Healthy Living

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Love Never Fails

Nov 10, 2002
By Rick L King

Love. What is it and where does it come from? The Bible says that God is love. Sometimes what we call love is our love and not God’s. There is really a difference. Let’s look at God’s love verses our love.

The Bible is full of the word love. I want to show a few scriptures and see what they mean. Jesus said that when we know the truth, the truth would set us free. This is not my truth, but it is the truth from God’s word.

1 Corinthians 13:
4 Charity suffereth long, and is kind; charity envieth not; charity vaunteth not itself, is not puffed up,
5 Doth not behave itself unseemly, seeketh not her own, is not easily provoked, thinketh no evil;
6 Rejoiceth not in iniquity, but rejoiceth in the truth;
7 Beareth all things, believeth all things, hopeth all things, endureth all things.
8 Charity never faileth: but whether there be prophecies, they shall fail; whether there be tongues, they shall cease; whether there be knowledge, it shall vanish away. (KJV)

The word charity defined is love. This is God’s love. God’s love will produce what it says in the scriptures above. Our love can’t accomplish this. The major reason is that our love is selfish usually. God’s love is not selfish. God's love lays down His life for us. Our love cannot do that. We can’t lay down our life for someone else with our love alone. Our love does not go that deep. When we can lay down our life for someone else, then we know that it is Gods love in us. Laying down your life does not mean just that you would die for someone else. It also means that you would live without to make them happy. You would esteem them more important than yourself. Their needs being met are more important to you than your own needs. Why are we told that to be the greatest that we must be a servant to all first? The answer is that being a servant to all is love. God builds our lives and ministry on love. When we can be a servant to others more than a servant to self, we have gained some major ground in Jesus. We are becoming like Him.

A Testimony

When I met Jesus it was because of one thing, love. The people that had led me to the Lord had only once tried to share with me about Jesus. I did not respond to their words, in fact I became defensive because I was full of pride. They visited me often after that and never tried to hit me over the head with the Word again. They just accepted me where I was and loved me. I watched this married couple which to my natural eye should not have been in love. They didn’t seem right for each other. Yet, they would walk down the street after twenty-five years of marriage holding hands. They would be like two school kids on a date driving the car as no matter who was driving the other would sit right beside the other. How could this be? How could they love each other this way? Even though at the time I was married, I didn’t have that kind of love and I knew it. When the time came for me to meet Jesus I was drawn to them. I was getting ready to commit suicide and found myself going to see this married couple I guess as a last resort. I received Jesus as Savior.

The point of this testimony is to show one thing. They did not win me to Christ because they preached to me, or used the gifts of the spirit, they won me by being an example of Love. I felt loved. Whether I agreed with what they said or did really didn’t matter. There was something different about them. The love of Jesus came through them for me. The one thing that I had never known but wanted was love. I knew a form of love from a fleshly selfish perspective, yet I didn’t know the real God kind of love. The word says that God is love. Real love was God. I wanted God, the God that loved me no matter how evil and rotten I was. That love drew me to God.

Often times we do the works of God by giving and preaching etc., yet people do not feel God’s love through us. Love never fails. If the love of God is in our hearts for someone then we will never condemn or judge them. We are willing to lay down our lives for them (see 1 John 3). Their life becomes more important than our own. Over the years of walking with the Lord, I have experienced many lessons. I have learned about the gifts of the spirit and how wonderful that they are. I have learned the joy of giving to others material things and money. Yet, it seems that God has taken me full circle. I am learning that what everyone really needs, is to be loved by God. They need to know inside that they are loved unconditionally. If the gifts are used with Gods’ love as a basis, look at how powerful that they will become. The gifts help us to minister to someone that is drawn to us because they feel loved. They are not so much drawn to the gifts of the spirit they are drawn to the spirit. God is a spirit.

I have many people that seem to be drawn to me. I have often questioned why this happens. I have rarely been in a position to help them with their physical needs. I just give to them what I have. I have come to understand that the love of God pours through me for them. I will and will give up everything for them. I never condemn them. I find myself being a servant to them. I didn’t do this in me, it only came by me going through many struggles and battles of dying to me. Oh, I have a long ways to go in areas, yet it seems that God has been able to change me in some that His love can now come out of me for some other people. I thank and praise Him for His patience with me. He doesn’t seem to ever give up on me and because of that I am privileged to experience His love through me for people that He brings into my life.

The scripture in Mathew 7:23 that talks about though these people prophesied in Jesus Name, cast out demons, and did many works, Jesus said that He never knew them. Did you ever wonder why that He said that? The one thing that was missing was love, God’s love flowing through them. It is easy in self to do the works, yet it takes time and dying to self to have the love of God come through you. Since God is love unless we have God’s love pouring through us, then it makes sense why He said that He never knew us. We had not become one with Him. We had not learned to dwell in Him. We were not intimate with Him. Intimacy with Jesus will produce His love in your heart for others. What you may have done out of Christian duty before (works) you will now do out of His love. There is a major difference. If we could but learn to spend more time with Jesus and less time with self and what self wants, we would find a new love flowing through us for others. As we spend time with someone we become more like them. This love draws people to you. We all desire the same thing. We all want God. We all want to be loved by Him. The substitutes seem to no longer work for people. There is a hunger in many hearts for real love.

I firmly believe that when we as the church learn to love as Jesus did, then we will see churches packed with the people that are starving for Gods love. We will see God’s glory in the Church. We will see the gifts of the spirit in operation as never before. We will see lives changed before our eyes. We will be helping others with all of their needs and accepting them right where they are. They will not feel condemned or judged as all they will feel is loved. We will be using all of the resources that God has given to us for others instead of on ourselves. They will come to church to be in God’s presence, not ours. This is the true God. This is love. This love will never fail.

I think of the old hymn that we use to sing. Just as I am without one plea, His blood was shed for thee. Maybe we need to just start loving people just as they are and allow the Blood to do the work instead of us.





Copyright © 2007
By: Rick L. King
No portion of this may be reproduced or used without written permission from the author.
Please contact me at [email protected] if you have a need for this writing. Thank You.

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