FOUNDATION STATEMENT: Love is God’s open door into the Earth. As believers if we don’t make the decision to walk in love God has no way into the Earth. We must free love in our hearts and become vessels through which Love, Himself can flow through.
I. We as believers are God’s way into the Earth
A. Neither God nor Satan can do anything on this Earth apart from a physical body
1. If God is going to work on this Earth He is going to have to do it through physical human bodies
a. When he wanted to save the world He created a physical body and housed himself in that and saved the world
2. We are to yield our bodies to God so that He can flow through those bodies and work here on the Earth (1 Corinthians 6:13-20, Romans 6:12-16, 12:1)
a. He did his work through the literal Body of Christ and now he is wanting to do his work on the Earth the same way
B. It was the Father dwelling in Jesus that was doing the works (John 14:10)
1. He was in the Father and the Father was in him because he dwelled in love (1 John 4:16)
a. Jesus said what you see is my body who is housing the Father, but it’s the Father who you can’t see that is doing the works that you can see
b. Jesus just gave the Father a way into the Earth so that the Father could work through a man on the Earth
C. We can do the works that Jesus did and greater works than those because He is going to the Father
1. What happens when he goes to the Father? (John 16:7 AMP)
a. When he goes to the Father then the same Father (Holy Spirit) who was working through him, comes in us
2. The same Father, who Jesus credited with doing all the great works that the disciples where seeing, is now currently dwelling on the inside of us by way of the Holy Spirit
a. That was the Father in him that did that [Matthew 14 (Provider, Healer), John 11]
D. God is love. You can’t separate the two. (1 John 4:8, 16)
1. The love of God has been poured out into your heart (Romans 5:5)
a. The God of Love has been poured out into your heart; God poured all himself into you
2. Acts 2:4, 1:8, 1 John 4:4 – How do I activate the He that is in me to see Him work through me in my life?
II. How do I get the He in me out of me into the Earth? God is love – He is the agape love of God that has no limits and no conditions, that is exceedingly patient, full of mercy and grace – He is not human love, He is agape love
A. As a believer if you refuse to love, God has no way into the Earth
1. If God is love and He is, then when love is working in me God is working in me, when love is working through me, then God is working through me. When you release agape, you’re releasing God.
B. When you love with the human emotional love and keep agape trapped in you, you keep God trapped in you
1. When you handcuff agape and love with the human love, you handcuff God
2. Love is God’s open door to humanity and when you close the door on agape, you close the door on God
C. 1 Corinthians 13:2 – A person who is trapping God is not useful to Him
1. Has the church trapped agape?
a. Have we put on the mask of agape with our good deeds? The world feeds the poor, the world gives to charity. That doesn’t separate us. What separates us is that we recompense evil for good. The world won’t do that.
b. We’ve given to the poor, we’ve gone to the hospitals, and we’ve worn the mask of agape. While there’s strife between denominations. While there’s gossiping and backbiting going on. While evil is being recompensed for evil. The thing about a mask is that it looks real from a distance, but the closer you get the more fake it looks and the truth is ultimately revealed that it was just a phony trying to look like the real. Let your agape be real, not just a fake.
c. When we go to the sick and to the poor there should be results
2. When you say yes to agape, you immediately become useful to God
III. The love of God is a force that has the appearance of weakness, but is stronger than any force in existence.
A. Love has the appearance of weakness (Luke 6:27)
1. What’s this all about? Why is God asking me to do all of this stuff that makes me look like a wimp?
B. When you stay in love and agape is working in you and agape is working through you, then you give God (who is love) place to work through you in power
1. To walk in love is to step aside and allow the power of God to come between you and the situation with which you are dealing (Romans 8:37)
a. In all these things I am more than a conqueror because in all these things you can’t stop the agape
2. Satan will try to tell you that if you walk in love you’re being walked on (1 Corinthians 1:27)
C. You don’t overcome evil with evil, you overcome evil with agape (Romans 12:91-21)
1. Respect other people
2. Put others above yourself
3. Give to others to meet their needs
4. Speak good things over them that persecute you, not bad things
5. If somebody does you evil, you don’t repay them with evil
6. Do everything in your power to live in peace with all men
a. That means you apologize even if it wasn’t your fault
7. If your enemy is hungry agape, If your enemy is thirsty agape
a. Your response is always agape
D. Give God place to avenge you, don’t avenge yourselves (Matthew 14:10-14)
1. That best vengeance there is, is not against people that wronged you, but it is against the Kingdom of darkness
a. The worst thing that Jesus could have done was go after Herod
2. To the carnal mind, your first thought is, Jesus has got all this power, he could have done something to retaliated
a. When you look at it in the spirit he retaliated
3. Love hit the devil where it hurts the most in the removal of burdens and yokes
a. 1 John 4:3 – He is the Anti-Christ, he is against the anointing, and he’s against it removing burdens and destroying yokes
b. His vengeance was on the Kingdom of Darkness
1) When you stay in agape and that person gets saved, that’s vengeance
E. It was not God’s plan for you to be weak; it was God’s plan for you to stay in love, keeping agape working in you, keeping agape working through you, so that God/the power of God can work through you and prove you’re not weak
1. When you give place to strife you give place to the devil (Ephesians 4, James 3:16)
2. Give place to agape