LOVE
by
Dr. Gale A. Ragan-Reid
(November 25, 2019)
“He that loveth not knoweth not God; for God is love.” ( 1 John 4:8, King James Version [KJV]).
Greetings In the Holy Name of Jesus Yahshuah,
My sisters and brothers, I want to tell you that I have come this far by faith. Talking about love feels good. The problem is always, someone wants more and someone gets less. Can you take an old soul away from her lover, Christ Jesus? A Godman, both a Son of God and a Son of man, who wipes her tears away as she cries in her sleep?
I rather talk about love with you than talk about hate with you. We have experiences in life that brought us joy each morning in a setting that promoted and cherished love. Most importantly, we definitively wanted the love to continually flow from our love ones especially the kind of love that is all that you have known, an uplifting spiritual love that makes you feel light-hearted and free. That kind of love you do not want to ever leave you because you want to bask in the vibrancy of this pure love.
Let us look to the holy Word of God and the Gospel readings of Jesus to search in order to seek that kind of love, so hold on to see what the end is going to be. The Prophet Jeremiah [23:6, KJV], expressly noted one of the love roles of God, Jehovah Tsidkenu, in our relationship with Our Father God in heaven that “This is his name whereby he shall be called, The Lord our Righteousness”, wherein we should love the Lord God [Matthew 22:35-40, KJV “Then one of them, which was a lawyer, asked him a question, tempting him, and saying, Master, which is the great commandment in the law? Jesus said unto him, Thou shalt love the Lord thy God with all thy heart, and with all thy soul, and with all thy mind. This is the first and great commandment. And the second is like unto it, Thou shalt love thy neighbour as thyself. On these two commandments hang all the law and the prophets.]. The Gospel reading of Jesus, our Lord and Savior.
Moreover, it is right to let the Gospel readings of Jesus lead us to His law, the Word of God, for Jesus is the Word of God, since the beginning was the Word [John 1:1, KJV “In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God.”]. Let us follow Jesus’ love walk so that we, too, reach the ecstasy of the gift of God’s love. I do, so much want that you dwell in love, as much as I want the love that you seek for myself, for we are one body, neighbors seeking that same kind of pure love, all the days of your life and all the days of my life, for righteousness sake and for mercy sake.
More importantly, we seekers of love must seek with our heart, soul, and mind. Well, I am more than sure at this juncture in the road, the road turns, for you because you have yet to commit wholeheartedly to love, giving all of you, surrendering all but you must not turn here, for to follow Jesus, we must stay at the strait gate and narrow road [Matthew 7:14, KJV “Because strait is the gate, and narrow is the way, which leadeth unto life, and few there be that find it.”] Do you follow me? I would not call you friends if you were servants, then Jesus called you friends [John 15:15-17, KJV “Henceforth I call you not servants; for the servant knoweth not what his lord doeth: but I have called you friends; for all things that I have heard of my Father I have made known unto you. Ye have not chosen me, but I have chosen you, and ordained you, that ye should go and bring forth fruit, and that your fruit should remain: that whatsoever ye shall ask of the Father in my name, he may give it you. These things I command you, that ye love one another.”].
Henceforth, let us follow Jesus, Jehovah-shammah [Ezekiel 48:35, KJV “It was round about eighteen thousand measures: and the name of the city from that day shall be, The Lord is there.”]. This was Exekiel’s vision. The Word of the Lord. Yet, we seek love and we find the presence of the LORD, was there. Understandably, if we are not there then it is hard to feel love yet we feel the love of our Heavenly Father, here, on earth.
Is this a mystery to you or hard to let go, of the flesh to worship in spirit —- to love, in spirit, for the God you seek in the love you want is no longer flesh? Jesus died and ascended to sit at the right hand of our Father God, in heaven. Therefore, the love you seek is a spiritual uplifting love, a pure love without the trappings of the flesh. Here, we are, seeking love and I know we have come to the turning point for those who still will not commit to surrender all, submit to the love of God for if you love me keep my commandments [John 14:15-16, KJV “If ye love me, keep my commandments.And I will pray the Father, and he shall give you another Comforter, that he may abide with you for ever;].
