Although we should not become overly concerned with world problems, we must be concerned about growing in the love of God. In I Corinthians 16:14 we read, Let all that you do be done in love. What an all-inclusive statement that is! The Scriptures speak much about our growing in love. The love in us is to really grow. The Scriptures also use a certain phrase: “to abound.” You are to abound in love. It is to be something that refuses restrictions and refuses to be fenced in. It is determined that it is going to expand. You abound in love, and you constantly apply that love to every situation you face. The epistles to the Thessalonian church speak of love and faith as though these were attributes of God within us that can grow and increase. Commands are even given to abound in love, increase in love, and increase in faith.
Now as to the love of the brethren, you have no need for any one to write to you, for you yourselves are taught by God to love one another; for indeed you do practice it toward all the brethren who are in all Macedonia. But we urge you, brethren, to excel still more. I Thessalonians 4:9–10.
These people had a great amount of love, and everyone knew about it. Everywhere people spoke of that tremendous love, and so they were told to go on and excel in that: “Whatever you are doing well, you can do a little better.” We need to do the same. We need to excel in everything worthwhile that God has put within the church. Do we make good use of our gifts? Let us reach for excellence. We cannot ever say we have reached a stopping point. Whatever God has done for us, we can have a little more. Whatever we have, we can still move a little better in it.
Now may our God and Father Himself and Jesus our Lord direct our way to you; and may the Lord cause you to increase and abound in love for one another, and for all men, just as we also do for you; so that He may establish your hearts unblamable in holiness before our God and Father at the coming of our Lord Jesus with all His saints. I Thessalonians 3:11–13.
What does the word “abound” mean? It means to move boldly, generously, vigorously—leap into it! We must increase and abound in our love for one another. There is no question about it. We are going to have many details in our lives that are unlovely: circumstances and problems that will be difficult. Our determination to move in love to each other is going to be tested. It will take a great amount of understanding. Think of the love and the sacrifice that all of us will be required to give. We have just started.
Another passage in II Thessalonians tells us, We ought always to give thanks to God for you, brethren, as is only fitting, because your faith is greatly enlarged (faith is not static; it can expand and increase), and the love of each one of you all toward one another grows even greater. II Thessalonians 1:3.
Your faith can increase, and your love can increase. If you have a little love in your heart, because God has met you, you can have much more. If you have a little faith in your heart, because God has met you, you can have more. Those qualities can grow; they do not need to diminish nor even remain at the same level. Whatever defeats you might have suffered in the past occurred because you did not have enough love, and you did not have enough faith. The days before us are going to require much love and much faith. In this walk with God, as the Scriptures say so plainly, …neither circumcision availeth anything, nor uncircumcision (neither one); but faith which worketh by love. Galatians 5:6. Your faith and the love in your heart are the factors that must continually grow. The job is not accomplished because of circumcision or uncircumcision, but through faith which works by love.
Jesus said to His disciples, By this shall all men know that ye are my disciples, if ye have love one to another. John 13:35. Love is the brand you are going to bear. The book of Romans has something very interesting: Let love be without hypocrisy. Abhor what is evil; cling to what is good. Be devoted to one another in brotherly love; give preference to one another in honor. Romans 12:9–10.
The commandments and instructions for love are implicit. And I know God does not torment us with directions we cannot keep. He does not tell us to do a certain thing and then not make available to us the means of grace and divine provision to do it. God is not some monster trying to torment us with Scriptures that cannot be fulfilled. When He says to be filled with the Spirit (Ephesians 5:18), we can be filled with the Spirit. Where the Word says we are to love one another with a pure heart fervently (I Peter 1:22), we can do that.
He makes that grace available to each one of us, and opens the door to us. Do not think love is a mystical thing you have no control over. We would never have a command from God to love one another if it were not possible for us to love each other. We would never have a command to believe God if it were not possible to believe.
You can determine to be a believer, and you can determine to be a lover. You can make up your mind to do it. You can make the decision to increase in love. Increase in it constantly, and do not hold back in anything. It is up to you how much you are going to love; it is up to you how much you are going to believe. As soon as you realize that the responsibility of love comes back on your shoulders, you will look at love much differently.
Love is not something that just happens. Love is coldly calculated to come into being. God loved us while we were yet sinners (Romans 5:8). It was not some delightful experience where He foreknew us, looked upon us, and suddenly fell in love with us. God determined to love us even when we were His enemies (Romans 5:10). His love was beamed toward us in spite of everything we had ever done. God determined to love us. And as He loved us so ought we to love one another (I John 4:11).
