We are living in the age of the reformation of apostolic ministry. We love the miraculous. We love prophecy. We love healing. We love the manifestations of Holy Spirit, and we want to operate in love. But what exactly does it mean to love? I keep thinking about how love is the highest form of prophetic ministry.
The most powerful encounters I've ever had with another person have come from the deep love I feel for them. It is a love that overtakes me. It is not a love of my own. I cannot love this way on my own. I don't know how to. My flesh does not know how to. I don't know how to love people when I cannot understand them. I don't know how to love people when I disagree with them. I don't know how to love people when they fail me, when they betray me, when I feel offended, hurt or persecuted by them. I don't know how to love.
It requires a supernatural presence in my life for me to love them and to love them well. Loving well is not the same as tolerating someone. Loving well requires for me to be concerned for their lives. Loving well requires for me to be able to weep for them, and hurt where they hurt and mourn when they are mourning. Loving well is the most supernatural thing we will ever do.
The same words keep ringing in my ear throughout the week: My disposition is to love not to do. I spend all day doing things. I work. I look for things to do. I look for projects to engage in. I look for tasks to finish. I look for emails to write, messages to respond, places to go and responsibilities to attend. I look, and I search, and I am restless, and I get caught up so much in what I have to do that I forget to love. I forget about those around me. I don't want to be inconvenienced. I don't want my schedule to be disrupted. I do, and I do, and I do some more, and then I wonder why there were not more people that I was able to pray for, connect with, preach the gospel to and to share life with.
A few weeks ago I said to God I was very tired. I told Him it was very tiring to do ministry always, no matter where I went. He said it was very tiring because now I do not belong to a particular church anymore, but I belong to everybody. I belong to everybody. I belong to everybody. Then why do I act like my life is my own? I serve a humble King who gave His life for everybody. I serve a humble King who lived in complete surrender to His Father and gave His body away for the love of every person in the world. Why am I keep things just for me? I, also, belong everybody.
I belong to every single person I encounter. I want to love every person with the highest sense of love. That is the true miraculous: The most miraculous thing I could ever do is love like Jesus. The most miraculous thing I could ever do is love like Jesus. The most miraculous thing I could ever do is love like Jesus. So why do we act like the most miraculous thing we could ever do is heal the sick? Why do we act like the most miraculous thing we could ever do is lead someone to faith? Why do we act like the most miraculous thing we could ever do is pray and see manifestations from heaven?
Love lives in heaven. The Love that gave all of it away lives in heaven. The highest form of the miraculous is love.
I ask you to ask yourselves the same questions I have asked myself this week: Can I love with all me those I disagree with, those who persecute me, those who hurt me, those who betray me, those who abandon me? Can I love miraculously? Can I love out of the love of the Father and not out of my own?
See, I could only truly love out of the true love Who loves me. I could only impart that which I am receiving continuously. When I change my disposition to do instead of to love, I have abandoned my position as a daughter. My position as a daughter is always to be loved, and if I am loved unlimitedly then I have to love others unlimitedly as well. I have to pour out of that unlimited well of love.
Love is the most supernatural thing we'll ever see. I learned this week the power of love when there was an opportunity for me to be hurt and angry over a small situation, and the Spirit of the living God spoke to me:
Love is patient and kind; love does not envy or boast; it is not arrogant or rude. It does not insist on its own way; it is not irritable or resentful; it does not rejoice at wrongdoing, but rejoices with the truth. Love bears all things, believes all things, hopes all things, endures all things. 1 Corinthians 13: 4-7
And all I could feel as I heard and read those words was this supernatural love coming over me and overtaking me. It was the supernatural love of God. I transitioned into loving more than I ever had. And then I realized this is where I am supposed to live. We are called to live out of the unlimited love of God. That is how we love God back. That is how we follow His commandments. That is how we are able to lay our lives down for others.
I heard Heidi Baker preach for the first time last night and it was a confirmation of what the Lord has been doing in me throughout this week. I want to be a layed down lover. I want to go real low because I serve a King who went to the lowest for the sake of love.
Am I willing to go to the lowest for the sake of love? Am I willing to bear all things, believe all things, hope all things? I'm willing to do it as Daughter. I'm willing to do it for the sake of love.
Are you?
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