Fundamentals of Love Knowing how magnificently loved you are and how fruitful life should be as a result
Dr. Kay Ijisesan
Unless otherwise stated, all scripture quotations are taken from the NEW KING JAMES VERSION of the Bible.
Fundamentals of Love Copyright 2017 © Kay Ijisesan All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means—electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise—without the prior written permission of the author.
Prophecy "I have raised you up to go tell my people that there is a 'mechanism for doing' which does not come by the preaching of the law but by the revelation of grace and love. The ability to receive from the standpoint of grace will make people to produce after what they have received. Their struggles with sin will cease as they embrace My grace that have already dealt with sin through the sacrifice of love – of My Son, Jesus Christ." - A prophecy by Dr. Kay Ijisesan while preaching at KingsWord's headquarter church in Lagos, Nigeria, on Sunday February 14, 2016.
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Contents Introduction ________________________ 05 Chapter 1: Man is made to be loved ________ 10 Chapter 2: Love is to be received __________ 19 Chapter 3: The law barrier is broken _______ 28 Chapter 4: Grace supplies what love enables __ 37 Chapter 5: Love turns to fruitfulness ______ 47 Chapter 6: Love overcomes the flesh ______ 57 Chapter 7: God's definition is love ________ 70
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he message that turned into this book was preached by me on the Valentine's Day of 2016 in our ministry's headquarter church in Nigeria. Valentine's Day, February 14 of every year, is the day the world sets aside to celebrate love. While the origin and the culture of the love the Valentine celebration suggests and supports is
‌we have the real authentic love of God to manifest. not wrapped around the truths of God's Word, I believe the intents of such a day shouldn't be completely thrown away by Christians more so 5
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we have the real authentic love of God to manifest. ―To the pure all things are pure,‖ the Bible states (Titus 1: 15). The idea of setting a day aside to celebrate a term and essence vital to our existence, though in a somewhat misguided manner, shouldn't be totally condemned but rather be proactively employed to teach and show the world the fickleness of the natural love they profess (which can change to hatred the next minute based on action and reaction) and introduce them to the supernatural unconditional love of God. Nothing wrong with the celebration of love, just like nothing is wrong with the celebration of Christmas (you can go legalistic on that as well claiming Jesus wasn't born on December 25) so far as Jesus is put at the center. I believe such a day as the Valentine's Day is one the gospel should be communicated in words and deeds to really justify its essence. More people should perhaps get saved that day than any other 6
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day of the year, not by preaching damnation or condemnation, but by redirecting people to the divine, unconditional, giving love of God. They should be shown God's love so that they can come to know it, in order to experience it firsthand. To really experience it in fullness as such, you need to know it, and to know it, it must be shown or revealed to you. It is the lack of this revelation that causes people not to believe in the love that God has for them. Knowing the love of God (i.e. knowing how much God loves one) is therefore the key to experiencing same divine love. The love of God that passes all understanding needs to be revealed so that it can be manifested. Without revelation, there will not be the appreciation of the love that made God send His Son to come die for you and me. And we have known and believed the love that God has for us... 1 John 4:16 7
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The writer of the epistle just quoted from, Apostle John, knew about this love, so much he affirmed that he was the disciple that Jesus loved in the account of the Gospel he wrote. He literally bragged about the truth that God loved him because he had come to believe it. There is a
Without revelation, there will not be the appreciation of the love that made God send His Son to come die for you and me.
believing that actually comes with knowing. And there is a knowing that comes before experiencing. The journey – from knowing through believing to truly and fully experiencing divine love – which God wants every child of his to travel in order to realize a glorious destiny, unfolds in the following pages through the seven fundamental truths you 8
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are about to learn, arranged from bottom up – from a sound revealing to a sheer climax – all on the subject of love. Transformation lies ahead most definitely, through the love of God, and by His grace!
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#1 Man is made to be loved! ----------
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ave you ever noticed that children born into a family where love is real tend to grow up with proper esteem of themselves? In most cases, they beam with confidence and relate with other people well. A wife that receives the acknowledgement and appreciation of her husband also will be different from the one that receives assault and abuses from 10
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her own husband. The former will more easily glow and be radiant from doses of affection and assurance she is receiving while the latter will have some work to do casting off feelings of sadness, shame and regret. The difference is all in the treatment of love (or the opposite of it) being measured out. The position is predictable when it comes to God because He is upright. His righteousness would not have Him do things outside of His nature, which is love. When the topic is love and the focus is God, expectations should be highly stable. As the sun comes out in the morning and sets in the evening without fail, the love of God for you and I is constant. We are fortunate to be forever loved by God who cannot change (who could not
When the topic is love and the focus is God, expectations should be highly stable. 11
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stop loving humanity even after it failed in Eden). Devil and demons are the unfortunate ones (those wicked beings are the doomed lot, really), they have been eternally pegged at the receiving end of God's wrath. Will they ever be forgiven? No! But will a man who had lived wrong all his life receive forgiveness from God even at the tail end of his existence here on earth? Yes! So what should you expect from the God of all flesh? Love, mercy and grace. Always! In the journey of realizing God's love for fruitfulness on earth here (knowing and believing the love of God in order to walk in its fullness), the searchlight may first need to be turned on you. God made man (you and I) to be loved. We are meant to derive pleasure and satisfaction from being loved. In the natural, when other men show us love, we are happy. Other times when someone shows us a form of hatred, we tend to be sad and disappointed. Thank God because God is constant. He is the Friend that will never hate us, will never forsake us. 12
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I've found a friend, O such a friend! Christ loved me ere I knew Him He drew me with the cords of love, And thus he bound me to Him; And round my heart still closely twine Those ties which naught can sever, For I am His, and Christ is mine, Forever and forever. – James G. Small (1817 -1888) God is our Maker and knew man can't really function effectively and survive without love. So in the making, He has made man a receptacle of love in us. When a man becomes born again, Bible lets us know the love of God is shed abroad in his
