1 John 4:8(KJV) - He that loveth not knoweth not God; for God is love. Thats the theme of my message for today. Im no love expert and I dont claim to have 10 steps to finding agape love or anything like that. However, one day, I needed spiritual love. I didnt need someone to do something nice for me. I didnt need just a physical hug. I didnt need somebody to tell me that I was loved. I didnt need another scripture quoted about the love of God. I didnt need to memorize another verse. There was a gap in my spirit that could not be filled with the love I had grown accustomed to. I needed a love that was deeper than anything ever shown or explained to me. I didnt want one that was accessible by my physical senses, understandable by my mind or that could be felt in my heart. I wanted that love that my dad has... that Love that would break down all of my defenses just by being there. I didnt want to know that I was loved. I knew that already and something was still missing inside of me. I needed Gods love to go past my own effort to experience it because I wasnt getting it right. I practically stumbled into church and sat at the back of the section where I usually sit with a desperate heart. I remembered the story of that man and it finally made sense to me. What if spiritual love cannot be experienced by anything outside of the spirit? Maybe, Ive missed it because I was focused on the manifestation or the symptoms of the love and not on the source of the love itself. The agape love I desperately needed manifested itself in all of those ways I could see but I didnt really care that much because I could no longer trust my senses. So heres the interesting part. I stood up in the pew during Praise and Worship and asked God to release from within Himself that same spiritual love He gave to the Australian guy He saved from hell. God alone understood what I was saying because I knew that unless I had seen that documentary I would not have understood it with all of my knowledge of the Bible. The truth is that even though spiritual love is manifested in the ways we describe it, it cannot be truly experienced outside of the spiritual realm. So even though we are overwhelmed on a daily basis by the manifestation of the Love of God that we can see, touch, feel and understand we do not truly experience it unless we are in the spirit. John 4:24(KJV) - God is a Spirit: and they that worship him must worship him in spirit and in truth. So for a couple minutes, after I asked God for His love I felt nothing then suddenly something happened. The guilt of all of my sin began to overwhelm me and I felt as dirty as I had ever felt. I cried out to God for forgiveness and I asked Him for help. There was no room for pride or excuses because in the spirit realm I was standing face to face with God. I didnt do anything special to get there and I definitely was in no position to claim any more rights to be there than anyone else in the room. However, at that moment the people around me became obsolete. I poured my heart out to God and honestly told Him how helpless I felt as a Christian. My efforts to get this right were worthless and I wasnt getting anywhere with my idea of righteousness. All of my knowledge and all of my gifts could not fill the void in my heart for the spiritual love of God. Consequently, I had tried to sense on a physical and mental level all of my life something that did not exist in either realm. I thought that once I knew the love of God with my mind that I had ascended to the heights of Christianity. I even thought that once I felt the love of God in my heart, I had achieved the emotional height that I saw other faithful Christians reach. However, none of that was enough for me because I still felt a void all the way to that day. I still had to struggle with myself because I was not satisfied.
Posted on: Thu, 28 Aug 2014 13:06:41 +0000
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