LOVE, a Verb (2/10/2012)

Leading in from our last lesson...isn't it wonderful to know that the love of God never fails!!! Love never fades!!

Years ago, I read The Spirit-filled Woman by Beverly LaHaye.  I learned from Beverly that I my temperament is sanguine. I can't possibly let you know all of what that means, but if I apply it to me, I can tell you that along with my love languages...and I have more than one...I've grown much in the LORD.

The sanguine temperament, as all 4 of the temperaments, has strengths and weaknesses. One of my strengths is that I am a people person...make friends easily...and have many, many friends.

Of course, I know now that the Word says that to have friends, we must show ourselves friendly.  Well, this is one of those areas that was easy to obey. Weaknesses that go with it are lack of self-control...laughing, talking, etc., too much.

I've been separate from some that may have been offended by me, or who might have offended me, and years may have gone by...and the LORD have us cross paths again...older and wiser...and be friendly again. 

Having had 3 sons....and looking forward to daughters in-law...I've now had more of them than I have sons...and I've had a hard time not being with those precious women brought into my life...and then taken out of it by divorce.  Even grandsons I had for awhile...I miss terribly...as they were grandsons by marriage..so now, not grandsons?

LORD, I said, "...but I'm a forever person!!!"  When I love someone, it is forever!!!

Now, I imagine the pain He walks in when any of His children walk away.

That's what a prodigal is!  It is one who has left his father's house...he's a lost sheep...was in the fold...now is out on his on...in the world. 

The prodigal or lost sheep can't prosper the way he/she should.  Out of the fold means not longer under the umbrella of protection...the blessings. 

I remember when the LORD was teaching me about this.  I was a mother with a teen-ager, a younger brother, and a pre-schooler.  I was in my 30's and just learning to walk this life of Faith....which by the way is the same as the love life.

Israel is our example of this life. If you look at the Deuteronomy 28-30...it is filled with...

...If you love the LORD thy God with all your heart ...and if you obey all that He has said to do...
then you are under the Blessing...and the list is humongous!!

...but...

...If you do not hearken (hear and heed) the Word of the LORD...then you are under the curse...
and that list may be longer than the blessing list.

Then, that precious Holy Spirit taught me through analogy..pictures I call them...because I am a visual person, and, as a teacher I had to use visuals for most of my students.

Holy Spirit reminded me of how I warn my children of things so that they would not be harmed.  For example, I might say, "Drive carefully.  Do not speed or run stop signs or run red lights, or......." Now, when he did not heed my warning...hearken to my voice..I did not go cause him to wreck.  I did not want him hurt so that I would be right.

God is the same.  The laws are already set in order:

"Now it shall come to pass that if you diligently obey the voice of the LORD your God, to observe carefully all His commandments which I command you today, that the LORD your God will set you high above all nations of the earth. And all these blessingsshall come upon you and overtake you, because you obey the voice of the LORD your God...."  Many blessings listed... Deut. 28: 1-14

Now for the alternative....

"But it shall come to pass, if you do not obey the voice ofthe LORD your God, to observe carefully all His commandments and His statutes which I command you today, that all these curses will come upon you and overtake you:..."

God gives us choices...we are free to choose to obey Him or not...but woe unto us if not...for we walk under the curse..

There's just not a nice way of saying it...

Now, the wonder of God is that because we could not keep the law...and obey in every area....and if we broke one commandment, we broke them all...

So, His wonderful grace and mercy prevailed when He came to earth as a baby...and He died on the cross for us...and He arose, taking the sting out of death...and, forgiving all our iniquities....those past, present and future.....and healing all our diseases.

We claim the wonderful promises of Abraham because Jesus is in us and He's of the lineage of Abraham. 

We can't keep the law without Jesus, but with Him we can do all things! Jesus says to us in Matthew 22: 37-40 (I say us ...because we are the ones referred to by Jesus in the Garden  as those to come):

..."'You shall love the LORD your God with all your heart, with all your soul, and with all your mind. This is the first and great commandment.  (found in Deut. 6:5) And the second is like it: "You shall love your neighbor as yourself.' (found in Lev. 19:18).

Verse 40 says something extremely proufound! Listen closely saints:

"On these two commandments hang all the Law and the Prophets."

Are you serious?  Jesus, we only have to love God with all our hearts and our neighbor as ourselves?  Wasn't our Savior simplifying this for us?

Well, yes...uhhhhh.....ummmmm....what do you think?

Go back a couple of days of this study.  Didn't Jesus say, If you love Me, keep My commandments?

You mean we have  to do something in order to reap these benefits?

Isn't that where sowing and reaping come together? If we sow, we will reap!

Years ago the LORD spoke these words to my heart as I wrote my one and only book, The Inner Woman of the Heart.  He said, "The DOER of the WORD reaps the HARVEST!" 

Let's see, that would be almost 30 years ago...because we published the book in 1984...made 100 copies...very expensive in those years...and sold them at market price...lost money...but learned so much as I had to live it to write it...and sold them all. 

James, the brother of Jesus, in the 1st chapter of his only book says in verses...well, I was going to say 22-23, but it starts with but so now I have to look back..let's see...to a beginning word.  We'll look at 17-27:

Every good and perfect gift and every perfect gift is from above, and comes down from the Father of lights with whom there is no variation or shadow of turning.

Of His own will He brought us forth by the word of truth, that we might be a kind of firstfruits of His creatures.

So then, my beloved brethren, let every man be swift to hear, slow to speak, slow to wrath; for the wrath of man does not produce the righteousness of God.

Therefore lay aside all filthiness and overflow of wickedness, and receive with meekness the implanted word, which is able to save your souls.

But be doers of the word, and not hearers only, deceiving yourselves.

For if anyone is a hearer of the word and not a doer, he is like a man observing his natural face in a mirrror; for he observes himself, goes away, and immediately forgets what kind of man he was.

But he who looks into the perfect law of liberty and continues in it, and is not a forgetful hearer but a doer of the work, this one will be blessed in what he does.

If anyone among you thinks he is religious, and does not bridle his tongue but deceives his own heart, this one's religion is useless.

Pure undefiled religion before God and the Father is this: to visit orphans and widows in their trouble, and to keep oneself unspotted from the world.

Whew!!!

I must stop...ponder...meditate...chewing and chewing this scrumptuous meal...much meat here!

Loving all of you....

Teddi