God made man (you and I) to be loved. We are meant to derive pleasure and satisfaction from being loved. 13
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heart (Romans 5: 5). His spirit becomes a container of God's love. When a man by revelation knows and believes that love, his mind is renewed and his soul is transformed to the security and assurance in God's love towards him. He will be able to say like Apostle Paul, ―If God be for us, who can be against us?‖ What then shall we say to these things? If God is for us, who can be against us? He who did not spare His own Son, but delivered Him up for us all, how shall He not with Him also freely give us all things? Who shall bring a charge against God's elect? It is God who justifies. Who is he who condemns? It is Christ who died, and furthermore is also risen, who is even at the right hand of God, who also makes intercession for us. Who shall separate us from the love of Christ? Shall tribulation, or distress, or persecution, or famine, or nakedness, or peril, or sword? As it is written: "For Your sake we are killed all day long; We are accounted as sheep for the slaughter." Yet in all these things we are more than conquerors through Him who loved us. For I am persuaded that neither death nor life, nor angels nor principalities nor powers, nor things present nor 14
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things to come, nor height nor depth, nor any other created thing, shall be able to separate us from the love of God which is in Christ Jesus our Lord. Romans 8:31-39 ―Nothing is as real as God's love,‖ Paul was able to communicate with the above scripture. And nothing should be as intoxicating. In the world, there are different liquors with different flavors and alcohol levels, and each drunkard will have his most preferred. In the spiritual sense, and in Paul's estimation, nothing compares with the satisfaction derived from the reality of God's love for Him, already shed abroad in his heart. Paul kept ―drinking‖ of God's love, consistently in a state of stupor by its revelation, so much that afflictions, death, life, present and future matter less to him. He never looked back in his course to fulfil destiny from the day that love was shown to him on his way to Damascus (Acts 9). He tasted love and that was it, he was drunk on it the rest of his life. 15
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Paul lived a maximized life largely because of this reality which was the crux of his message in all its epistles: we have been accepted in the beloved (Ephesians 1: 6) not because of what we will do to please him but what he has done to win us over. It's on Him not on us; it's a done deal not a future bargain. The human desire and need for genuine love has therefore been divinely met in Christ. If you only look for love elsewhere, you may be disappointed, because the kind of love any human can give you in himself is limited to the tolerance of the human flesh, but when you turn and open your heart to Christ and let him fill you with his unconditional love, and keep drinking and getting drunk on that fountain of divine love like Paul did, you will be transformed into the image of the Son of God, ruling and reigning in life. You can make this your confession in this regard:
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CONFESSION I am the beloved of God. In His love, I live, move and have my being. God's love has found me and made me a bride unto Christ. I am being refreshed always by the Person of His love and being satisfied always by the Spirit of His grace. I have got a lover in God. His love has been shed abroad in my heart as I have given my life to Christ. I am intoxicated by this love. Like wine, it fills me up and gets me to act under its influence as I yield to it. Love is now my way of life – reigning in my conscience and ruling my consciousness – because I was first loved by God who loves always. Good! Practice the above confession regularly to be conscious of God's grace available for you in order to have the constant need for love in your life met by the supply of love through His life. That way you can never be love broke. Be true to your nature as a recipient of God's love so that the revelation of His love for you can really soak in. If 17
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He did not spare His only Son, but give Him for us, how will He not with Him freely give us all things (Romans 8: 32). All you need is to be open and keep drinking from the fountain of His love in your heart, so as to see, know, and be convinced the more of this amazing love that sent Jesus to the cross to die for your sins.
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#2 Love is to be received! ----------
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hen a man and a woman freshly gets engaged, there is something about them, an aura of affection envelopes them. They are full of each other in thoughts and feelings. You don‘t need to remind them to call or visit each other. You don‘t need to tell them to mark the Valentine‘s Day. They start their 19
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relationship with ‗lighted fire‘ of love and affection hoping it continues to burn as they develop in it. What is special about just getting engaged? Simply, it‘s all about two persons (for emphasis, a man and a woman) that have freshly received each other‘s love. There is a glow and radiance that comes with being loved, when that love is received. So much to say about being loved by God as seen in the previous chapter, but so much to say also here about embracing and receiving the same love of God. The Lord has appeared of old to me, saying: "Yes, I have loved you with an everlasting love; Therefore with lovingkindness I have drawn you. Jeremiah 31:3 That sounds like someone that is in love – with you. And His love is everlasting. Blessed are you if you are born again! Why? You are betrothed to Jesus who loved you ever before you did Him. He hung on the cross and paid the penalty for your sins before you ever came to terms with your 20
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iniquities (Romans 5: 6-8). He forgave, delivered, and bought you with His blood (Colossians 1: 13). What a connection you now have: joined with the Lord and one spirit with Him (1 Corinthians 6: 17), and an heir and joint heir with Him (Romans 8:17). More than conquerors are we (Romans 8:37). Conquerors and overcomers now are we, Thro’ the precious blood of Christ we've victory, If the Lord be for us, we can never fail; Nothing 'gainst his mighty pow'r can e'er prevail. Conquerors are we, thro’ the blood, thro’ the blood; God will give us victory, thro’ the blood, thro’ the blood, Thro’ the Lamb for sinners slain, Yet who lives and reigns again, More than conquerors are we, More than conquerors are we. Mrs. C. H. Morris (1862-1929) 21
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While such love lavished out on you is a reality, it will do little good in the vital sense if you do not embrace it. What is the usefulness of a gift if not received? Apostle John said, ―we have known and believed in the love that God has for us‖ (1 John 4: 16). That‘s someone cultured in receiving the love of God. One that is developed in unwrapping the gift pack of God‘s love begging for the taking. How do you receive the love of God? Largely by confession and affirmation! Apostle John was already a full grown man at the time of Jesus' ministry but he would lie on Jesus' bosom and refer to himself as the disciple whom Jesus loved. What audacity! Didn't Jesus love the other disciples as much? He did. But John seemed to have a better grasp of that love towards him than others. He simply could not be bothered by what others felt about his conviction. As far as he was concerned, he was the most loved in the whole bunch, and this revelation worked for him.
