We are on a journey or an adventure together discovering how to engage the spiritual realms .Discovering the realms within us, around us and the heavenly realms .There are 2 main pathways that we are going to follow.
Pathway of relationship that leads to deeper intimacy with God .Flowing from inside out – from heaven to our gateways of spirit, soul, and body to the world around us .Pathway of responsibility that leads to greater kingdom rulership .Flowing from outside in from earth to heaven as living sacrifices to rule.
Why first love? What is first love? Why is first love so important? Our eternal destiny and destination is at stake on the basis of our experiencing and knowing First Love.
Why first love. Rev 2:4 But I have this against you, that you have left your first love- Ephesus church. Abandoned the love they once had. Love was no longer their priority. Duty became the focus rather than relationship. Love but they were not in love.
Remember how your first love felt? Emotions of passion, overwhelming desire, smitten .Mind captivated thinking of the next glimpse or meeting .Was your salvation experience with God an encounter with first love?
Besotted with, infatuated with, enamored of, love-struck by, smitten with, passionate about, with a passion for, consumed with desire for; captivated by, enthralled by, entranced by; devoted to, doting on; mad/crazy/nuts/wild/potty about, bowled over by, carrying a torch for; twitterpated by.
First Love. Coming before all others in time or order, paramount, top, topmost, utmost, uppermost, prime, chief, leading, main, major. Foremost, principal, highest, greatest,; preeminent, overriding, outstanding, supreme, premier, predominant, prevailing, most important, of greatest importance, of prime importance; vital, key, essential, crucial, central, core, focal, pivotal, dominant; ruling, head;
First before everything: Me, My family, My relationships, My work, My leisure, My needs .Before worry, concern, anxiety, fear, depression, despair .If the first love priority of my life is Him everything else must look like hate in comparison.
Luke 14:26 “If anyone comes to Me, and does not hate his own father and mother and wife and children and brothers and sisters, yes, and even his own life, he cannot be My disciple. Luke 14:33 So then, none of you can be My disciple who does not give up all his own possessions.
What is love? What do we mean when we use the word love? What do we think and feel when we hear the word love? The answer to those questions will have been influenced and affected by our personal experiences.
1 John 4:16 We have come to know and have believed the love which God has for us. God is love, and the one who abides in love abides in God, and God abides in him. John 3:16 For God so loved the world, that He gave His only begotten Son, that whoever believes in Him shall not perish, but have eternal life.
Love is one word in the English language with many different meanings .Love has many words in other languages that differentiates its meaning .I love you or I love ice cream.
Hebrew words .Ahab – spontaneous, impulsive love .Hesed – deliberate choice of affection and kindness, covenant love .Raham – to have compassion, brotherly love.
Greek words .Eros – erotic love, word is not found in New Testament .Phileo .Storge .Agape.
Phileo: “love” which means “to have a special interest in someone or something, frequently with focus on close association; have affection for, like, consider someone a friend.” it refers to a strong liking or a strong friendship. We “love” things that we strongly like: “I love ice cream,” “I love my car,” “I love the way your hair looks,” etc.
Greek word – Storge .The love and affection that naturally occurs between parents and children, can exist between siblings, and exists between husbands and wives in a good marriage. Romans 12:10 philostorgos, encouraging us to be loving and kind to each other.
Greek word agape – seldom used in Greek literature .Agape refers to the love of God, one of the kinds of love we are to have for God and people, You can agape love your enemies, but you cannot phileo love them.
Agape is the very nature of God, for God is love (1 John 4:7-12, 16). Agape love is known from the action it prompts. Agape is love because of what it does, not because of how it feels.
Agape love is not simply an impulse generated from feelings. Agape love is an exercise of the will, a deliberate choice. This is why God can command us to love our enemies (Matt. 5:44; Exod. 23:1-5).
He is not commanding us to “have a good feeling” for our enemies, but to act in a loving way toward them. Agape love is related to obedience and commitment, and not necessarily feeling and emotion. “Loving” someone is to obey God on another’s behalf, seeking his or her long term blessing and profit.
