The Force of Love by Mark Stephens

By Mark Stephens

 


THE FORCE OF LOVE

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by Pastor Mark Stephens
 



 



The Force of Love

We have learned about the force of joy and peace recently. There is another "force" that we can apply to our lives and that is the force of love. This force is even more powerful than the force of joy and peace. In fact, this force is the most powerful force the world has ever known. It's a weapon that the Bible says will never fail. We are talking about the force of love.


 



In the list of the fruit of the Spirit found in Galatians 5:22, 23, Paul puts love first. It is of great significance that love is listed first. Love is the motivating force behind all the other fruit of the Spirit. Love is the force that will keep you out of the works of the flesh that is listed in Galatians 5:19-21. Love will keep you out of such sins as envy, jealousy, strife, hatred, wrath and more. When you stay out of all these manifestations of the flesh and the world system, you won't be troubled by anything the devil may throw at you.

 


Love



However, love isn't just a force to keep you out of sin. It's a powerful force to enable you to operate in the other fruit of the Spirit. Without love, your joy and peace, your longsuffering, gentleness, goodness, your faith, meekness and temperance won't work. In fact, Paul wrote in 1st Corinthians 13 that without love "I am nothing" (verse 2).



 



If a believer doesn't understand the fruit of love and how to operate in it, he may try to have joy, but his joy won't work properly. He may search for peace, but what he finds won't be true peace. He won't be able to use peace properly. The same is true of the other fruit of the Spirit. That's why so few Christians are having the kind of success they should have in walking in the Spirit. They don't understand how to operate in the fruit of love. The major reason they don't know how to operate in love is that they have a misconception about the order of priorities in the love walk. They have a misunderstanding of what the Bible says is the right order of our love relationships. They've mixed up the proper order of priorities in their love life.



 



The trouble is, when most believers think of the fruit of love, they think of cultivating and developing love relationships toward their brothers and sisters in Christ. They think what Jesus called the "great commandment" is His command in John 15:17 "that ye love one another." But, in fact, the great commandment is not "love one another." The great commandment is not in John 15 but in the book of Matthew. When a lawyer asked Him which was the great commandment in the law, Jesus answered:



 



"Thou shalt love the Lord thy God with all thy heart, and with all thy soul, and with all thy mind. This is the first and great commandment. And the second is like unto it, thou shalt love they neighbor as thyself" (Matthew 22:37-39).



 



According to Jesus, what is the great commandment? That you love the Lord your God with all your heart, soul, and mind. The great commandment is about loving God, not about loving others. The great commandment is not to love one another, it is to love God. It's the second commandment that deals with loving others. Now you may be surprised, but these two scriptures put the love life in proper priority.



 



First of all, I must learn to love God with everything that is within me. Secondly, I must learn how to love myself. If I don't know how to love God, I will never know how to love myself. And if I can't get to the point of loving myself, I'll never know how to love another. I cannot love my neighbor as myself until I learn how to love myself. Many are trying to find out what love is about, but you will never find out what love is about until you get your love life in the right order. The right order, the right priority, for love life for any life of love is that it must begin with God!



 



We are talking about loving the Lord as the number one priority. We're talking about cultivating and developing an individual, personal love relationship with our heavenly Father. When you learn to love your heavenly Father, you can learn how to love yourself. When you learn to love God and yourself, then and only then, you will know how to develop love and proper loving relationships with one another.



 



You can't put god out of your love life, or you have none! You may think you have a love life, but in reality, you cannot have a love life without God!



 



It's sad, but many Christians love one another more then they love God. Some love their husbands, wife, parents and others more than they love God. Their love is defective because they are putting their love priorities in the wrong order. There love is not working properly because they don't know how to love God first.