Howbeit, you are bound to the flesh? Jesus talked to the woman of Samaria who was lost going from one relationship to another until she just did not obviously think about whether the one she was with was legally bound to another, it just did not matter to her any more that the man she felt she loved belonged to another woman [John4:17-30,KJV
“The woman answered and said, “I have no husband.” Jesus said to her, “You have correctly said, ‘I have no husband’; for you have had five husbands, and the one whom you now have is not your husband; this you have said truly.” The woman said to Him, “Sir, I perceive that You are a prophet. Our fathers worshiped in this mountain, and you people say that in Jerusalem is the place where men ought to worship.” Jesus said to her, “Woman, believe Me, an hour is coming when neither in this mountain nor in Jerusalem will you worship the Father. “You worship what you do not know; we worship what we know, for salvation is from the Jews. “But an hour is coming, and now is, when the true worshipers will worship the Father in spirit and truth; for such people the Father seeks to be His worshipers. “God is spirit, and those who worship Him must worship in spirit and truth.” The woman said to Him, “I know that Messiah is coming (He who is called Christ); when that One comes, He will declare all things to us.” Jesus said to her, “I who speak to you am He.” At this point His disciples came, and they were amazed that He had been speaking with a woman, yet no one said, “What do You seek?” or, “Why do You speak with her?” So the woman left her waterpot, and went into the city and said to the men, “Come, see a man who told me all the things that I have done; this is not the Christ, is it?” They went out of the city, and were coming to Him.”].
We say, in Jesus’ love for the woman of Samaria, Jehovah Nissi, The Lord is our banner, for the Lord exists, the Lord reveals himself unceasingly. Of course, although no one questioned what anyone was seeking when Jesus talked to the woman you feel the love of truth, pure love shaking up the woman to change, for he revealed her life story to her without her telling him anything, he was letting her know he loved her and he wanted her to know that there was a water that could quench her thirst. It is a dreadful captivity to need flesh of any woman’s husband not caring about the sin of it all. This love story of Jesus spending time to talk to a woman meant so much to her and still resonates in the lives of women today as a lifesaver.
Any seeker of love could undoubtedly feel the love Jesus holds in his heart connection with her broken heart for he came to heal the broken-hearted [Luke 4:18-19, KJV “The Spirit of the Lord is upon me, because he hath anointed me to preach the gospel to the poor; he hath sent me to heal the brokenhearted, to preach deliverance to the captives, and recovering of sight to the blind, to set at liberty them that are bruised,
To preach the acceptable year of the Lord.”]. We, also say, to this love story connection, Jehovah Rapha, “the Lord my healer, my restorer, he who makes healthful, the great physician who heals both the emotional and physical needs of the people”[Jer 30:17; Jer 3:22; Isa 30:26; Isa 61:1; Psa 103:3]. Let no one be the wiser, this is the supernatural power of touching someone’s heart to emotionally heal them and the supernatural touching of someone’s body to make them whole again, and for our Lord and Savior, Jesus only needed to say the Word. Just say the word and I shall be healed, they said [Matthew 8:8, KJV “The centurion answered and said, Lord, I am not worthy that thou shouldest come under my roof: but speak the word only, and my servant shall be healed.”].
In summary, I want to love with a pure heart and to receive love from a pure heart. Is this what you seek?
All things are possible and all things work together for good, in the faith of Jesus, in God’s love. Accordingly, we look to Peter, the Rock that Jesus built the church on [1Peter 1:22, KJV “Seeing ye have purified your souls in obeying the truth through the Spirit unto unfeigned love of the brethren, see that ye love one another with a pure heart fervently:”].
In closing, God is love is the
agape love we seek even more so Jesus died for that love [1 John 4:8, K JV “He that loveth not knoweth not God; for God is love.”;
Romans 8:8, KJV “ But God commendeth his love toward us, in that, while we were yet sinners, Christ died for us.”]. Christ be with you. God be with you. Walk with God. Amen.