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In this the love of God was manifested toward us, that God has sent His only begotten Son into the world, that we might live through Him. 1 John 4:9 History has it that John the Apostle lived till full old age and was the last of the apostles to die despite the fact that he suffered along the way all kinds of torture and persecution that could have ordinarily killed him. At a time he was said to have been thrown into boiling oil, but he didn't get fried! He came out of the whole experience alive and ready to continue to love and live for God whom he was being tortured to deny. Much later, he was banished to the isle of Patmos and left to die, and the next thing was that he was receiving visions and revelations of heaven and the Lord Jesus Christ documented as the Book of Revelation in the Bible. What a man! What a story of the influence the love of God can have on a person that will abandon himself to it.
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The reality is, the love you don't embrace will not show on you. Again, check out loving couples in the natural. The radiance of love they reflect is because they are receiving each other's affection. They get less edgy or cranky about each other. They can easily forgive and let go. They are glad and happy living together because they are simply in love with each other. Translate that into the spiritual dimension, and you can begin to understand why John would live such a care-free life unto God. He was simply in love. When you continually embrace the love of God the way he did, you also will not be ―fried‖ by circumstances. It is always a new life and a new world receiving the love of God. This confession can usher you right in:
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CONFESSION I have been adopted into God's family of love, where I partake of the riches of His grace. I seek intimacy with God my Father, because of the love He has bestowed on me. My arms are wide open to receive His love always. I receive and keep receiving, and never tired of receiving the benefits of His love on my path on a daily basis. I press into the depth of God's love, which passes all understanding, and I am being filled with His fullness. I will not frustrate the grace of God. I wholeheartedly embrace with joy the full assurance of my salvation made possible by the love of God. I am wrapped up in the love of the Father and circumstances of this world do not move me. The more I embrace the reality of His love in me, the less I am affected by issues of life. God's love I am receiving is all that matters to me.
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Oh my world! Love that will not have you bothered! Hell may be breaking loose around you but you hardly see it because heaven is bubbling
‌the love you don't embrace will not show on you. inside of you – in love transmitting as joy, peace, patience, temperance and other fruits of the spirit (Galatians 5: 22). People may be grumbling about hard times but you can't stop singing of your good tie with Him. They may be complaining about scarcity in the world but you are rejoicing over His abundance. Why? Of His fullness you are receiving, grace for grace (John 1:16). As you receive God's love, you are being filled with same gracious love, transforming you as a result. You can daily receive the love of God because He daily loads us with benefits (Psalm 68: 19). Like John, be a child and let God be your Father, 26
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where His love is concerned. Throw your hands in the air and receive of His grace by affirming His love for you and watch Him carry you in His everlasting arms in seasons and moments of challenges of life. His love is fresh, and up for grabs, always.
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#3 The law barrier is broken! ----------
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ome men have a wrong perspective about their woman's need for love. They equate love to money. Just because a man is providing and taking care of his family doesn't mean his woman's need for love and affection is being met. A man that has not sown seeds of affection to his wife and has been charging all day in the house, and suddenly starts smiling to her 28
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when it is 10pm in order to have sex that night is not being considerate and wise. That is not how intimacy works! Such an attitude has a parallel with what the law works in us. The law under the Old Testament put a barrier between man and him receiving freely from God. As upright as the law is, it comes across as a taskmaster that is not friendly with man's being. Why? The law tells you to love God and love people without necessarily making you the kind of person that does so naturally. So man had struggles to do the dictates of the law because of the promptings of sin in his flesh. I find then a law, that evil is present with me, the one who wills to do good. For I delight in the law of God according to the inward man. But I see another law in my members, warring against the law of my mind, and bringing me into captivity to the law of sin which is in my members. O wretched man that I am! Who will deliver me from this body of death? Romans 7:21-24 29
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That was Apostle Paul contending with his flesh to do right by the law. It didn't quite work, because righteousness wasn't designed to work that way. The law was given to show man the righteous standards of God, but in showing, also revealed man's gross inadequacy to meet the standards, yet it kept demanding, as Paul realized, that such standards be met. As a result, men find it difficult to realize the abundance of grace and love towards him by God. No intimacy with God as it ought! It is like a woman just married to a man, and here she gets a long list from her husband on how to be a wife. The list is as long as her numerous actions a whole season and she is always struggling to meet up (and failing because she is not perfect) and always battling in her mind and consciousness whether she is really living up to the standard of being a wife, forgetting completely that she is already one, list or no list. The law, though good in itself, has a reputation of standing in the way of the good relationship we ought to have with God 30
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because it puts pressure on the human flesh to perform righteousness. But the flesh is already weakened by sin. ...Who will deliver me from this body of death? Romans 7:21-24 There has to be a switch. Paul found that switch in the revelation of redemption he got by the Spirit of God, which he shared in all his epistles. In redemption, the damage sin did to man is totally undone so that man can be able to fulfil the law without the law posing an obstacle to his relationship with God. For anyone redeemed (born again), righteousness stops being a duty to perform but a way of life to walk in. The demand of the law on man to fulfil love and righteousness has been overridden by the supply of love and righteousness to man empowering him to fulfil the law. What a story, a wonderful turnaround by Love.
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Redemption! oh, wonderful story— Glad message for you and for me; That Jesus has purchased our pardon, And paid all the debt on the tree. Believe it, O sinner, believe it; Receive the glad message—’tis true; Trust now in the crucified Savior, Salvation He offers to you.
S. M. Sayford
The demand of the law on man to fulfil love and righteousness has been overridden by the supply of love and righteousness to man empowering him to fulfil the law. What a story, a wonderful turnaround by Love.
