God wants us to know that there is a more excellent way and that is to be found in manifesting His presence. Of all the things that we can accumulate, love has the greatest value to God and He has demonstrated His love to us. If the heart of what we do is not done with a sincere love, then it is nothing. God has already come and ministered life, so we have made a covenant this morning and agreed together that we will live. We must have a revelation of His love. Many times we become discouraged and take our focus off of God. It is only when we put our focus back on Him, that we are able to make it. Daily routines and pressures can make us feel insignificant; aging and worry can become a permanent state in our lives and we can believe that based on our past, matters will not change. We have to understand our value in Christ and to our heavenly Father if we are going to do great exploits in the earth.
God says that He knows the plans that He has for us and that they are for our good. He wants us to maintain His perspective for our lives. His love kept us from failing and giving up. His love was seen in His hand upon us (Ephesians 3:14-20). Know Him as Father. The body of Christ needs to comprehend the vastness of our Father’s love in order to embrace it. It is at this point that we are able to manifest His love. Our every action will manifest that love. Barbados needs to see a manifestation of the love of God in all its forms and it needs to see this through the people of God.
Sometimes we read the newspaper and we feel choked up with the reports that we see happening in our nation. We see injustices and our young people on the court page and we ask God to show us how to manifest God’s love in our nation, our homes and our churches. Everyone in this nation is under some manner of stress and it is manifesting itself in his/her actions. People are distracted with the cares of life. The fire of God needs to come and ignite the love of God in believers so that others will have to settle down when we speak. Our words will be soothing and powerful. God is the only answer for our nation. We are His ambassadors in the earth. If we do not take His love out of the church building, we are just going around in circles. We get caught up in the world around us and are not able to manifest God’s love. However, we want the fullness of God that is in our lives to be manifested in our Church, our homes and our communities. If we are speaking about love and are not able to even smile, then maybe that is why the message of God’s love is not being conveyed to others.
The gift that God has given to us is uniquely ours and He knows how it will function in the circumstances to which we are called. Romans 5:1 states that having been justified by God, we have His peace. We have all the tools to share God’s love. Believers who we think are strong, are rooted in God and are thus able to stand. Verse five says that hope does not disappoint because God’s love has been poured out into our hearts by the Holy Spirit who has been given to us. God’s divine love is the most wonderful of all the blessings that the Holy Spirit offers us; it is agape love and we need the Holy Spirit poured out into our spirits in order to manifest that agape love. It involves a conscious choice to manifest this love. We have to get past our feelings and choose to obey God to express His agape love. It is the willful choice of the lover and not the quality of the person receiving it that makes us express this agape love. That love is seen in how we treat people. If we value people as God values us, then we can manifest His love. Agape love is not usually produced in our natural selves. Agape love is self-giving and does not lay down conditions.
Romans 5:6-8 tells us that God died for the ungodly. Are we prepared to demonstrate the love of Christ that is in us? How easy is it for us to love the undeserving? Perhaps God has placed them there for us to show His love to them. Most people with attitudes have a deeper problem. None of us is so important to these individuals who display bad attitudes towards us that we are the real object of their misery. 1 Peter 1:23 tells us to love one another fervently. Agape love is the nature of those who have been born again. 1 John 2:2-6 says that God is the propitiation for our sins and the entire world. It tells us that if we truly are in Christ, His love is seen in us.
1 John 3:16 tells us that we ought to lay our lives down for the brethren as Christ did for us. We thus need to make ourselves a little uncomfortable at times to give the brethren what they need. How does the Father’s love abide in us if we see our brother in need and shut up our hearts? There is a promise for those who give sacrificially, giving when it hurts, as Jesus did. 1 Corinthians 12 tells us to earnestly desire the gifts as they are useful and need to be exercised in the body of Christ. Verse 13 tells us that even if we speak eloquently and have great faith but lack love, then it profits us nothing. We however want to manifest Jesus, the greatest love of all.