 



Let's illustrate this principle. Of course we will be using the Word to do so. Look at Luke 10:38-42:



 




 "Now it came to pass, as they went, that he entered into a certain village: and a certain woman named Martha received him into her house. And she had a sister called Mary, which also sat at Jesus' feet, and heard his word. But Martha was cumbered about much serving, and came to him, and said, Lord, dost thou not care that my sister hath left me to serve alone? Bid her therefore that she help me. And Jesus answered and said unto her, Martha, Martha, thou art careful and troubled about many things: but one thing is needful: and Mary hath chosen that good part, which shall not be taken away from her."

 


Martha was probably sincere in trying to use her work and service to demonstrate her love for the Lord. She was, as many of us attempt to do, show Jesus how much she loved Him through her hard work. But Jesus told her the only thing He wanted was for her to sit at His feet and fellowship with Him as Mary was doing.



 



Here we see one person loving the Lord by fellowshipping with the Father in His Word, and the other attempting to love Him through work and service. But, it has never been by your works that God is glorified. God wants the glory for everything that you do anyway. He wants the glory for the fact that you got out of bed this morning. He wants the glory for whatever was wrong last week that is all right now. God wants the glory for your healed body. God wants the glory for your sound mind. God wants the glory for the finances that you do have.



 



It may be little or much, but He wants the glory for it. He wants the glory for your deliverance from whatever trouble might happen tomorrow. The Bible says our relationship with God doesn't depend on our works, but on His grace (Ephesians 2:8,9). God does not need our work. He does want us to have a personal, intimate loving relationship with Him.



 



The importance God places on developing a loving relationship with Him instead of just doing good works in His name is graphically illustrated by something Jesus said in Matthew 7:22, 23:



  

"Many will say to me in that day, Lord, Lord, have we not prophesied in thy name? And in thy name have cast out devils? And in thy name done many wonderful works? And then will I profess unto them, I never knew you: depart from me, ye that work iniquity."


 



Underline the word "knew" in that passage. Jesus made a very important statement which, if we are not careful, will miss. This word "knew" comes from a Greek word, "ginosko" which means "to know by experience or effort." It means "the knowledge gained as a result of prolonged practice." This knowledge did not come from what you read or studied-this is the knowledge you obtain through your individual personal experience.



 



As Jesus uses the word "knew", it simply means "to get to know." So in this verse, when He says, "I never knew you," He means "I never had the knowledge of you grounded in personal experience. I never had the time to have prolonged practice with you."



 



"But Lord, we did this in your name. I prayed 2 hours this morning."



 



You did many good things, but the knowledge you gained, you didn't obtain through personal experience. "Depart from me, ye that work iniquity!"



 



There is something important that we need to understand about the fruit of love. The fruit we want to cultivate is love developed in a relationship with our heavenly Father. The way that love develops is through fellowship with Him in His Word and in prayer. We read the Word because we are in love with Him. As we spend time with Him we get to know Him by personal experience. Then when someone says something about God, we know whether it's right or wrong because of our personal experience with our heavenly Father because we know His nature!



 



What are the benefits of reordering our priorities and getting our concept of the fruit of love straight? Specifically, how is learning to love God first, myself second, and then others going to enable me to overcome my situations?



 



The benefits of learning to love, particularly of learning to love God as our heavenly Father, are incalculable. But since we are talking about overcoming, we are going to discuss two primary benefits of learning to use the force of love properly.



 



First, love brings freedom from fear, and second, love enables us to conquer all things.



 



The first benefit of cultivating love for the Father is freedom from fear.



 



"There is no fear in love; but perfect love casteth out fear: because fear hath torment. He that feareth is not made perfect in love." 1st John 4:18)



 



When you develop this love relationship for God, you will begin to walk in total absence of fear. When you have made loving God your top priority to Jesus command in Matthew 22:37, you won't fear what men can do to you. You won't fear what might happen in any given circumstance.



 



Having a loving relationship with the Father is like being handcuffed to God 24-7. If you knew God were that near to you at all times, you wouldn't be afraid of anything. Your Bible says that God is that close to you. Matthew 28 says He will be with us always.