Biblical references agape love. Matt. 5:43,44 – “love your enemies” . Matt. 22:36-40 – “great commandment…love God…” . Jn. 3:16 – “God so loved the world He gave His only Son”. Jn. 13:34; 15:12 – “new commandment…love one another.” Jn. 17:26 – “love with which You loved Me may be in them”.
Rom. 5:5 “love of God poured out within our hearts”. Rom. 13:10 – “love is the fulfilment of the law”. 1 Cor 13:1-13 – “…the greatest of these is love”. 2 Cor. 5:14 – “the love of Christ controls us”. Gal. 5:6 – “faith working through love”. Gal. 5:22 – “fruit of the Spirit is love…”. 1 Jn. 4:7 – “everyone who loves is born of God”.
Only God can express His character of love first .Love is not a virtue, value, ideal, moral principle .Love is not a feeling, sentiment, impulse, passion .Love is not romance, benevolence, amicability.
Love is not a psychological predisposition or a genetically produced social habit .Love is expressed only as derived from God .Love is the spiritual character of God experienced and expressed in a Christian’s life.
God’s love has practical features to be expressed and demonstrated. Love is not defined by the act, but by the character of God within the act. Love precludes hypocrisy and play-acting. Love is unselfish; not based on self-need or want.
Love is not conditional on repayment. Love doesn’t care who gets the credit. Love is active; not merely passive or theoretical; love doesn’t loiter. Love precludes resentment, covetousness, and judging another.
Love believes trusts and expects God to overcome all things. Love is directed toward people; not things, ideas, doctrines, principles… Love of neighbor desires them to have everything you have, and more.
Love seeks to commend, not condemn. Love is not conditional on the lovability or action of the recipient. .Love builds others up, nurtures, edifies; it is constructive, not destructive.
Love seeks the highest good of the other, with no thought of benefit to oneself. Love involves self-denial, self renunciation, personal sacrifice, humility. Love is willing to suffer slights, hurts and rejection. Love is the antidote to fear and paranoia
Love does not preclude (prevent, stop, exclude, prohibit) confrontation, opposition and discipline – Heb. 12:6; Love is not soft (“tough love”); cf. Matt. 10:34; Lk. 12:49 Love is not retaliatory (Rom. 12:17); it turns the other cheek (Matt. 5:39).
Love prompts one to take the initiative to be the first to act – (Matt. 7:12) .Love does not demand its personal rights .Love excludes suspicion and mistrust .Love is the fullest expression of God himself.
God’s love for us contains all those words. And concepts .He wants us to experience Him – Love. He has parental love like a mother and father. He wants us to experience a deep brotherly friendship. His and our emotions and feelings should also be involved.
Love is not a weak wishy washy emotion .Love is a powerful motivational force for good .Love is at the very foundation and heart of the kingdom of God .Love is a practical expression of who God is.
Love motivates whatever God does as it is the essence of who He is .Love is to be experienced at all levels of who we are .Love is the vibrational frequency of God and is to resonated with .Love is the highest frequency of vibration we can experience.
John 3:16 “For God so loved YOU, that He gave His only begotten Son, that whoever believes in Him shall not perish, but have eternal life. God’s love was strong and powerful enough to overcome death in Jesus through it’s resurrection power. His love is strong and powerful enough brings us from death to life.
Song 8:6 “Put me like a seal over your heart, Like a seal on your arm. For love is as strong as death, Jealousy is as severe as Sheol; Its flashes are flashes of fire, The very flame of the Lord. 7 “Many waters cannot quench love, Nor will rivers overflow it;
Love is the strongest motivating force. “Darkness cannot drive out darkness, only light can do that. Hate cannot drive out hate, only love can do that.” – M.L.King
First love gate needs daily opening .To experience and engage first love .God’s first love .Our first love .What is our daily experience of First Love?
How does He express His love for us? Through what He has done and continues to do .How does He express His love to us? Through what He says.
How do we express our love for Him? How do we express our love to Him? How do we receive and experience His love? Intimacy of relationship.
