons through My Son Jesus Christ unto Myself.”

Ron:

Yeah, it definitely is based in revelation, because we're not talking about human love or human thinking. We're talking about God's love. And you're right, the door opens to you by revelation. I think there's scriptures that talk about the Father draws you. No one can come unto the Father. You know, no one can come unto Christ, unless the Father draws him. Christ came to the earth, the way I understand it, to reveal the love of the Father, and to open the door for everyone to come into a relationship with the Father - through Christ. So, in a sense, it's not exclusive; it's just an open heart.

Dale:

You know what you're saying, Ron, and what Mike is saying, I think we have to go back to the very simple thing that God is love. I like the idea of revelation because a revelation comes to you. And that revelation has to be imparted or appropriated. It's not a thought that appears in your head and an idea that you had for a better way of life. It's God's very heart being created in your heart through impartation and appropriation. So it's actually a spiritual living thing in you, and that can happen instantly. It also will be something that you will experience - different ways that God will solidify that revelation in your heart.

It's amazing because first Corinthians 13 ends; and I read it out of the scriptures Bible - "for now we see in a, in a mirror dimly, but then face to face now I know in part, but then I know, as I am also known, and now believe. Expectation and love remain, these three, but the greatest of these is love." And that tells me, all other things pass away, the love of God will be there forever. What gift can God give me, that is any greater than His eternal love?

Mike:

Am I aware of how much I can express that love to others and through different avenues, through different ways? And do I, or do I let things or circumstances or trials or tribulations prevent me from expressing His love?

Jim:

When everything's gone, God's love is still there. And I'm just thinking, well, we should just live that way. We should live right at the brink of where nothing, nothing else matters in this life, except living in the presence of God and His love. That's the mission that we're on. That's the mission of the kingdom of God. live in His presence right here, right now.

Mike:

It is the kingdom of God. How can you deny the kingdom of God when it's freighted with His love? You can't.

Dale:

"I will show you an even more excellent way," is the great commandment. And it's personal. It's to you, nobody else. It's a relationship to you that He has and you have to Him. And I think that's the clearest, purest channel that we can have is that relationship of His love and us giving back to Him that love, because He says, “you shall love me with all your heart.” Very personal; very simple. We talk about hungering and thirsting after righteousness. I think that righteousness is the right relationship. I can have that right relationship with you and with others. I can have a right relationship with someone that I just met, because it's a Spirit connection not a flesh connection. But when it comes right down to it, I can't love you, I can't have a right relationship with you, unless my first, most necessary relationship is true and correct.

And that is I love Him because that love that I have and that relationship with the Father, I can convey to you. And that's the purity of that more excellent way. That's the thing that's eternal. That's the thing that God's looking for. He wants His love to cover the earth, not our watered down interpretation. But we reach into His heart and we impart that which He imparted to our hearts.

Remember that God has chosen that He's not going to move sovereigly. He's going to move through us. So we stand before Him in our heart. “Lord, I stand before you like David creating me a clean heart. Oh God, create me that I can be a faithful vessel of your love to anybody and anything. Father, I want to be a pure vessel.”

See, that righteousness that we're looking for is not our righteousness. It's a righteousness that God works in our hearts, so when He loves somebody through us, it comes through pure, and it comes through with all the impact that the Father wants to do it. The exciting thing is, yes, that is possible. If your heart is given to Him in honesty and truth, integrity, He will honor that and His love will come through.

Pat

There's never a stranger in our midst because of the love of the Lord that comes through. And there really is no stranger when I'm open to someone I don't even know. And I've heard that the Jewish people say there is never a stranger in our midst, because there's always that openness, that givenness, that love, that's being a true believer. But He puts it in us. He puts it in us, you know, when people cry over you, there's something of a depth that goes inside of you.

Ron

To me, everything that we're talking about originates from God. The Father is the Creator and we're the clay. To me, we have to always go back to that because everything we're talking about is not originating from a human. It's an originating from Him. He creates His love in us. He creates the faith. He creates the revelation. It's all Him. It's the Father creating within a people. I don't know how much we actually do other than believe. We believe. I mean, we don't do anything to create His love. I don't think we do anything, really, other than just believe Him.

We believe His Word. He says this is what He is, this is what He's doing, this is what He's done, and we say, Yes, Lord, I believe You. Line upon line, precept upon precept, He imparts. I do believe one thing. I believe in prayer, and I believe that prayer can upset God's timetable. I think prayer can open doors for people where the doors are closed for whatever reason a door is closed on somebody. Someone that prays for them can open a door for them into God. We're on this earth to be open doors for people, to create open doors, to be open doors, so that people can have a relationship with God. Really there is nothing else. Everything else is a distraction from that. Once that's established, then everything else can flow out of that. And so until that relationship is established in someone's heart, they're really marking time on this earth.

They're wandering here. You can call them alive, but really they're walking dead, because they really aren't alive and they really have no purpose, no goal, no purpose in life until a door is open to them to have a relationship with the Father and His love. The body of Christ is to be an open door to people, to receive the Father, to open the door.

It's Christ in the flesh. Christ now comes in a many membered body to open the door again. God will have His people. He sent His Son to this earth, and His Son went through a lot, a lot, to open the door for the humanity to have a relationship with the Father. I do not believe that any of that was in vain, and ever will be in vain.

Dale

I love what you said, Ron, and I'm glad you brought that up. Because Moses was the one who did just what you said. God was so upset with Israel, He was going to destroy them. And He was going to make a nation out of Moses. Moses said no way. He led them out of Egypt, through the wilderness, his whole life was devoted to those people.

Yes, he was devoted to God, too. He's the one who went up the mountain. That was Moses trying to show the Father how much he loved those people. And that shows us a lot. It shows us a heart of a shepherd. And it shows us a precursor of Christ.

Ron:

Hey, Dale, as you were talking about Moses and what he did as he stood before the Father and interceded for Israel. The only reason Moses did that is because he had stood in the presence of the Father and received the Father's love. And he was reflecting back the Father's love to Him.

Dale:

Exactly. What can we take to God to get Him to turn away? Exactly what you just said.

Ron:

His own love.

Dale:

His own love. That's how we relate. That's the more excellent way.