unconditional love.
There will be a series of blog posts that will be released in the next span of weeks and possibly months coming up that have been inspired by the revelation the Lord has given in the place of seeking Him. God has been pressing on me the need to share what he has given me, emphasizing one of the main reasons why he gave me this blog to steward. God is faithful, even when we’re not, and I thank Him for his grace. I just pray that we all be good stewards of what he gives us. No matter how hard life may appear in certain seasons, Jesus has already overcome all trials and tribulations, so let us not allow temporary challenges to hinder us from pressing forward in our call; it is all part of the story.
John 16:33 (KJV) states: "These things I have spoken unto you, that in me ye might have peace. In the world ye shall have tribulation: but be of good cheer; I have overcome the world."
God's love exceeds everything; it even covers a multitude of sins and saves us from going to hell by giving us salvation through Jesus Christ (John 3:16).
Many times within the Christian community (or depending on what part of Christianity you may be familiar with), we hear sayings like “the school of the spirit”, a process in getting trained to have deep intimacy with the Holy Spirit, which is a good thing and something that all Christians should pursue. However, the school of the spirit or any other thing relating to our Christian walk will be nothing or close to nothing if we don’t understand the importance of allowing God to take us through the school of His Love. Yes, you read correctly, we need to receive a course from the Lord to teach us what love is and to train us to be carriers of his love.
Everyone on this earth needs to know what love actually is through the Creator, who is the origin of love, because God is love (1 John 4:8). Identity struggles are an ongoing battle that can only be subdued by coming into agreement with the full truth that God loves you. That’s when the battle stops, that’s why the mental torment stops, that’s when the anxiety vanishes, that's when the striving, the performance, the heaviness, the anger all stop, which is where the love of Jesus Christ starts and never stops. The Lord had to deal with me personally on this, and as I have been walking it out with him, I am receiving more clarity on breaking free from it. You see if the Devil can get us to come into agreement with his lies concerning us, he can take us out of alignment by no longer believing what God says about us, which is the truth and if we are no longer walking in the truth, our true identity is being hidden under a blanket of lies that causes us to shy away from the same things our identity can actually handle. Yes, you can handle speaking in front of people, yes, you can handle creating content, yes, you can handle going to school to pursue that degree, yes, you can handle building a kingdom business, yes, you can handle being a good wife and mother- you can handle it because you were created for it! ,
Knowing the love of God first starts with understanding how God truly loves us. God’s love is an actual power that holds authority. How do we know this? Because God himself is love, and he is sovereign with the highest form of authority.
In Corinthians 13, we are presented with the definition of love. Many times when we refer to this scripture, we just think that this scripture is a requirement for us, as believers, to follow, which is true; we tend to miss the other side of it, that this indeed is a reflection of God himself fulfilling the definition of love. There was a song I was listening to that said: “Your love is kind, your love is patient.” In Corinthians 13 it reads “Love suffers long (is patient) and is kind; love does not envy; love does not parade itself, is not puffed up (it is not prideful); 5 does not behave rudely, does not seek its own (it is not selfish), is not provoked (it is not easily angered nor offended), thinks no evil (does think disastrous thoughts or thoughts of harm); 6 does not rejoice in iniquity, but rejoices in the truth; 7 bears all things, believes all things, hopes all things, endures all things.
8 Love never fails. But whether there are prophecies, they will fail; whether there are tongues, they will cease; whether there is knowledge, it will vanish away.
Now, let’s reread this same passage with the identity of God inserted into it.
“God suffers long (is patient) and is kind;
God does not envy (He is the creator of everything and owns everything; he gives things to whoever he desires to give them. He is the very presence that satisfies all human desires once someone is truly surrendered to Him. He has no equal, he has no rival, so he does not need to be envious.
Love does not parade itself, is not puffed up (it is not prideful. Jesus Christ, the exalted one, the son of God, who is God, humbled himself when he did not have to by dwelling with sinners on earth to restore humanity to God the Father through salvation. Pride can't dwell in a perfect God who practiced humility, especially because he personally did not need salvation);
5 does not behave rudely, does not seek its own (it is not selfish and does not manipulate others into getting something out of them. God is not a God of control but of sovereignty and relationship. He is a gentleman, he does not control us to do what he desires from us)
Is not provoked (God is very slow to get angry and very compassionate), thinks no evil (has no plan to bring us destruction but instead plans for us to have a future and a hope. Jesus Christ came and destroyed the power of the grave and death so that we could live spiritually and freely in life); 6 does not rejoice in iniquity, but rejoices in the truth (love enjoys seeing justice prevail in the land); 7 bears all things, believes all things, hopes all things, endures all things (love is unconditional. There is not one condition that exist where love can it prevail through it).