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No more long list of to-dos for the ―married wife‖ again. She could relate with her husband intimately without fear, condemnation and guilt. In the New Testament, the barrier of the law has been set aside so that man can receive freely from his Maker who loves him unconditionally. The law, summarized as loving God and loving one's neighbor (Matthew 22: 34-40), can now be fulfilled by hearts that will continually acknowledge and receive the free gift of God's love rather than be held back in fear for not meeting up with the standards of the law due to the inadequacies of the flesh. The sin revealing and fear inducing ordinances of the law that had spelled doom for man was nailed to the cross of Christ. And man's redemption from Satan got sealed. Having wiped out the handwriting of requirements that was against us, which was contrary to us. And
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He has taken it out of the way, having nailed it to the cross. Colossians 2:14 This is not something that is going to happen. It is something that had happened 2, 000 years ago when Christ died on the cross, which Apostle Paul wrote about in his epistles, and which only needs to be acknowledged and received today. This is part of the revelation Paul caught on to that made him overcome his flesh in order to fulfil his destiny. You will need to catch revelation along the same line – of living above sin and fulfilling the law through the righteous nature of God in you. A simple confession can get you on the way, such as this:
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CONFESSION The barrier of the law has been removed so I receive God's love freely. My relationship with God, purely based on the sacrifice of Christ, overrides ordinances written against my favor. Like a wife freely receiving the love of her husband, and a child embracing the care of his father, I receive God's love without any inhibition of condemnation and fear. The love of God I receive fills me with promptings of the Spirit, creating expressions of life and not of death. Through the abundant measure of God's love towards me, the law has been done away with, all I have is the freedom to receive and act in love. The law is good but sin in man turns the law into a taskmaster that keeps tormenting mankind with fear, condemnation and guilt. The law demands from a damaged man (broken by sin) to do what it will only take a whole renewed man in Christ to 35
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do. But you are no longer damaged if you are born again. No longer a sinner though you will you have your flesh to deal with! You are whole in Christ (Colossians 2: 10) through His righteousness. You are a new creation (2 Corinthians 5: 17), and has therefore escaped the barrier of the law of sin and death. .
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#4 Grace supplies what love enables!
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very parent must learn how to engage their children in conversation particularly on sensitive topics which they need to know about. When your child turns a teenager for instance, you are going to need to talk to him or her about sex, because if you don't, somebody else 37
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will. Let him or her know there is nothing bad in having an intimate friend of the opposite sex but there is time for everything. Let your child knows your spouse is your own boy or girlfriend. Let him or her talk about issues freely so that you can know what to address. It is okay to set some rules, but do not let the rules become a hindrance to your parent-child relationship. Be gracious enough to keep showing your child the right way so that he or she will not, in intimidation and fear of rules (which are not necessarily wrong), now end up in the wrong. Rules are okay the same way the law is okay (1 Timothy 1: 80). It is the essence of rules or the law that need to be put in the right perspective. God gave man the law to show man that he had a problem. He simply didn't have what it would take to fulfil the whole law. It would have to take God to be able to fulfil the law – to love with all of one's heart, might and soul. And in due time God came on the scene in the person of His son to pave the way for man to be able to fulfil the law 38
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by the ultimate sacrifice of his Son. To Him be the glory. To God be the glory, great things he has done; so loved he the world that he gave us his Son, who yielded his life an atonement for sin, and opened the lifegate that we may go in. Praise the Lord, praise the Lord; let the earth hear his voice! Praise the Lord, praise the Lord; let the people rejoice! O come to the Father through Jesus the Son, and give him the glory; great things he has done. – Fanny J. Crosby (1820-1915) In the New Covenant, the law stops being the yardstick for righteousness and justification as Christ became the end of the law to them that
It would have to take God to be able to fulfil the law – to love with all of one's heart, might and soul. 39
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believe (Romans 10: 4). Not that the law has become non-existent. It is only de-emphasised so that grace may be emphasised and amplified. Why? So that man can realize God's love and as a result live the love life, which is all the law was demanding. If the righteousness and love of God has to be real to man, it has to be by grace, the divine ability and provision of God that qualifies man for righteousness and enables him do the requirements of the law. For by grace you have been saved through faith, and that not of yourselves; it is the gift of God, not of works, lest anyone should boast. Ephesians 2:8-9 Grace stepped in to deal with the spiritual bankruptcy of sinful man, which was exposed by the law. In one clean sweep, by Jesus' love sacrifice on the cross, grace moved mankind from minus to plus to surplus in spiritual standing and reckoning. The shed blood of Jesus Christ drew man that were far away from God because of sin 40
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bringing him close enough to God to share his nature (Ephesians 2: 13). God didn't ask man to shape up before being drawn near like the law would demand. Rather He drew man by His grace and as a result reshaped man to qualify for his presence, and all the blessings of it. Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, who has blessed us with every spiritual blessing in the heavenly places in Christ. Ephesians 1:3 Amazing! God's grace starts you and I out loaded – with all spiritual blessings in the heavenly places. He recreated us with a built-in capacity to love both God and men, a potential that becomes more and more evident as we receive and embrace the love He has for us, which made Him go the extra mile in redeeming us. In His will and wisdom, He decided to do away with the whip of the law keeping us away from Him out of fear and condemnation, and set up the provision of grace 41
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so that we can run into his arms in love. What a gracious Father! Behold what manner of love the Father has bestowed on us, that we should be called children of God! Therefore the world does not know us, because it did not know Him. Beloved, now we are children of God; and it has not yet been revealed what we shall be, but we know that when He is revealed, we shall be like Him, for we shall see Him as He is. 1 John 3:1-2 We will never be able to completely unravel this love of the Father. The mind cannot fully grasp it. God is no longer dealing with us by a mere set of rules, like one usually does with his servants. He has brought us to a position of intimate relationship with him as sons, with the rules now written in our hearts who have received his love. As sons, you and I have the confidence to relate with God, and boldness to deal with the devil, His enemy (Proverbs 28: 1). We have every reason – and the strength in Christ – to love God and men, 42
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fulfilling the law, by the backing of His love for us
‌by Jesus' love sacrifice on the cross, grace moved mankind from minus to plus to surplus in spiritual standing and reckoning. and the freedom of His grace towards us. For what the law could not do in that it was weak through the flesh, God did by sending His own Son in the likeness of sinful flesh, on account of sin: He condemned sin in the flesh, that the righteous requirement of the law might be fulfilled in us who do not walk according to the flesh but according to the Spirit. Romans 8:3-5 The law came demanding from mankind already battered by sin, which made it impossible to fulfil the law, but grace came supplying all the way, 43
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from salvation to deliverance, to healing, preservation and wholeness. From faith to love to wisdom and righteousness. From the application of His (Jesus') blood, to the use of His name, and to the giving of the Spirit. From being elected as chosen to being adopted as sons. No human effort went into man's redemption. It was absolutely on the account of grace, all because God loved. For God so loved the world that He gave His only begotten Son, that whoever believes in Him should not perish but have everlasting life. For God did not send His Son into the world to condemn the world, but that the world through Him might be saved. John 3:16-17 This is the era of ―whosoever‖, anyone that will believe in and receive the love and grace of God. If it was okay for the law to demand in the past dispensation of the Old Testament, now in the dispensation of the New Testament, it is much more okay for grace to supply to you. Be the 44
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―whosoever‖ that will believe in His love and you
We will never be able to completely unravel this love of the Father. The mind cannot fully grasp it. will see His grace manifest in your life. Receiving and sharing the love of God that you have is the way to partake and maximize God's abundant grace. Let this be your goal, and your confession: CONFESSION
I am a believer, believing the love God has for me and the grace He has to give. As I factor in the love of God, the grace of God is being supplied in my favor, and I radiate God's goodness everywhere. Grace through the love of God has brought me into light, qualifying me to partake of the divine nature, having escaped the corruption in the world. Through the love of God I have come to believe and receive, I have 45 become the Lord's chosen, not by performance but by election, not by works but by grace.
