Certifications and degrees from top schools are prized, especially graduate degrees. In keeping with such attainments, may we welcome our Potter-Father’s diagnostic tests as He tests us to show us where we are in our yieldedness to His Son, our Head who is Love Incarnate. We are in the highest school of all as His offspring, sons and daughters being raised to be just like His Pattern Son. In acknowledgement of Yeshua, I quote: “And he alone is the leader and source of everything needed in the church. God has put everything beneath the authority of Jesus Christ and has given him the highest rank above all others.” (Eph. 1:22 TPT) One day we will face a final assessment re: our fruit production branch to the Vine. (See John 15.) And 1 Corinthians 13:2 gives us a heads up about what our Maker most wants to see in us: “And if I have prophetic powers (the gift of interpreting the divine will and purpose), and understand all the secret truths and mysteries and possess all knowledge, and if I have [sufficient] faith so that I can remove mountains, but have not love (God’s love in me) I am nothing (a useless nobody).” (AMPC) The passage 1 John 4:7-8 concurs: “Those who are loved by God, let His love continually pour from you to one another, because God is love. Everyone who loves is fathered by God and experiences an intimate knowledge of Him. The one who doesn’t love has yet to know God, for God is love.” (TPT)

As we are slated to be Yeshua’s sister-spouse, the Holy Spirit is ever working with us to perfect us in love or get us to the place where we love like He loves i.e. we let Him love THROUGH us unhindered. The bride will be equally yoked to Yeshua as His conjugal in the spirit partner in ministry. 1 John 2:3-5 gives us the Apostle of Love’s admonition: “Here’s how we can be sure that we’ve truly come to know God: if we keep His commands. (f) If someone claims ‘I have come to know God by experience,’ yet doesn’t keep God’s commands, he is a phony and the truth finds no place in him. But the love of God will be perfected within the one who obeys God’s Word. We can be sure that we’ve truly come to live in intimacy with God, not just by saying, ‘I am intimate with God,’ but by walking in the footsteps of Jesus.”

[Note f 2:3 Keeping God’s commands is the proof and evidence of coming to know God, not the means of knowing God.]

[And this doing of the Word IS all by grace. Paul told of superabundant grace given him by Christ as the ability he operated in as he wrote 1 Corinthians 13, our plumbline of maturity.]

We do get an “A” in YHVH’s New Covenant school of love when we function as “little Christ’s.” Thankful we can be to be among the emerging Bride/Son company who believe this 1 John level of likeness with the Godhead is possible. Thank you, Liz Wright, Virginia Killingsworth, and other mentors—disciple-makers unto our full maturity. That there is going to be a like-souled John 17 company in the earth is our good faith position. Jesus did pray in John 17: “Holy Father, guard them as they pursue this life that You conferred as a gift through Me, so they can be one heart and mind as We are one heart and mind.” (MSG) Do hasten to read Loved A 90 day journey into the heart of God by Liz Wright and co-author Gretchen Rodriguez with its keys to full possession by our Great Lover and Lord and Miracles Are Normal —Co-Creating Through Oneness with God by Virginia containing a map to the soul restoration necessary to flow as ONE with the Creator Himself. Both writers point us to overcoming self-imposed limits in the way of much greater change into YHVH’s image.

And also as regards schooling in love, I am very grateful to the Holy Spirit for leading me to a gem of a book from the past: Hannah Hurnard’s Kingdom of Love, first published in 1958. Her secrets to the love walk have great answers for actually realizing the song “They’ll Know We Are Christians by Our Love” and arriving at John 17. As she is a valuable “letter of Christ” from the cloud above and her conversion a helpful story as we reach out to the pre-Christians in our midst, here is the link to her bio: https://www.tentmaker.org/biographies/hannah-hurnard.htm . Hannah had answers for all the divisions out there in the Body. She wrote about what I’ll call the advanced degree level of our Creator’s sanctification work. Hannah penned insights for overcoming the carnal and becoming little versions of “love incarnate” as Yeshua was and is. Kingdom of Love is a required text for a doctorate in love or mastery of the love of all others as we love ourselves.

