By: Jim Kaseman
He who does not love does not know God, for God is love.’ (I John 4:8). God is love, love is God, they are one in the same. The word “love” in the English language is spelled l-o-v-e. We will use these letters to put into a nut shell not only what God is doing in these last days but also what we can do to stay hooked up with Him.
L – LISTEN
In Revelation 2:11 we read, “He who has an ear let him hear what the Spirit says to the churches.” He who has an ear let him hear – listen. Now one thing about spiritual growth, it is an ongoing process. You never arrive. That is one exciting thing about being a Christian – there is no limit to where you and I can go with God. In order to keep moving with God, we must be continually listening to what the Spirit is saying to the church, keeping our spiritual ears open.
Some people have heard what the Spirit is saying but they are not teachable. In other words, they are not open to change. For example, if they are born again but they have never been filled with the Spirit and speaking with tongues, they may refuse to change because if they do, they are fearful that their friends or relatives will turn against them. They become unteachable – basically because of fear. And fear controlled people are selfish people.
We have got to hear what the Spirit is saying. What is He saying in this hour? There is another move of God under way now. It’s not just in full gospel circles. I’ve run into people Baptist, Lutheran, Methodist who are talking the same way we are talking. it seems like the Holy Ghost is just moving and giving everyone an opportunity to get in. One of the common phrases being used for this move of God has been “love and unity.”
When God talks about love and unity today he is emphasizing walking in love. I John 5:3 is a good definition of the God kind of love and that is, “This is the love of God that we keep His commandments,” in other words, do His Word. You see, doing the Word is what the love walk is. When we perfect our love walk, our faith will begin to operate at a level that will absolutely be beyond our wildest imagination! That is the key We must remember in this move of God-we walk in love towards people but at the same time, in hatred towards Satan, sin and darkness. Everyone who comes in the name of love and unity is not from God. We are going to have to mature enough to discern which is from God and which is the devil and stop letting our emotions control us. Love and unity is what the Holy Spirit is emphasizing and what the devil is
counterfeiting, so be wise.
0 – OTHERS MINDED
In John 13:34 and 35 we read, “A new commandment I give to you that you love one another as I have loved you, that you also love one another By this all will know that you are my disciples if you have love for one another’ Others minded. Philippians 2:3 says, “We esteem others better than ourselves.” So one sign that we are growing up, maturing, walking in love is that we are more concerned about meeting the needs of others than our selves.
When I got a hold of the faith message, the first thing I believed for was money so I could feed my family But you know, I didn’t have to be condemned about it because I was a baby. As I confess the Word and
meditate on it, it caused me to grow spiritually and I learned how to believe God for answers to prayer.
It is exciting to see what is happening to the Word people today Everywhere I go I am running into people selling their material things, realizing that they don’t need all of it. They are saying, “We’ve got to believe God for money to get the gospel to the whole world.” They have matured, and the faith they have in God, which is strong, they are using to help meet the needs of others. it is a growing process! God knew that. He knew He had to come along with the faith message first before He could bring the love message. We had to have the Word in us. We had to have some maturity God knows what He is doing!
This reminds me of a story I read that graphically illustrates the difference between selfishness and putting others first. It goes like this:
A man had just arrived in heaven, told Peter how grateful he was to be in such a glorious place and asked Peter to give him one glimpse into Hades in order that he might appreciate his good fortune even more This Peter did.
In Hades he saw a long table extending as far as the eye could reach, laden down with the most delicious of all varieties of foods. But everyone around the table was starving to death. When asked for an explanation, Peter said, “Everyone is required to take food from the table only with six foot long forks. They are so long that no one can reach the food from the table to his mouth, and therefore each one is dying of starvation.”
Quickly they returned to heaven, and behold, the new arrival saw an identical table, laden down with identical, foods, but everyone around the table was happy and well fed. Then he said Lo Peter, “With what do they take food from the table?” And Peter said, “Only with six foot long forks.” At that the new arrival inquired, “Then why are all those in Hades starving to death while all those up here are so well fed and
happy?” Where upon Peter replied, “In heaven we feed each other.”
Glory! As I read this story I thought to myself, selfishness is really hell. In this story it never occurred to one person that was starving to death that, “Hey, we could help each other!” So, God’s way, the love
way is to help each other-put others before ourselves.
V – VERBALIZE
“In the beginning was the Word and the Word was with God and the Word was God.” “And the Word became flesh and dwelt among us.” (John 1: 1, 14) Now you know that Jesus is the Word, the living Word. Words play a very important part in the Christian walk, we understand that from the faith teaching.
We cannot have strong marriages or relationships with each other in the church without speaking words to each other, faith-filled, godly, life-filled words. We cannot have a strong love relationship with God unless we are in communion with Him. In other words, sharing our inner most thoughts and emotions. We must be transparent totally honest with God in order to have a close walk with Him. (Luke 8: 15)
There are five levels of communication that may help you to understand this.
The lowest level, level five, is cliches. “How are you doing?” “Great, praise the Lord.” “Hallelujah, glory to God.” They really don’t say a lot, do they?
Level four is reporting the facts about people, places and things. In most cases, it is described in one word-gossip.
In the third level we are finally getting to the person. He begins to share his opinions, his ideas and his judgments. On the other hand, he is still going to say what he thinks you want to hear. You never really know where you are at with this person.
With the second level comes an honest communication. Opinions and ideas are shared but they are backed up from the heart. A person operating in this level is transparent. You know exactly where you are at with them. We should all operate on this level.
Level one is intimacy You may only get this level with one or two people in your lifetime. It is a level where there is total trust. Many people never get to this level with anyone.
E – EXTEND A HAND TO OTHERS
James 2:26 tells us that faith without works, or corresponding actions, is dead. Love without works is dead too. It is one and the same. Aren’t you glad that God had corresponding actions? Not only did He share His plan of salvation through His Word, He did it. (John 3:16) There is power in doing it. That is the emphasis of this move of God-walking in love is doing God’s Word. We have done a lot of talking and God is saying, ‘It’s time to do some walking. ” (I John 5:3)Glory to God, what an exciting hour to be alive! To see the love of God being perfected in our hearts!
THE ABOVE MATERIAL WAS PUBLISHED IN THE JIM KASEMAN MINISTRIES, FEBRUARY 1996, BY JIM KASEMAN, PP.2-3. THIS MATERIAL MAY BE USED FOR STUDY AND RESEARCH PURPOSES ONLY.