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No more intimidation and condemnation. Grace has overridden such. We have not received the spirit of bondage again to fear, but we have received the spirit of adoption by which we cry Abba Father (Romans 8: 15), by the abundant provision of the grace of God lavished on us.
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#5 Love turns to fruitfulness! ----------
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ow do you deal with a struggling spouse or child, knowing the right thing to do but keep getting overwhelmed by wrong attitudes and behaviors? Cast him or her away? No. That may not achieve any good result. Wait for a change in attitude before extending the required love gestures to such a family member? No, once again. There may be need to plant seeds 47
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of love towards the person for fruits of good conduct to follow. Being loving and gracious to others despite their faults would most likely result in a change of perspective, leading to a change in conduct, leading to fruitfulness and productivity. That was what God did for you and me. At the point of salvation He changed our hearts through the provision of His grace in Christ Jesus. And grace starts us out loaded when we had not made any contribution into God's kingdom (Ephesians 1:3), as we came into Christ fully equipped with His love and righteousness. We are complete in Him (Colossians 2: 10) even though we may yet be struggling, trying to find our feet in kingdom practice. We are given a God-status that we don't have credentials for (like someone in primary school being given a PhD certificate) knowing fully well it is that status that will now provoke us to produce accordingly the way and at the level God wants.
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If you abide in Me, and My words abide in you, you will ask what you desire, and it shall be done for you. By this My Father is glorified, that you bear much fruit; so you will be My disciples. "As the Father loved Me, I also have loved you; abide in My love. John 15:7-9 Grace is the strong connector between God's love towards man, and man's show of love back to God as well as to other men, leading to fruitfulness. How? God so loved that He showered grace on man and man became graced to love back without the intimidation of the law. Abraham in the Old Testament was an experiment of what grace could mean or do to a man. He was a moon worshipper but God called him and backed him all the same. He came to believe God and responded back in love to God in his decisions and actions and we refer him today as the father of faith. He became so fruitful by
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responding to God's love through the grace of God he experienced. Was Abraham always upright in himself? Were all his actions right? No! For instance, he gave his wife out in order to survive (Genesis 12: 10-20) Who does that? Yet God still loved him and let him grow in grace. Another time, he doubted
Grace is the strong connector between God's love towards man, and man's show of love back to God as well as to other men, leading to fruitfulness. God, agreeing with his wife to sleep with her maid (Genesis 16), yet God didn't abandon him. He was still looking out for his good, still committed to fulfil His promises to him. And because God dealt so graciously with Abraham (Genesis 22), he grew 50
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to a point that he was ready to offer his son, and to the point where a king offered him goods and he rejected it (Genesis 14: 17-24), knowing that material blessings could not be compared to the grace and blessing of God. He grew in grace by responding to the love measured towards him by God. If God could be so gracious to Abraham in the Old Testament, how much more you and I under the New Covenant who have been given the Spirit of grace through the shed blood of Jesus on the cross. The Holy Spirit is the embodiment of God's grace and love to us. As New Testament believers, He is our ever abiding helper and comforter. And what a helper we have in Him, always there to communicate to us the law of God in our heart, which we couldn't keep by ourselves, and supplying the grace and strength to abide by it. And even when we fail, He is there is to correct us and nudge us towards the righteous cause. The beauty of the New Testament is that God has replaced the tablets of the law by Himself, in the 51
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person of the Holy Spirit. The law of God didn't change, really. What changed is the conveyor. In the New Testament, the Holy Spirit has graciously replaced tablets of stone (as the conveyor of God's law and love to man, yielding life instead of death) for the latter kills but the former gives life. Not that we are sufficient of ourselves to think of anything as being from ourselves, but our sufficiency is from God, 6 who also made us sufficient as ministers of the new covenant, not of the letter but of the Spirit; for the letter kills, but the Spirit gives life. 2 Corinthians 3:5-6 The gentle Holy Spirit is meant to work fruitfulness in you and me – by the freedom of grace. Realizing God's love and walking in it ought to make us productive and fruitful in life, and the Holy Spirit is in us to supply the grace. As the revelation and actions of love increase, so the grace to be fruitful increases. And as the grace increases, the knowledge of God's love, which passes human understanding (Ephesians 3:19), 52
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also increases. In things pertaining to the kingdom and righteousness of God, love and grace by the Holy Spirit work fruitfulness and productivity in man. O precious grace of God’s dear Lamb, The grace that makes me what I am! Thro’ all my life my cry shall be, See what His grace has done for me. Free grace, free grace shall be my song, Till all the saints the sound prolong; No works of mine can e’er atone, For I am saved by grace alone.
