Tag Archives: Agape

The Greatness of Drawing Close to Christ

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John, the disciple of Christ who penned Scripture, experienced the glory of knowing God. Like King David, he drank deeply of the love of God. In Psalm 73:23-24 and verse 28 David wrote of his relationship with the Lord, “You love me! You are holding my right hand! You will keep on guiding me all my life with Your wisdom and counsel . . . . But as for me, I get as close to Him as I can!”[1] John, too, came close and drank deeply. 

There is a song with a line in it that says, “God of glory, Lord of love, Hearts unfold like flowers before You, opening to the sun above.”[2] And an unfolded heart wide open to God and His higher ways—a heart no longer crippled because it is severed from its Divine Source of perfect love—is a heart on a journey to glory and greatness because it is being restored by its Maker to His intended design. John had such a heart. In fact, so much did he draw close to Christ that he became the picture of what happens when a man enters into the closest possible places of the Lord’s heart and mind. Jesus was the lover of John’s soul as he transformed the darkness of the state of selfish ambition into the light of the state of surrendered sonship in the image of the Pattern Son. And John wrote of the mystical union we are called to find in and with the Godhead—Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. John dared to lean upon Jesus to experience His heart and know His secrets. The Father through Jesus shared with John the very secrets of agape love—the love that God is in His being and ever exudes. Finally, God called John to write of the union of God with redeemed men and women in eternal marriage in the heavenly Jerusalem in time to come. There the curse from the fall in Eden will be no more and men will so know the intense love of God for them that they will fulfill the command to “Love the Lord your God with every passion of your heart, with all the energy of your being, and with every thought that is in you.”[3] And the second, “Love your neighbor as much as you love yourself.”[4] They will willingly serve Him as bondslaves—love slaves.

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The Doctor of Love Degree in YHVH’s “Love School”

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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.

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Love Profits

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“I am bankrupt without love,” The Message translation states in 1 Corinthians 13. “If I do not have love, I gain nothing,” the ESV says. But what will love profit me if I obey God’s directive to “follow after charity” (KJV) or “eagerly pursue and seek to acquire [this] love [make it (my) aim, (my) great quest]?” (AMPC)

Today I inquired of THE textbook on love, the Holy Bible, seeking increase to my life in God in the way of walking out agape love, the fruit that comes from remaining vitally united to the Vine, the Lord. As I have been drawing closer to Yeshua’s heart, I am ever experiencing a deeper connection to Him and revelatory insights into Holy Writ.

Let me share some verses on love in Matthew 5 from the JB Phillips translation. First, though, let’s read from 1 Corinthians 13:1-3:

If I speak with the eloquence of men and of angels, but have no love, I become no more than blaring brass or crashing cymbal. If I have the gift of foretelling the future and hold in my mind not only all human knowledge but the very secrets of God, and if I also have that absolute faith which can move mountains, but have no love, I amount to nothing at all. If I dispose of all that I possess, yes, even if I give my own body to be burned, but have no love, I achieve precisely nothing. 

Clearly, allowing God’s agape love to flow from within our hearts out to others is of paramount importance to God. Clearly, love is the sine qua non for us.

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