In Hurnard’s chapter on the enemies of love, she explains the reality that other people can read our thoughts. They do know whether we have been long with the Lord absorbing His mind through the Word and the Spirit. She writes, “Whereas, of course, if one never allows irritated, annoyed, critical or unloving thoughts to remain in the mind a moment, however strongly they may clamor for permission to remain, and if only creative love thinking is the habit of our thought life, nobody will be able to see through us or in us, thoughts that are not there, and our whole outward manner will be transformed.”

This saint goes on, “Of course this does not mean that we shall cease to notice things that are wrong or weak or faulty, or annoying in others, or force ourselves to condone them, or try to justify them as though they did not matter just because they appear in others and not in ourselves. Love is not blind. Indeed, the standard of love is so high that we shall be more conscious than ever before of what comes short of love, and of what may stumble others.”

Note her key of creative love thinking: “The difference, however, will be in our mental reaction to the people who manifest these things. Irritation, anger, and dislike will be cast back the moment they clamor to rush in and the thought reaction of the Holy Spirit of love within us will be concentrated not on the ugly or exasperating or unfortunate blemish, but on the very opposite quality. That is to say we shall treat the ugly fact creatively, just as our Lord did, with love’s creative power, allowing love to USE OUR IMAGINATION TO PICTURE THAT PERSON HEALED AND COMPLETELY DELIVERED from the blemish and radiantly transformed. As, for example, the Lord did when He so plainly saw Peter’s exasperating instability and foolish impetuosity and said, “You will become a ROCK.” [Miracles are Normal by V. Killingsworth, cited above, addresses the right functioning of our cleansed imaginations.]

Indeed, thinking by the prophetic mind of the Spirit IS the way we can love with the affections of Yeshua, or out of union with the inward parts of the Lord Christ within, as Paul was able to do. Paul let Christ BE his life. [See the notes that are so full of light on Philippians and Paul’s walk with Jesus by Witness Lee in Living Stream Ministry’s Recovery Version of the Bible. The Recovery New Testament is available free from biblesforamerica.org . The notes on all of Paul’s letters are excellent in this version, especially Witness Lee’s treatment of Romans 5:12-8:13, the sanctification section.] 

Truly, we can “take every thought captive and make it obey the Messiah” as the Complete Jewish Bible puts 2 Corinthians 10:5. We CAN “cast down imaginations (or projections), and every high thing that exalteth itself against the knowledge of God.” (2 Cor. 10:5 KJV) We can continuously subject our minds to how the Indwelling Lord sees us and others as His “flawless ones” in the finished work if we will draw closer and closer to His heart. (Song of Songs 5:2 TPT) Too, we can ask for prophetic pictures in our spirits. In Romans 5:12-8:13, Witness Lee says to position yourself centered in the enjoyment of the Lord, spirit to Spirit, as essential to embracing the believer’s cross, the instrument of deliverance from the fallen flesh nature, steeped in unlove. Maintaining this place of centeredness in Christ or dwelling with the Lord as we walk among humans with its resulting measure of detachment aids greatly in successfully taking thoughts captive right at the threshold of thought before the negative arrows from the accuser can lodge. Bonding with God and always drawing from God helps us catch things minute by minute and thought by thought such that our reaction patterns are governed by the Spirit and the Word. Triggers can be dealt with in the inner man before we act them out if we are well-connected to Jesus, our Head and Source. Lee says of Paul in the Recovery Bible notes that the Apostle lived with his interior life subject to the cross of Galatians 2:20. 