Robert Lowry (1826 – 1899)
God's love will never make you to be timid, because there is no fear in love (1 John 4:18). You will have the boldness to cast out demons in the name of Jesus. You will lay hands on the sick, and expect them to recover (Mark 16: 17-18). You will be love moved and grace filled – by the Holy Spirit – to address wickedness and 53
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unrighteousness around you, and you will not be disappointed. You will have results because love never fails (1 Corinthians 13: 8). Welcome to the realm of miracles – with ease. The
Realizing God's love and walking in it ought to make us productive and fruitful in life, and the Holy Spirit is in us to supply the grace. realm of acting on God's Word and doing the bidding of the Spirit through the love and the grace of Christ. A realm where no one can lay a charge against you, because you are God's elect. A realm where no one can condemn you because you are already loved by God (Romans 8: 33-34). As a believer, every accusation against you had been buried with Jesus when He died and your everlasting justification got secured when He was raised back to life (Romans 4: 25). You are the 54
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righteousness of God in Christ Jesus, through His love and grace. Come into this light and go in this grace, and you will be a terror to the kingdom of darkness! This simple confession will surely help: CONFESSION
Through the love of God for me and His grace towards me, I have come into an open field of fruitfulness leading to destiny fulfilment in Christ. God by his love deals graciously with me so much that my love actions are productive for the kingdom. My weaknesses and shortcomings find their solution in the precious blood of Jesus while my strength, trust and hope to do valiantly is in my factoring in the wisdom and grace of Christ. I can never fail in life because love never fails. The love of God that I have received and I am abiding in shields me from failure in all my endeavors.
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By God you have been chosen to show forth His marvellous light. To God therefore, you are meant to be a yielded vessel fit for the Master's use (2 Timothy 2: 20-21) – a royal diadem in the hands of God. You ought not to be termed desolate or your land forsaken. You ought to be termed fruitful and productive (Isaiah 62: 3-4). Only allow the grace of God to transform you unto such fruitfulness.
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#6 Love overcomes the flesh!
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motions of love shouldn't be denied. No one should advise another person to get married to someone he or she has not grown affection for. Where there is love, there ought to be display of affection. Loving emotions must be involved showing how special one is to his or her chosen partner, and how they care about each other. (Someone you know is not 57
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married yet because he or she is waiting to meet a person that will evoke the feelings of romance and marital love in him or her.) Apart from marital love, there is also brotherly love that exists between siblings. There is also parental love, the affection that parents have for their children. There are different shades of natural love and emotions that can be displayed based on connection and relationship. These different shades of love have their root in God. They are all in their originality a function of the grace of God. You can find references about them in the Bible pointing to God as source. For instance, husbands are asked to love their wives as Christ loves the church (Ephesians 5: 25), typifying romantic love. It is stated in the Book that God has given us the spirit of His Son so that we can cry Abba Father (Galatians 4: 6), pointing to parental love. It is also revealed that Jesus the Sanctifier is not ashamed to call us brothers (Hebrews 2 11), referring to brotherly love. The greater love of God is also described as a man 58
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laying his life for his friends (John 15: 13), referring to love that exists between friends and comrades. Different kinds of love coming from one Source, God! You should be glad that He loves so much. I am so glad that our Father in heav'n tells of his love in the book he has giv'n: wonderful things in the Bible I see-this is the dearest, that Jesus loves me. I am so glad that Jesus loves me, Jesus loves me, Jesus loves me; I am so glad that Jesus loves me, Jesus loves even me. – Emily S. Oakey The different kinds of love communicated showing different emotional expressions have their root in God's attributive love nature, called agape in the Greek. Agape is unconditional because it is love in its fullness manifesting grace and bringing fruitfulness. It is the love that sent 59
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Jesus to the cross to die a shameful death for us – while we were His haters (Romans 5: 6-8). Mere romantic love can't do that. Mere brotherly love or friendly love will fall short in this regard. It will apply the law for punishment rather than provide grace for fruitfulness. "You have heard that it was said, 'Love your neighbor and hate your enemy.' But I tell you: Love your enemies and pray for those who persecute you, that you may be sons of your Father in heaven. He causes his sun to rise on the evil and the good, and sends rain on the righteous and the unrighteous. Matthew 5:43-45
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Agape is unconditional because it is love in its fullness manifesting grace and bringing fruitfulness. It is the love that sent Jesus to the cross to die a shameful death for us – while we were His haters. Jesus was introducing his disciples to the Agape love of God that fulfils the law. The law always hands a punishment for any offence while grace through love provides a platform of mercy that can transform the offender. The perspective of the law is ―offend and be punished‖. The perspective of grace is ―come out of the offence and be fruitful‖. Again, nothing is wrong with the law of God, only that when it is brought to the level of humanity conditioned by sin and death, its demands tend to breed ungracious feelings and emotions. A man will have to be born again and 61
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receive the Spirit of life in Christ Jesus to be delivered from the rule of sin and death. Then he can love unconditionally the way God loves, as he walks in the Spirit. I say then: Walk in the Spirit, and you shall not fulfill the lust of the flesh. For the flesh lusts against the Spirit, and the Spirit against the flesh; and these are contrary to one another, so that you do not do the things that you wish. But if you are led by the Spirit, you are not under the law. Galatians 5:16-18 On getting born again, the Agape love, which is love in its pureness and fullness, is shed abroad in the believer's heart (Romans 5: 5). The born-again person becomes partaker of the divine nature – the nature of pure unconditional love of God. It is this nature of love that ought to sustain all the emotional expressions of love known to man. Romantic love should no longer be selfish (seeking one's own only and not preferring one's partner) because it is being under-girded by the 62
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nature. A husband or wife should hardly get to a point of desperation, planning to quit the relationship because he or she ―cannot take it again‖. There is grace available in God's unconditional love, which can allow him or her to endure and be more patient in order to see fruitfulness in the marriage. Parents can seek wisdom through the platform of grace in God's undiluted love in them to deal with a child that may be wayward or unruly. Divorcing such a spouse or castigating such a child may just be a decision of the flesh, and the flesh doesn't yield fruitfulness. It is the Spirit who gives life; the flesh profits nothing. The words that I speak to you are spirit, and they are life. John 6:63-64 The flesh here refers to the ungracious feelings and emotions (also thoughts and acts) arising from the effects of sin and death. According to the above scripture, it does not yield good results. 63
