fervency | KOINONIA ART

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The supreme revelation of God was unveiled to us in 1 John 4:8:
“…. God is love”.

Unfortunately, the word, ‘Love’ is a word which has been wrongly defined, misused and misinterpreted by people.

Love, to the fallen man, is a feeling – a good feeling one has for another. This mediocre definition is a contributing factor to the numerous divorces found in American homes.

But for the Saint, love is not a mere feeling; neither is it an idea. For the Saint, Love is a nature, heart and life of benevolence, charity and kindness to humanity.

Adamic love is conditional. But Agape love – the love we are commanded to show to man – is unconditional.

Are you living this life of Love?

When your heart is lain bare before several eyes, what will be seen? Will it be a heart clothed with divine love, or a heart hardened with hate?

The Love of Christ was what made Him to leave the pleasures of Heaven to partake in man’s humanity, for our liberation.

Romans 5:8: “But God showed his great love for us by sending Christ to die for us while we were still sinners.” {NLT}

God expressed His love for us through the sacrifice of His beloved Son.

By that act, God created a precedent, a standard and an ordinance, to govern Christian living.

It is no secret that this is a tough season for nations around the world.

Even the world’s global power, USA, is experiencing a steady decline in its national economic strength.

Millions around the world are dying daily. Hope is fading away, like the setting of the sun.

Music therapy is no longer working. Motivational speeches are no longer antidepressants. Who shall the world turn to?

Jesus answered this question when He said, ‘We are the light of the world’.
The Church is God’s light meant to illuminate the darkened hearts and hopeless lives of people.

We do this by showing and expressing the Love of Christ to them.

This Love must be lived, not just in the Church, but even outside the Church. It must be felt by our neighbours and friends.

A religious scholar once posed this question to Jesus:

“Teacher, which commandment in the law is the greatest?”

Jesus answered him, “‘Love the Lord your God with every passion of your heart, with all the energy of your being, and with every thought that is within you.’ {TPT}

“This is the great and supreme commandment. And the second is like it in importance: ‘You must love your friend in the same way you love yourself.’ Contained within these commandments to love you will find all the meaning of the Law and the Prophets.” Matthew 23:36-40 {TPT}

The greatest commandment that Christ gave the church is to love God and to love humanity.

Some believers are full of so much hate that they actually desire the eternal destruction of those who hate them; whereas, God’s Word tells us that He does not want anyone to perish.

“Now, this is the goal: to live in harmony with one another and demonstrate affectionate love, sympathy, and kindness toward other believers. Let humility describe who you are as you dearly love one another.” 1 Peter 3:8.

The core value of the Church is Love. Every other value and principle is built upon it.

The same way Christ expressed the love of The Father to man, is the same way The Church, must express and exemplify Agape love to humanity.

“Beloved children, our love can’t be an abstract theory we only talk about, but a way of life demonstrated through our loving deeds. We know that the truth lives within us because we demonstrate love in action, which will reassure our hearts in his presence.” 1 John 3:17.

Real love is an action. Real Love is overwhelming; it is a tangible phenomenon.

Love is more of a verb than a noun.

Love is seen by actions and not by mere words. Real love will push you to the undeveloped nations of Africa to provide spiritual, emotional and financial edification to humanity.

It will cause you to give to the poor and needy. When there is true love in one, one’s smile becomes a healing balm to the wounded.

Manifest God’s Love today!

Written by Greenhills Emmanuel Amarayahweh

“My soul followeth hard after thee: thy right hand upholdeth me.” – Ps. 63:8

Come near to the holy men and women of the past and you will soon feel the heat of their desire after God.

They mourned for Him, they prayed and wrestled and sought for Him day and night, in season and out, and when they had found Him the finding was all the sweeter for the long seeking.

Moses used the fact that he knew God as an argument for knowing Him better. “Now, therefore, I pray thee, if I have found grace in thy sight, show me now thy way, that I may know thee, that I may find grace in thy sight”; and from there he rose to make the daring request, “I beseech thee, show me thy glory.”

God was frankly pleased by this display of ardour, and the next day called Moses into the mount, and there in solemn procession made all His glory pass before him.

David’s life was a torrent of spiritual desire, and his psalms ring with the cry of the seeker and the glad shout of the finder.

Paul confessed the mainspring of his life to be his burning desire after Christ. “That I may know Him,” was the goal of his heart, and to this he sacrificed everything.

“Yea doubtless, and I count all things but loss for the excellency of the knowledge of Christ Jesus my Lord: for whom I have suffered the loss of all things, and do count them but refuse, that I may win Christ.”

How tragic that we in this dark day have had our seeking done for us by our teachers.

Everything is made to centre upon the initial act of “accepting” Christ (a term, incidentally, which is not found in the Bible), and we are not expected thereafter to crave any further revelation of God to our souls.

We have been snared in the coils of a spurious logic which insists that if we have found Him we need no more seek Him.

Thus the whole testimony of the worshiping, seeking, singing Church on that subject is crisply set aside.

In the midst of this great chill, there are some I rejoice to acknowledge, who will not be content with shallow logic. They will admit the force of the argument, and then turn away with tears to hunt some lonely place and pray, “O God, show me thy glory.”

They want to taste, to touch with their hearts, to see with their inner eyes the wonder that is God.

I want deliberately to encourage this mighty longing after God. The lack of it has brought us to our present low estate.

The stiff and wooden quality about our religious lives is a result of our lack of holy desire. Complacency is a deadly foe of all spiritual growth.

Acute desire must be present or there will be no manifestation of Christ to His people. He waits to be wanted.

Every age has its own characteristics. Right now we are in an age of religious complexity.

The simplicity which is in Christ is rarely found among us. In its stead are programs, methods, organizations and a world of nervous activities which occupy time and attention but can never satisfy the longing of the heart.

The shallowness of our inner experience, the hollowness of our worship, and that servile imitation of the world which marks our promotional methods all testify that we, in this day, know God only imperfectly, and the peace of God scarcely at all.

If we would find God amid all the religious externals we must first determine to find Him, and then proceed in the way of simplicity.

Now, as always, God reveals Himself to “babes” and hides Himself in thick darkness from the wise and the prudent.

We must simplify our approach to Him. We must strip down to essentials (and they will be found to be blessedly few). We must put away all effort to impress, and come with the guileless candor of childhood.

If we do this, without doubt God will quickly respond.

AW TOZER

KOINONIA ART

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