8 God never fails. But whether there are prophecies, they will fail; whether there are tongues, they will cease; whether there is knowledge, it will vanish away.
Our love must be unconditional. Prophecy is not love, speaking in tongues is not love, preaching is not love, giving gifts is not love, but it’s the intention behind it that determines whether it is or not. Prophecy will fail not because it will be unsuccessful but because there will be a day when it’s fulfilled and we won’t need it anymore. Tongues will cease because eternity in heaven won’t require them anymore, since we will be completely present with our Savior, Jesus. This is what determines whether God wants to manifest his glory in a way that He can trust a person to be a vessel for it. Gifts, whether spiritual or emotional, are not love; they can come from a place of love, though. When this is done correctly, the person receiving the love can actually have the sight to see that the Lord is ministering his love through that vessel.
This is one of the reasons why the Lord allows us to endure suffering when we still have to love those who hurt us and love those who do not reciprocate it back because love is unconditional, and it's a mirror of how Jesus loves us. To understand love, be loved, and love others, you must rest in God’s love for you.
Love is the only way you can show grace
Love is the only way you can show mercy
And with grace, you can show patience and kindness
And with mercy, we keep no records of wrongs
For example, Someone being thoughtful and giving someone they love ice cream because they know that it will bring that person pleasure without seeking to get anything in return, but just to see that person receive happiness from it because they genuinely love that person. This is the behavior that the Lord acts towards us, without us even asking for it, nor are we deserving of it at times. Love is unconditional; it endures all things. God’s love is unconditional, no matter what we have done or what we may do, he will never stop loving us. He may be displeased with certain actions, but that does not change His love for us, His desires for us to have the best and be the best. This helps us understand that when we fall short, repentance is not self-punishment; it is not doing a bunch of tasks that appear to be righteous actions or a “special” act to compensate for what we did so that God could love us again. Instead, it is His grace that covers us and washes us by the blood of Jesus. We get this idea of performance-reward from the experiences we have had with people who taught us that this is the only way to be loved and accepted because of those who rejected them, and that is not true. We get this from prior experiences where we would manipulate people to get what we want and translated that into the kingdom, but this time doing it to God, because their was a realization in the flesh that manipulation sometimes receives cooperation from the person being manipulated, but the difference is that God knows who he is; he can not be manipulated, he is Holy.
You can have all the knowledge in the world; you can be a very intellectual person; you can receive great revelation from the Holy Spirit, but without love, all those works come to nothing. All our works are but filthy rags, especially when compared to what the Lord has done for us (Isaiah 64:6). God is love, and his intentions are always from a place of love, so if you are doing works of God but not from the Love of God, how then can you properly communicate the matters of God’s heart? The answer is you can’t.
This is a very dangerous position to be in because that means you're ministering about a God you don’t know on a relational level, possibly without the realization that, in some way, you drifted from him. Instead, you are living an employer-employee type of relationship, and truth be told, most employees rarely see the CEO that they claim to work for. However, in the kingdom of God, it is different. He is the Father, He is Lord, meant to be loved intimately and revered greatly in our hearts and our worship by the life we choose to live. This is why the loveless church in the book of Revelation, chapter 2 verses 2, 3, and 5, received a warning and instruction from the Lord Jesus Christ, simple but chillingly stating, “ I know thy works, and thy labour, and thy patience, and how thou canst not bear them which are evil: and thou hast tried them which say they are apostles, and are not, and hast found them liars: And hast borne, and hast patience, and for my name's sake hast laboured, and hast not fainted. Nevertheless, I have somewhat against thee, because thou hast left thy first love. Remember therefore from whence thou art fallen, and repent, and do the first works; or else I will come unto thee quickly, and will remove thy candlestick out of his place, except thou repent.
Now Jesus acknowledged their works. He saw that they didn’t tolerate what he hated; however, those things did not justify the fact that they no longer had a relationship with their first love.
Many times in the modern-day church when we read scripture we tend to point the finger at what others are doing wrong in the body of Christ, but the bible is a mirror to help us live a lifestyle according to the model of the life of Jesus Christ, to help remove the speck in our eye, so that we can have good eyesight to help our brothers and sisters in Christ see well.