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Instead, what profits is being gracious by the Spirit; loving others with the love of God thereby leaving them with little choice but to respond in loving back. Jesus did this for Peter, who became the main leader of the church after He left the earth. Peter was not so stable in his commitment. He faltered many times. He denied Jesus at the most crucial period (Luke 22: 54-62) and went back into the fishing business he had left for ministry leading some other disciples away. Did Jesus abandon him? Did He cast him away? No! Rather, He showed him love till he was restored. Jesus prayed for Peter's recovery (Luke 22: 31-32). He went after him after His resurrection, did more miracles for him and his fishing team, and even cooked for them. Then He pointed him back to ministry (John 21). So when they had eaten breakfast, Jesus said to Simon Peter, "Simon, son of Jonah, do you love Me more than these?" He said to Him, "Yes, Lord; You know that I love You." He said to him, "Feed My lambs." He said to him again a second time, 64
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"Simon, son of Jonah, do you love Me?" He said to Him, "Yes, Lord; You know that I love You." He said to him, "Tend My sheep." He said to him the third time, "Simon, son of Jonah, do you love Me?" Peter was grieved because He said to him the third time, "Do you love Me?" And he said to Him, "Lord, You know all things; You know that I love You." Jesus said to him, "Feed My sheep”. John 21:15-17 Peter eventually yielded to the love gestures of Jesus and he encountered grace to be a great apostle and leader of the early church. He reciprocated Jesus' undying and unconditional love for him and God's grace became his for a fruitful ministry. A good summary of Peter's story of destiny fulfilment is ―Love touched me and grace torched me, and the rest is history.‖ Fruitfulness comes when a man is transformed by God's grace as he yields to God's love!
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‌what profits is being gracious by the Spirit; loving others with the love of God thereby leaving them with little choice but to respond in loving back. The difference between those that fulfil destiny and those that don't in this world is simply whether or not they yield to the love of God. Here is your big part in fruitfulness: Respond to God's love like Peter in order to activate God's grace for the realization of destiny. Receiving and acting correspondingly to God's unconditional love bestowed on you is the way to latch on to God's unqualified grace made available by the same love for your fruitfulness. People are refusing the love of God regarding salvation and are going to hell, not because the love of God towards them have not made the grace to be saved available in Christ Jesus, but they simply ignore Christ and His agape love. And people are experiencing hell on 66
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earth in different situations and circumstances for the similar reason of not embracing the love of God, and the grace to fix their issue, though available in Christ, keep eluding them. Christianity is about receiving God's love. It is believing in the love of God to the point of acting
Fruitfulness comes when a man is transformed by God's grace as he yields to God's love. on it (1 John 4: 16). Your emotions in their expression will not always want you to act on the Agape love, because they can be influenced by the flesh, which is conditioned by sin and death, and thus condemned by the law, breeding more expressions of negative emotions leading to sin and death. To stay kept from such vicious circle of the flesh, you must subject your emotions to God's love through the Word and by His Spirit. For the sake of fruitfulness, do not let your 67
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emotions rule you. Don't let them go haywire in anger, bitterness, envy, lust and the likes. Rather, let God's nature of love undergird your emotions so that they can cause you to be productive for God's kingdom. This simple confession of God's Word can keep you in check regarding the flesh, and in tune regarding loving others: CONFESSION
I have received the love of God unto the freedom of grace by the Spirit. I am no longer subject to the law of sin and death so I do not the biddings of the flesh. I respond and yield to the love of God in me and by it overcome the temptations of the flesh so that my fruitfulness may show. I safely abide in the love territory, where the flesh cannot rule and sin and death cannot dominate. I am patient, kind, not easily provoked, not envious or vain glorious, all because of the grace of God made available in His love I receive.
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The real purpose of the law, which is loving God and loving men, can only be fulfilled by grace (Romans 8: 3-4). Through grace, you become the beloved of God so that you can readily act in God's love (in receiving and sharing) unto fruitfulness. Temptations of sin may want to set in through your feelings and emotions, but that is when you stand fast in the liberty of grace to produce love actions that will not get you entangled again in the yoke of bondage (Galatians 5: 1). At such a moment of temptation, let the Word and the Spirit of God communicate to you afresh that whom the Lord has set free is free indeed (John 8:36).
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#7 God’s definition is love! ----------
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ome wives are going through traumatic experiences today because their husbands are not giving them attention. Some old parents are almost losing their mind because they feel their children don‘t appreciate them. Others feel abandoned and rejected, thinking nobody cares, but where lies their seeking of love? If it is hooked on other men, they have only set 70
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themselves up for disappointment. Why? Men can yield to the flesh expressing feelings and emotions and engaging in actions that are not in line with the law of God. There is only one being that is constant and perfect in love unconditional: God! God is love, and he who abides in love abides in God, and God in him. 1 John 4:16 The three-word phrase God is love could well be the summary of all the Bible ever aims to communicate: To get men to realize the extent and nature of love available for them in God. Love, which is the fulfilment of the law, which is the gateway for grace, and pathway for fruitfulness, is summed up as God. Again, the word love here is from the Greek word agape, which is the unconditional nature of love (attributed to God) that can't be moved by ungracious and ungodly emotions. That is what God loved humanity with. That is what He showered (and still showers) on us. If any man is 71
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feeling unloved, abandoned and rejected, it is only because he has not realized this love of God. If anyone is feeling nobody cares about him, he has simply not prioritized his relationship with God. If you are a child of God, no need really for any further convincing about the reality that God loves you, because the Bible expressly tells so. Jesus loves me, this I know, for the Bible tells me so. Little ones to him belong; they are weak, but he is strong. Yes, Jesus loves me! Yes, Jesus loves me! Yes, Jesus loves me! The Bible tells me so. ď€
Anna Bartlett Warner (1824 - 1915)
The Bible defines God as love in totality, and God loves us with His love being our father, friend, husband, and brother in Jesus. Love is first of all from His standpoint. He first loved us before we could ever love Him (1 John 4: 19). Love is what He directs our way before we ever catch it. Under 72
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the law in the Old Testament, men felt they would have to first love God before they could be loved by Him. But grace in the New Testament clearly gives the right perspective, which is that God is already pleased with you as His child. God is love even to the world (John 3: 16), not to talk of his children, and He can't deny himself. Love is who He is and what He does. It is first of all from His end, not man's. Someone says I have been far away from God, but I tell you God is near you
If any man is feeling unloved, abandoned and rejected, it is only because he has not realized this love of God. If anyone is feeling nobody cares about him, he has simply not prioritized his relationship with God.