You determine that you are going to love a person even if there are some things about him you do not like. There is a big difference between like and love. If you love a man you will soon come to like him. You can control love, and love will control your likes. Weigh that carefully in your mind.
We want to be a people of genuine, unfeigned love for the brethren and obey this word: …see that ye love one another from a pure heart fervently. I Peter 1:22. This becomes our objective: to have the love in our heart be real, because it is His love flowing through us.
In order to abound in love, you need some guidelines to help you, because they involve principles, certain ways of thinking, and a certain preparation in your own heart. Then you can move in the love of God, and the love of God can begin to increase in your own life. It is not only possible for you to love, but you can be filled with love. The Church can be filled with the love of God, for we read in the epistles of John: This is a commandment which you heard from the beginning, that you should love one another (II John 5). And a new commandment in love: love even as He loves you (I John 4:11). This is the way we know we are born of God: we have love for each other (I John 4:7). Love is basic within our hearts, and we ought to learn to move in it more. Following are sixteen guidelines for abounding love.
One: Receive love. If you do not receive love the whole process is lost right there. Do not receive it as your due with an arrogance, and do not receive it as though it were a great favor for someone to love you because you feel so insecure. Neither extreme should exist. Accept it as a necessary function of your spirit. You must receive love. Receive it also as a special blessing that God has ordained. Open your heart to receive love. Learn to receive it, not arrogantly nor with a sense of insecurity, but receive it by faith. Receive the love God has for you, and that which your brothers and sisters have for you. It is strange how people put walls up to receiving love. Is it a perversity in our nature that does not want to be loved, even though the human heart is starving for love? People will not receive your love unless you receive theirs. The first thing you have to do is receive love.
Two: Believe that you are loved. I do not know how we can divorce love from faith. Even if the love is in the church you will never feel it unless you believe it. You must believe you are loved. But if you go around saying that no one loves you, you will find that the love in the church is not real to you because you resist it. There must be faith where love is concerned. It is faith which worketh by love. Galatians 5:6. Can there be any lasting love, unless there is also a faith, a trust? There must be some basis of faith. You have to believe and have faith that you are loved. Receive love and believe that you are loved.
Sometimes love can exist without contact. Some of our brothers are thousands of miles away, and they could be tempted by the enemy to feel they are not loved. But all of our brethren must be taught to believe in the love. Always have faith in it. Believe that you are loved. You are never so far away that you can say you are not loved, feeling that you are all alone. Never allow that to be, because it is a lie of Satan. You are loved.
Three: Always be open to receive love from others with the frequent, conscious drawings on that love. This is very essential. One of the greatest illustrations of the process of love is a mother nursing her child. When a baby is breast-fed and cries because of actual stomach pains from being hungry, there is only one solution: let that baby begin to nurse. The mother also has a need. If the mother is prepared to nurse and the baby happens to oversleep she will be tempted to wake her baby, because her breasts are full and there has to be some release. That is the way we should be. In love we give and receive. The heart can ache to give love, just as the heart becomes hungry and aches to receive love. We have to open our hearts to realize there must be a frequent expression of love.
I am sustained by the fact that so much of the ministry flows out to the people. I go home with a sense of satisfaction, having watched them making notes and knowing they are going to go home and go over those notes. It is an encouragement to me to have a word from the Lord and to feed the people with the sincere milk of the Word, that they may grow thereby (I Peter 2:2). The people also feel like babes that cannot wait until they get to church, because the cry within their spirits is to be nursed by the Word of the Lord.
It is no wonder that one of the prime names for God, given in the Old Testament to Abraham, was El Shaddai, which means, the Great Breasted One (Genesis 17:1). They had to have a name for God showing Him as a God with big breasts. It presented a maternal aspect, that those people who loved God would feed upon His mercy and goodness. There is not only the masculine side of God, but also a feminine side of God. He could not have made women as He did unless He had qualities like them in His own spirit. Thus we have El Shaddai, the Great Breasted One. It is necessary that we drink of the sustenance He gives to our spirit. We need it frequently, and I think God needs it too. He needs to feel we need Him constantly.