 



It's when we forget how close the Father is to us that we become fearful. We live in the times Jesus predicted in Luke 21, when men's hearts are "failing them for rear," and we forget that God knows the effect of the cancerous fear in our society. I think in our minute' thinking, we think God does not have a clue what's taking place around us.



 



In Matthew 6:31 and 32, Jesus told us not to worry about having food to eat and something to drink and clothes. He said:



"Your heavenly Father knoweth that ye have need of all these things"


 



We may not say it, but likely we think it: "Well, if you knoweth that I have need of all these things, why don't you giveth me these things that I need?"



 



There is a reason. He knows these things, and if you will only hold on for now, I'll explain why. But first let's finish the point.. God knew the situation was coming up. He's not so far from you that He doesn't know what is going on with you. "Well, preacher, if He's not that far from me, why doesn't He do something?"



 



Be patient and read on:



 



"Are not two sparrows sold for a farthing? And one of them shall not fall on the ground without your Father. But the very hairs of your head are all numbered. Fear ye not therefore, ye are of more value than many sparrows" (Matthew 10:29-31).



 



Underline the phrase, "fear ye not, therefore." Look at the word "therefore." What is it "there for?" God knows the number of hairs on your head. How will the fact that God knows the number of hairs on my head help me no to fear? What is Jesus really telling us here?



 



He was saying that if you develop a relationship with God, to the point of fully realizing their loving Father's infinite awareness of them, they would no longer fear.



 



Why?



 



Because they would then realize how aware of them God is.



 



God is saying, "I am so aware of you, I know the number of hairs on your head." Zero is a number, so if you don't have any, God knows it! Basically He is saying, "I have always, and I am still, and I always will be infinitely aware of you!"



 



We need to do something. You have a choice to make "to do or not to do." You don't even have to choose. If you don't deliberately choose life and blessing, you get death and cursing by default.

 

"Therefore choose life, that both thou and thy seed may live"Deuteronomy 30:19).


 



God wants you to choose life. He won't force you to. But if you don't, you are automatically choosing death. The "default setting," if you will, in the law of sin and death. If you don't choose blessing and then get in the word and find out what it says about receiving the blessings and benefits of salvation, don't blame God if the curse manifests itself in your life.



 



We established that we are "handcuffed" to God. Why? Because He is with us everywhere no matter what trouble we find ourselves in.



 



"Let your conversation be without covetousness; and be content with such things as ye have: for he hath said, I will never leave thee, nor forsake thee. So that we may boldly say, the Lord is my helper, and I will not fear what man shall do unto me" (Hebrews 13:5, 6).



 



Notice this Scripture says that God said one thing, so we can say another thing. He said, "I will never leave thee nor forsake thee" so we can say, "The Lord is my helper, and I will not fear what man shall do unto me."



 



How can I be sure? Because I have developed a loving relationship with my heavenly Father. Like Moses, we are not afraid even in fearful situations because "by faith I endure as seeing Him who is invisible" (Hebrews 11:27).



 



The second benefit of developing the fruit of love towards the Father is that it enables a person to conquer all things. When we get our priority of love with the Father that enables us to conquer all things.



 



1st Corinthians 13:8 says, "Love never fails." Now, why will love never fail? What is it about love that is so powerful?



 



1st John 4:7, 8 answers that: "Everyone that loveth is born of God, and knoweth God. He that loveth not knoweth not God: for God is love."



 



We would be correct in saying God never fails, because God is love. If you will begin to operate in love, you will begin to duplicate God. When you duplicate God, the devil won't be able to tell the difference between Him and you. When you are laying hands on the sick, you duplicate God. When you're speaking in tongues, you're duplicating God.



 



When you put on love and begin operating in love right in the midst of temptation not to do so, then you are God's identical twin. When you are imitating God by putting on love, somebody will look at you and say, there is something different about you, you are a real Christian!



 



That's what we have failed to remember in our walk as Christians. We have failed to remember that all our revelation knowledge, all our gifts of the Spirit, all our speaking in tongues and understanding of prayer mean absolutely nothing if we are not clothed in love!

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