I think of how a beautiful revival has started in the earth with so many people burning on fire for the Lord, but also see how some of that zeal has turned into legalism, putting chains on people instead of freeing them because of forsaking half of the truth, which is preaching it with the Love of God and not the self-righteousness of flesh. I think about the busy works and titles we try to uphold in the name of being a good Christian, but not a Surrendered Christian, which has left us distracted from our first love because we put things above him; the things like:
The busy mom who is drowning in the tasks for the day, instead of sacrificing some time to get rest in the presence of God.
The YouTuber who makes commentary videos for a living and doesn’t realize that he has been nitpicking at everything that goes wrong in the world loses focus of the mission, which is to preach the gospel of Jesus Christ to those who don’t know him, not create content that degrades them.
To the leaders, ministers, and politicians who are praised for being so busy but have become strangers to their own children, present for others but absent to the ones who are called to carry the legacy of their bloodline, creating distance and trauma in them because they choose the lie that being busy is productive when time spent with family bears fruit.
To Gen-Z and millennials who doom scroll on social media, having their lives be wasted away through distractions and laziness, not realizing that they are the current innovators of the world, and they carry the intelligence and the creativity that society reflects, but these God-given privileges are rotting away the more we sit and do nothing productive with the talents that God gives us.
The one who has made trauma a home and has not taken a chance on God for him to show them his healing power through the blood of Jesus, to show them that their experiences do not define them, but instead the prophecy that God has spoken over them before they were born is.
To the college student who rushes their time with the Lord to get the work done, or to get to school, but does not allow heaven to fill them up before they go out, so that God can use them to be a vessel as light to those in darkness on campus.
Just because these examples were not filled with murderers, abusers, crooked people, does not make us any better nor any closer to Jesus than his blood can make us. WE ALL need the salvation of the Lord Jesus Christ. We all need the blood of Jesus. WE all need Jesus equally, both pastor and prostitute, drug dealer and evangelist, mother and pornography watcher- we all need the one name Yeshua. We need to have him as our first love.
This message is even convicting me. This was a revelation that the Lord gave me during my quiet time a few weeks ago, and as I’ve been writing, the Holy Spirit has been pouring out more. I think about how “busy” and distracted I’ve been not to execute some of the things he told me to, yet he remains so good and so faithful, he still provides, he still comforts, he is still there, he is still here, even when I’m not giving him my all in the relationship. This is the mercy of God’s unfailing love. Thank you so much, Jesus. He is more than enough.
(Song currently playing - Worthy of my praise by Dunsin Oyekan ft. Lawrence Oyor, I recommend listening to it)
God is love. Not only does he love us, but he is love.
What does self-love look like as a Christian?
Putting God first and then immediately yourself right after, that way you’ll be able to love others as yourself. Matthew 22:37-39, “Jesus said unto him, 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 thy neighbour as thyself.
The definition of love is not just for us to exude as Christians, but it’s how God shows his unconditional love to us.
Also, If you would like to accept the love of God and His son, Jesus Christ as Lord and Savior, or even if you have backslidden and want to return to the Lord, here’s a prayer to guide you.
“ God almighty, I come before you to accept your love, to no longer reject you and what you have done for me. I choose to stop running from you and to finally stop rejecting myself of your love. Thank you for dying for me Lord Jesus, thank you for taking on my sins and shame. Thank you Lord that you became a curse for me so that I would no longer be bound by them but set free by your blood that was shed for me. Thank You for making yourself available to me, as friend, father, Lord, God, helper, comforter, savior, and all the good things I need in my life. Jesus I love you and ask you to help me keep loving you like how you want me to. I accept you completely as my Lord and savior, not what this world and demons have presented to me. Now I declare in the both spiritual and physical realm, that I not longer belong to Satan nor his Kingdom but according to Colossians 1:13, God has delivered me from the kingdom of darkness and has placed me in the Kingdom of light, where Jesus Christ is, I declare I belong to Jesus Christ and I now seat with Him In heavenly places. I rebuke all demonic retaliation in me making this decision and come into agreement with a sound mind in Jesus’ name. I repent, renounce, denounce, and divorce myself from all the sins I’ve committed (list what you can remember) and break the evil covenants associated with them, and I declare once again I am a part of the kingdom of Jesus Christ. In Jesus’ name I pray and seal this prayer in His blood, Amen.”
Hallelujah! Congratulations if you made this decision. I pray that you prevail in your walk in the Lord, that forces of darkness continue to fail concerning you, and that the forces of light continue to persevere and propel you in the name of Jesus.
And if you have not yet, get yourself a Bible. Please, it’s a lot of ghetto foolishness concerning Christianity and religion. The Bible is the only way to protect you from it and will show you how to be a Christian and have a real relationship with Jesus Christ.
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