Four: Do not withdraw from your need of others nor from their love. There is something vulnerable about love. You have no defense against it. You do not dare withdraw and say you are going to be independent of love because you might be hurt. People withdraw from other people, on this matter of love, because they are afraid of being hurt. That is probably one reason why there are many unhappy young people. They do not try to make a relationship or even a simple friendship with anyone, because they are afraid they will be rejected. You have to overcome your fear of rejection. Even if you feel you are rejected, do not withdraw.
I have never seen a boy walk up to a girl and say, “You know, I’d like to have you for a friend. Would you be my girlfriend?” Do people do things like that? I doubt if they do. They would be too afraid of being rejected. So they play games. They smile at each other and kind of slide into it. Both have an opportunity to drop out, run, or reject the situation at any minute they want to, until they finally let the wall down and say that they like each other. They have skirted around the fear of being rejected. The fellow who always had the girlfriends in school was a bold person who was not afraid to go up and talk. He was not afraid of being rejected. If a girl would not date him he would count it her loss and would walk on to the next girl.
The longer I walk with God, and the more the ministry comes forth in authority, the more I realize I cannot withdraw myself from my need of others. I am completely sustained by the prayers of the people. I cannot survive one month without the prayers and support. The end-time ministry is not an entity in itself. And that is why it could never be established until the proof of the ministry was there with a church to pray for it, help it, and sustain it. My ministry would utterly perish from the earth if it were not attended to. I am not going to withdraw from my need of you, and you would be very foolish if you withdrew from your need of others in the ministry.
You will have to overcome your fear of rejection. And you are going to be hurt again. Anyone who loves is constantly vulnerable to injury, because it means living in a city without walls. It is living where there are no barriers and no restraints. Never withdraw from your need of others. That is even far more deadly than being hurt.
Maybe people would rather give their lives than hurt you, but they hurt you. Is there a parent who has raised a child ten years or more who has not been hurt? We beget children, we love them, and they hurt us. Sometimes parents love their children very much but strangely enough they belittle them. Should we put up walls to each other? No. It is better to be hurt than not to be loved.
If you go to church and get involved, something is going to happen; you may get your feelings hurt until you grow up and get over it.
When it comes to spiritual things there is a counterpart which you should remember. Many times you come to the house of God with walls up because you are afraid of being hurt, afraid people are not going to like you and will reject you. You should not feel that way, because they have to like you, or they will never go to heaven. You have everything going for you. Always remember that.
Five: Become involved. True love and maturity is interdependence. It is not a state of total dependence, nor a state of total independence, but a state of interdependence. Every one of us needs one another. God shows us this principle in body ministry. I am dependent upon other people praying. Some may think the ministry ought to be able to stand on its own feet and be fine. No, in the New Testament Paul wrote to the converts he had won to the Lord, begging them to pray for him. There is an interdependence that is very necessary. In true Body ministry we learn that the head does not say to the foot, “I have no need of you.” Even the members that seem to be less honorable are necessary, and God bestows upon them the more abundant honor that there would be no schism in the Body (I Corinthians 12:21–25).
You must face the fact that the principle of interdependence is the only way a church can mature and really survive in Body ministry. The minute someone becomes too dependent he becomes like a cancer. And if someone becomes too independent, the Body ministry is destroyed. It is an interdependence that makes it work. There is no member of the Body that is allowed to feel unnecessary. Just about the time you think you need no one, God will put you in a position where you really need someone.
Never say you do not need the pastor or other members of the Body. The Lord will put you in a position where you do need them and He will teach you how to be interdependent. If you decide not to pray for anyone, he will put you in a place where you must.
Six: Develop the unique and distinctive nature of love. Love is to be without jealousy and possessiveness. Do not smother, and do not be smothered; do not suppress, and do not be suppressed. Do not develop partiality. Do not cater to one person or another, but be open to all of them. God will help you to minister exactly what is needed in love to everyone. And it will be ministered to you also. Jealousy, possessiveness, suppression, and rivalry come because we do not understand the distinctive and unique nature of love in every one of its relationships. I do not love one person more than any other. If you have been a mother or father to several children, you are aware that your relationship to each child is unique and distinctive, but it does not mean there is partiality.
A mother of twelve children is unique and special to each child, and so is every one of those twelve children to each other. And that mother understands all twelve in her special relationship to each one. They should not be jealous of each other, because her love for one actually has nothing to do with her love for another. If you are a grandparent, you learn that the little ones are looking at you, and if you bless one, then you had better bless the other.