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and nearer than you think, you only need to turn to experience Him. You – your emotions, actions, omissions and shortcomings – are not the definition of love. God – His righteousness, grace and mercy – is. Good to know that for your sake, God has shut the door on self-justification under the law and opened up righteousness through Christ Jesus which makes embracing His love easier and manifesting His grace more possible. Never let your past or present determine the measure of the love of God you will embrace. Let the eternal sacrifice of His Son Jesus Christ do. Let His love for you overwhelm the shortcomings you may have in you loving Him back. Whenever you think you have not measured up enough to deserve His love, realize it is not your measure that matters, it is His measure towards you – abundantly gracious! It doesn‘t matter where you are now in life, on the mountain or in the valley, on a straight path or a crooked road, whether you are riding a wave or facing a storm, God loves you as you are and 74
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wants to unleash His grace that will give you a testimony through His love conveyed by His Spirit. You may be walking through the valley of the shadow of death, you should not fear for God is with you (Psalm 23:4). The consciousness of God's love for you should keep you. Just realizing how much He loves you will keep you afloat the storms of life. Abiding in God's love will keep you from abiding in sin and death. We know that we have passed from death to life, because we love the brethren. He who does not love his brother abides in death. Whoever hates his brother is a murderer, and you know that no murderer has eternal life abiding in him. By this we know love, because He laid down His life for us. And we also ought to lay down our lives for the brethren. 1 John 3:14-16
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This is your calling: abiding in the love of God. That is, abiding in the revelation of the love that God has for you, being filled with it literally. When you abide that much, you will able to walk in love more easily, displaying love commitments
Whenever you think you have not measured up enough to deserve His love, realize it is not your measure that matters, it is His measure towards you – abundantly gracious! back to God and manifesting His grace to people for your productivity. Here is the secret to fruitfulness: get consumed by God's love for you so much that you walk in love towards men without pressure and hypocrisy. Let God's love wraps you up so much that you respond to it readily. Then you are a miracle going somewhere to happen, your fruitfulness happening as you 76
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respond to God's love, and your responding coming easier as you are being filled with His love. Have this confession then for some filling: CONFESSION
God is love, my Lover and I His beloved. Being Love, God gives and gives and will not stop giving to me His son. I am assured of the presence of His Spirit every minute because He will never leave me nor forsake me, even in moments of trial. I make the full intent of grace to bear on any situation I face as I equate the Agape love to God, knowing nothing can withstand my love walk because nothing can withstand God. I am secured in love always because love is God and God is love. God is the only true definition of love: outside God you cannot really define love. How much you experience in terms of manifestation of God is a function of what you know about His love for you. The emphasis in this book has not been on 77
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the love we have or display towards God or other men, but rather on the love He has for us, which is basic and fundamental – if one is ever going to be fruitful enough to fulfil destiny. So before you begin to jump into the flesh to produce a fake love, get established by the Spirit in the original love of God and then reign in life. Love outside of God is a shadow of itself! One can do all the acts of love and not really have love. True love is Godcentered, always! Though I speak with the tongues of men and of angels, but have not love, I have become sounding brass or a clanging cymbal. And though I have the gift of prophecy, and understand all mysteries and all knowledge, and though I have all faith, so that I could remove mountains, but have not love, I am nothing. And though I bestow all my goods to feed the poor, and though I give my body to be burned, but have not love, it profits me nothing. 1 Corinthians 13:1-3 What a climax! What a journey we have had in the love of God in this volume. A journey that has 78
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made clear that God loves us unconditionally and everything in our lives revolves around His love for us. And when we come to embrace the definition of that love of His, the same love comes to define us in return – as love made and love ruled beings – as we stay love abiding in Christ.
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About The Author Dr. Kay Ijisesan is the founder and president of KingsWord Ministries International with churches and missions in North America, Africa, Europe and Asia. He received a mandate from God to raise a Supernatural army in the nations in August 1990. Since then, he has being involved in planting local churches in several nations with multiples of thousands of members all over the world. He provides oversight over all the churches and missions of the ministry from his apostolic base in Chicago, United States. He also travels extensively around the globe holding conferences, crusades and imparting local churches. He has raised and imparted several thousands of believers in different nations through various media outlets which include television, radio and several internet platforms. Literally thousands of believers are imparted daily through his daily program #PrayWithDrKay. Originally trained as a 81
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pharmacist, he later completed a doctorate program in Christian Theology. In August 2013, Dr Kay was honored with Doctor of Divinity in recognition of his contribution to the body of Christ by International Ministry Institute in Pensacola, Florida. He has authored twenty eight books on several topics such as Faith, Grace, Holy Spirit, Excellence, Purpose, Redemption, Blessing etc. Dr. Kay and his wife, Mayowa are blessed with two lovely children: Tolu & Temi. His weekly meetings and special conferences around the world are broadcasted live through various media. For more information visit the ministry website (www.kingsword.org).
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