My mom took thoughts captive at levels beyond anyone I ever witnessed, so I knew from watching her life lived right before me that this could be done with virtually every thought. Admittedly, I have had to be restored to the place of humble serving of other humans to become this yielded. Humility is definitely a prerequisite to getting “A’s” in the love of others. Philippians 2:3-4 we must ingrain: “Doing nothing by way of selfish ambition nor by way of vainglory, but in lowliness of mind considering one another more excellent than yourselves; not regarding each his own virtues, but each the virtues of others also.” (RcV) For me, coming to see that the whole purpose of the Godhead’s rescue mission of the human race by way of the cross is for recovering the ability to function in selfless love, rearranged what I went after as a Christian. So many focus on building ministries or their marketplace conquests or raising accomplished offspring to make their mark. Jesus lived to love and heal. Luke 4:18 gives us His and our true mission statement. YHVH desires the first commandment to be in first place, followed by the second, thus fulfilling all. Only the Spirit can accomplish this as we cooperate and coordinate with Him.

The Amplified Classic states, “Eagerly pursue and seek to acquire [this] love [make it your aim, your great quest]; and earnestly desire and cultivate the spiritual endowments (gifts), especially that you may prophesy (interpret the divine will and purpose in inspired preaching and teaching).” (1 Cor. 14:1 AMPC). The prophetic heart and mind of our Lord enables the manifestation of 1 Corinthians 13 love as Hannah Hurnard found out herself in co-creating with God as she realized the Kingdom of Love in her day. For victory, we can pray this flash prayer time and again as needed, “Lord, give us Your heart for this one and that one.”

More from Hurnard is to come in future posts on what I call the Doctor of Love degree in God’s “Love School,” but I’ll close for now with a favorite revelation from the King James Bible’s “the weapons of our warfare are not carnal” passage, 2 Corinthians 10:4-6. 

Verse 6 here in the KJV reads, “And having in a readiness to revenge all disobedience, when your obedience is fulfilled.” In other words, we get complete revenge on the enemy of our souls when our minds are free and clear and filled with the creative love thinking by way of yielding to the accurate prophetic flow of the Holy Spirit of LOVE as our beings are aligned with the Word of God. Let’s learn and experience “iron sharpens iron” from our mentors who know AGAPE. (Prov. 27:17 KJV) “Thank You, Lord, for Hannah Hurnard and the other “love school” teachers in the Body, starting with the master builder Paul.” “Thank You, Abba, for giving us Your Son, the Lord of Love, to live within us by way of the new birth—Your creative answer to Adam and Eve’s transgression in Eden.” “Thank You, Father, for John 3:16-17 realities and the way of Galatians 2:20—Your way to deliverance from iniquity in the finished work.” 

Postscript

All selfless love is by way of the believer’s cross.

Paul operated as a bondservant to the Body. 

The local church is our lab for applied Christianity. Mine is the Body at Albemarle, NC USA.

A word from the Lord: “Choose mentors/leaders who are gaining mastery by My grace and by the anointing in all four loves.” [See The Four Loves by C. S. Lewis. And note the breakthroughs in relational life being pioneered by Dr. James Wilder. Sites: lifemodelworks.org and http://thrivetoday.org. Wilder is a neurotheologian.]

Rick Joyner noted in his prophetic book, The Final Quest, that those who walked in love, (and I add by way of Romans 6:6 and John 15:5), would know the powers of the age to come. Link to Watchman Nee’s “The Powers of the Age to Come” for your consideration.

Recommended Reading

The post “Formula for Love” about my mom’s love walk on my blog: https://bondslavefreedom.com/2018/10/11/formula-for-love/

Learning to Love by David Alsobrook

I Will Give You Rest How You Can Experience the Peace Jesus Promised by Edward Kurath

Overcoming Life on a Small Planet Heaven Style Living for Earthlings by Ron McGatlin of openheaven.com. Available in pdf: https://www.scribd.com/document/388658452/OvercomingLife-pdf . Especially helpful are Ron’s heart tree diagrams and the chapter that goes with them.

Ebook: The Walk of Love: Walking in the Light as He is in the Light by Katherine Bell. Email me for a copy: katherinefbell@icloud.com. 

The Normal Christian Life by Watchman Nee

The post “Walking in the Spirit in the Church” on my blog: https://bondslavefreedom.com/2015/11/19/walking-in-the-spirit-in-the-church/

The Sons of Oil: God’s Anointed Ministers of True Inner Healing by David A. Huston

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