Every one of us loves differently. It is distinctive in its nature. It will be different for each person. One person may be something to me of which another should not be jealous, for the other is going to be something special to the whole Body and to me also. I may have to minister in one way to a new convert, and someone who has been in the church for ten years may wonder why I never ministered to him that way. There is a distinctive and unique nature of love in every relationship of love. You must be without jealousy or possessiveness and let that ministry be unique the way it is supposed to be. I love the young people, and all of them have a certain relationship to me, yet each one of them is different. I love the pastors, elders, and ministries, and each of them has a unique and distinctive relationship given by God to me, so no one should be jealous of another. Everyone seems to have a special relationship back and forth.
One of the pastors has a unique ministry, and he ministers to people in a certain way. Another pastor also ministers a certain way. Both brothers have their own unique anointing to minister. Each of them will be something special to me. The sum total of all of it will be a perfection of my spirit, because I am furnished with that which every joint supplies (Ephesians 4:16). The lesson to learn from that is this: you must help each other.
In terms of body ministry, our love for each person has its own distinctive flow and relationship. If we see that, then we can come to church and enter in to all that God is going to make us to one another. The foot should not be jealous of the hand because the hand is a little closer to the head. It is positioned according to divine power. It would be terrible for my hand to be on my foot and my foot to be behind my ear. God knows what He is doing as He positions each member in the Body of Christ the way it is to function best to glorify Him. That ought to eliminate any tendency toward jealousy.
Seven: Voice and show love daily and frequently. Love thrives on having it spoken. If you feel a responsibility to voice and express love frequently, you will be surprised how much the love will grow because of that one thing. Problems arise when someone has been starved a little too long. Your expression of your love and faith for that person would have helped a great deal. Love dies with neglect. Many things die because of neglect. Your walk with God will die. How will you escape if you neglect so great a salvation? (Hebrews 2:3). What do you do to make a business fail? You do not have to do anything special; just neglect it, and it will die. How does a relationship between people die? By neglect. How will it grow? By giving attention to it. Give yourself to speaking and expressing love.
Eight: Courtesy and kindness. Two words, but they are so important. The stream of love is poisoned by sarcasm, bitterness, vindictiveness, and harshness; all of these tend to destroy love. Be kind to one another, tenderhearted, forgiving one another as God for Christ’s sake has forgiven you (Ephesians 4:32). Murmuring and complaining are the direct opposites of the kindness and thankfulness God wants in our spirits. Courtesy and kindness are such an essential part of love. So much damage is done when these two qualities of love are lacking. It does not hurt to be courteous and kind. There are many ways you can do that. It is so easy to say, “Thank you.”
All people should be treated as equals. Never treat a person with condescension. Many well intentioned people have isolated others from them by being condescending. They may be doing better with the circumstance they face than you are. Never put another person down. Kindness and courtesy must always be there.
Nine: Act on love. Love has to be expressed in order to be fulfilled. Love is a cause that must have an effect in action. Some action must be taken. It can be such a simple little thing. A child knows how to do that. When my daughters were little, they would pick a flower while going through a park, or someone’s rose on their way home, and bring it as a gift, wilted in their hot little hand. It is just a little act, but I do not think you have ever lived until you have had a flower from the hand of a child. It is a pure act of love. There has to be expression; you have to act on love. You cannot say, “I love my brother,” then see him in need and shut your heart up against him (I John 3:17). Let us not love in word, but in deed and in truth (I John 3:18).
Ten: Be intense and fervent. A man can be so intense in his love for God that in every other area he is relaxed. Choose your pressures. If you are intense in your love for God, you will not be intense in your reaction to the world around you. It will give you immunity.
I Peter 1:22 says, …see that ye love one another with a pure heart fervently. Passivity and lukewarmness are deadly to love. Love grows in a warm climate. It grows where there is an intensity of feeling. Let yourself start feeling your love for each other. People often become very conservative when it comes to loving each other. Instead of saying, “Well, he’s a good brother,” say, “I love that brother!” Be intense about it. Immediately you set something in action that makes the relationship even greater than before. The intensity and fervency of love has to be there.