Song 1:2“May he kiss me with the kisses of his mouth! For your love is better than wine. Song 2:4 “He has brought me to his banquet hall, And his banner over me is love.
True first love is the primary and most important relational encounter and experience we can have .It is available to us daily through the opening of a door and the giving of an invitation.
Love is our deepest need, built into us by God to draw us to Him .Love has the potential for our greatest blessings but also for our deepest sorrow and pain.
God’s First love is like nothing we have truly experienced in our human relationships. In fact human first love probably caused us rejection, emotional damage, pain, created our insecurities, fears and our trust issues.
Will you take this risk to open yourself to Him? Will you abandon yourself to Him? Will you embrace the lover of your soul and be joined to Him. Share love from some song lyrics we sing. Do you really mean and experience what you sing?
Amazing love how can it be that you My God would die for me. Amazing love, how can it be? That you, my King would die for me .Amazing love, I know its true .It’s my joy to honor you .Amazing love how can it be?
Behold you have come over the hills upon the mountain .To me, You will run. My Beloved, You’ve captured my heart .Won’t You dance with me, Oh Lover of my soul, to the song of all songs? Romance me, Oh Lover of my soul to the song of all songs.
I mean everything to You! You wrap Yourself around me ! You hold me together in Your hand! When I’m feeling that I’m falling apart and I’m everywhere… You hold me now! Cause I mean everything to You! I mean everything to You!
And You mean everything to me! Daddy God, You mean everything to me! I bear my soul completely before You! Oh yes…I’m Yours. Cause you mean everything to me! Everything in this whole world…
I really love you, I love you right now. Pour yourself out for our Savior, our friend. We really love you. We love you right now. And this is all about you, and we love you right now. This is a love song. With every fiber of my being I compose. Cause I really love you, my strength and shield.
What does love look like?” is the question I’ve been pondering “What does love look like?” is the question I’ve been asking of You .Then I saw You there, hanging on a tree, looking at me .I could not escape Your beautiful eyes.
You had arms wide open, a heart exposed .Arms wide open; You were bleeding, bleeding for Me .Love’s definition, love’s definition was looking at me .This is how I know what love is, this is how I know what love is.
If anybody’s been looking for love in all the wrong places .If you’ve been searching for love, come to Me, come to Me .Love’s definition, love’s definition was looking at me .This is how I know what love is.
The love song of eternal everlasting love. He has sung to you from before the foundation of the world. Embrace Him where the beginning and the end meet. In the midst of covenant love, infinite, unending love where what was meets what is to reveal and release and birth what will be.
Revelation 3:20 Behold, I stand at the door and knock; if anyone hears My voice and opens the door, I will come in to him and will dine with him, and he with Me. We give God this invitation to fill us and flow through us today.
1 Cor 6:17 But the one who joins himself to the Lord is one spirit with Him. Become joined, entwined in oneness, spiritual union .This will mostly be spirit to spirit communication but may engage your most developed soul area .Emotions, imagination, reason
Rom 5:5 the love of God has been poured out within our hearts through the Holy Spirit who was given to us. Let’s experience His love.
I sing a simple song of love .To my Savior, to my Jesus. I’m grateful for the things you’ve done, My loving Savior, my precious Jesus. My heart is glad that you’ve called me Your own. There’s no place I’d rather be.
Than in Your arms of love, In Your arms of love. Holding me still, holding me near, In Your arms of love.
Receive Him as love personified .Feel the security, power and strength of His love .Feel His unconditional love for you .Feel the fire of His love burn in you .Feel His love embrace you hold you safe in His arms of love .Feel your heart melt in His embrace.
Express your love for Him .Yield surrender open up your heart embrace Him .Let Him touch your deepest needs .Let Him heal your deepest hurts .Let Him remove your deepest fears .Let Him fill you with His presence.
Let Him accept you .Let Him affirm you .Let Him reveal how special you are to Him .Express your love to Him .Tell Him how you feel .Tell Him how much you love him.