Eleven: Your love must be channeled in God and not in the flesh. We are approaching the days of the Kingdom, and we must not be motivated by the flesh. In some way we must see love rise to a beautiful plane and see it really channeled. Love is a motivating thing. Once you have the intensity of love you have to put it to use. Whenever people who say they love God are running off in every direction, someone has failed to put them on the right track. The engine can have a full head of steam, but someone should put out a couple of tracks for that train to go on, in order to take it where it is supposed to go and help it to pull a load constructively. The same thing is true when you love God. That love has to be channeled in Him and cannot move in any other direction.
Twelve: Love grows stronger with mutual goals. A young couple saves their money to buy a house, and in everything they wonder how they can economize and cut down on costs in order to have another baby in their home. In a common objective, and knowing the goal that God says can be, the love grows stronger every day by the challenge of that mutual goal. The same thing is true of Christians. If they are in a little Bible study together and going through testings and trials, and trying to help people, soon they feel very close. That is what makes our elders feel close. The brothers work together with common goals, and the love begins to mature and ripen. The love is there at the beginning, but it grows every day. This is the way it should be in the house of the Lord. God allows us to get into spiritual battles together, and afterwards we begin to grow closer because of our common goals.
Thirteen: Cultivate mutual interests. Although that may seem very much like mutual goals, many things that are not goals still are of mutual interest. Mutual interests require give and take. You must find the personality of a church and lead it slowly until everyone has the same interests in worship without the crosscurrents. Do that in everything. Sometimes I would like to have a certain kind of service, but I conform to what everyone needs. In order to have a mutual interest, I delight in that which is a blessing to everyone. Love forgets its own individual tastes and expressions and reaches in to participate in the interest of others. You can learn to appreciate other people’s interests even when they are diverse from your own. If you were to fall in love with an Eskimo, you would probably learn to love rubbing noses. You would find yourself adapting to the same interests. That is the way it is in our spiritual walk. God brings all of us to feel the same things together.
Fourteen: Avoid the independent course. If you want to move in love you must avoid that, because nothing brings suspicion, concerning your feelings, as much as taking an independent course. For instance, if one of our pastors started a big project without mentioning it and went ahead independently, (even though he prayed about it and was really doing the will of the Lord), we would wonder if he loved us. We should tell other people what is going on so the other churches can become involved. Even if they do nothing but pray, they have the knowledge that no one is acting independently of them. The other churches might wonder if we love them at all, if we do not tell them what we are doing. Do everything in relationship to one another. The closeness of our walk is lost when a man goes off on his own and the flow of love is cut off. The fact that there has been no sharing leaves people to question whether they are loved. Avoid the independent course; try to submit yourselves to one another in the Lord. Refuse to be independent.
Fifteen: Communicate. Or, we could say, “Flow together.” This is a big point. Kick those walls down; find a way to reach each other. Take the time for it.
Sometimes when I bring the word, I think I do not get through. If I stop and do my best to tune in to the people, before too long I have communicated. There is a difference between preaching a sermon and communicating to people. You can preach a sermon, yet it goes right over their heads. You can be filled with a word from God, but you have to learn to get it to the people. Communicate it, or it will sail right over. Bring it down a little to express it. When you have something, do not rattle it off; say it to the people. Communicate it. Always get it across to them.
Sixteen: Determine that you are going to fulfill love. You are the one who makes love fruitful and creative. I remember one person remarking, “My father and my mother courted for twenty years. Just think, if my father hadn’t been so bashful, I might have been twenty years older than I am.” In her mind there seemed to be something abnormal about courting for twenty years. And I agree with that. It does not seem to make any sense to date someone in a little town for twenty years, buying a bag of popcorn and walking around the Square on Saturday night while the band plays. You cannot love someone and be content with that relationship not developing.
There has to be a determination to fulfill love. There is a drive in real love to see it fulfilled and make it fruitful and creative. That is true in spiritual terms as well as in the natural. If you love God, you have a determination to bear fruit unto the Lord. You are going to get something done; you are going to express that love. You are going to change the world; you are going to change the church; you are going to change something, if it is only yourself. You are going to change. That love is going to be fulfilled. It is going to be creative and forceful.
Do this in individual relationships as well as with the Lord. Be determined that if you love someone you are going to be a blessing to them. Believe that something is going to come out of that love.
Every one of these guidelines will show you how love can be more real and practical. Just do it and watch it work. It is good to show love. Keep your hearts open to each other, and keep your walls down. Do not draw back because of the fear of being hurt or rejected. We are not allowed to reject love or reject each other. We are all God has around here, so we had better take care of each other. God bless this word to your heart. It is foundational to future days.