The most talked about and the least understood subject in the world is LOVE. How many believe in it? How many would like to receive it? How many find it difficult to direct it towards certain people.
Most of our problems come because we go about all the motions of living and we leave out the ingredient of love. Before we’re through with this message, we’ll see that if you do not have love, you are a murderer (I John 3:15).
We do not realize the destructive force that’s turned loose in the world by the fact that people just live day by day without love. This generates destruction of relationships; it generates destruction of plans, purposes, of people’s lives. It’s the most abortive thing in the world for us to just live our lives without continuously being full of and emanating love.
In a court of law, attorneys are generally interested in digging out what facts they can illuminate for their side of the case. Rarely does the truth, the whole truth, really come out in a courtroom, no matter how many facts you have.
Have you ever realized that when you look at the facts, you’re only looking at the shadow that the substance casts? You’re not looking at the real thing. It takes more than just looking at facts to arrive at the truth. The truth is not so many facts. You could know all the facts and still believe a lie.
The truth must be measured by something more than just facts. What do you need to measure it? You’ve got to have love. There is a phrase in Ephesians 4 that talks about this love. But speaking the truth in love, we are to grow up in all aspects into Him, who is the head, even Christ. Ephesians 4:15.
“Speaking the truth in love”—there is no truth without love.
I can tell you the truth if I love you and you will receive it, even if it hurts; but I could come up and give you a compliment without any love in my heart and it could offend you. It’s not what you say, it’s not really what you do so much, but the ingredient that makes it a true thing is love.
THE PURPOSE OF GIFT MINISTRIES
The maturity of love is the purpose of all the gift ministries in the fourth chapter of Ephesians. They were all given for just one purpose—that the body of Christ would grow up to the place where they would speak the truth in love.
But speaking the truth in love, we are to grow up in all aspects into Him, who is the head, even Christ, from whom the whole body, being fitted and held together by that which every joint supplies, according to the proper working of each individual part, causes the growth of the body for the building up of itself in love. Ephesians 4:15–16. The body of Christ must be built up in love.
The thing that brings you into maturity is love. An orderly life without love leads to disintegration; people fall apart. A life that is not led by the Spirit and is without love is already degenerated.
Wherever there is anything that exists on the human level or the spiritual level without love, it generates death. Some form of death is involved with it. You die in some way.
To live without love is to live a kind of death day by day. So, despite all the things that you work and strive for, if you don’t have love, you’re working against yourself, because your very efforts are destructive; you’re destroying yourself by not loving.
BUILDING UP ONE ANOTHER IN LOVE
We don’t want our efforts to become abortive. We want them to count for something. Paul talked about the way people build and spoke of the way God will test their work.
I Corinthians 3:9 For we are God’s fellow workers; you are God’s field, you are God’s building. 10 According to the grace of God which was given to me, as a wise master builder I have laid the foundation, and another builds on it. But let each one take heed how he builds on it. 11 For no other foundation can anyone lay than that which is laid, which is Jesus Christ. 12 Now if anyone builds on this foundation with gold, silver, precious stones, wood, hay, straw, 13 each one’s work will become clear; for the Day will declare it, because it will be revealed by fire; and the fire will test each one’s work, of what sort it is. 14 If anyone’s work which he has built on it endures, he will receive a reward. 15 If anyone’s work is burned, he will suffer loss; but he himself will be saved, yet so as through fire.
The context of this scripture is talking about people as being the work. Paul is a master builder, and those he ministers to are the building, the work.
God walks through the building, and He starts throwing lit matches. If it burns up, He says, “You’ve suffered loss, but you will be saved, yet so as by fire” (I Corinthians 3:15).
The more I dwell on this, the more concerned I am that all our activities, that everything we do has that one ingredient of love in it.
Do you want to be a disciple? Jesus said, “By this shall all men know that you are My disciples, if you have love one for another” (John 13:35).
That love must be there. If you don’t have it, then all the truth, all the doctrines, all the teachings don’t mean a thing. All your activities don’t mean anything, because it’s the love that makes it right before God.
I pray that no matter what I do, love will come through. You can confront a person and be totally right; but if you go into it with the wrong spirit, then you’re wrong.
Beloved, let us love one another, for love is from God; and everyone who loves is born of God and knows God. I John 4:7.
You must love people, but it can’t be a superficial, shallow thing.
Whatever you go through, if you come out of it discouraged and defeated—with unbelief, hatred or bitterness—you weren’t drawing the love and the life from YHVH.
Whatever we go through, “Everything is an open door for us to reach up into God.” Draw from Him his love and life by faith; believe he has made himself available, his attributes can be transferred to you.
EAT IT AND DIGEST IT
Deuteronomy 8: 3 So He humbled you, allowed you to hunger, and fed you with manna which you did not know nor did your fathers know, that He might make you know that man shall not live by bread alone; but man lives by every word that proceeds from the mouth of the Lord.
Jeremiah 15:16 Thy words were found and I ate them, and Thy words became for me a joy and the delight of my heart; for I have been called by Thy name, O Lord God of hosts.
It isn’t how much of the bible you read, it isn’t how much you pray, it isn’t how many candles you light or how many rituals you go through. In the final analysis, what counts is what you assimilate. It’s what you eat that determines what you become.
Amos 8: 11 “Behold, the days are coming,” says the Lord God, “That I will send a famine on the land, Not a famine of bread, Nor a thirst for water, But of hearing the words of the Lord.12They shall wander from sea to sea, And from north to east; They shall run to and fro, seeking the word of the Lord, But shall not find it.
Amos didn’t say that there wouldn’t be a lot of churches or preachers around, but the Lord had revealed to Amos that the people would be perishing because they were missing something that they needed to feed upon. They were not getting the deep spiritual food that they needed.
In the New Testament you have the same subject. When Jesus went out into the wilderness to be tempted, the devil knew He hadn’t eaten anything for forty days; and so, he said, “If You are the Son of God, command that these stones become bread” (Matthew 4:1–4). Jesus’s answer was out of Deuteronomy 8:3 “Man shall not live by bread alone, but by every Word that proceeds out of the mouth of God.”
Jesus knew that there was a way to feed upon the Word that God speaks. Revelation 10:9–10 talks about the same thing. The angel gave the book to John, and he ate it. In his mouth it was as sweet as honey; and when he had eaten it, it was bitter in his stomach. It’s when you assimilate the Word that the reality of it hits you.
Many with a religious background, were taught that they were supposed to read the Bible for 15 minutes a day, pray for 15 minutes a day and witness to somebody for 15 minutes a day—if you did all that then we would never lose out with God.
We need to realize: “It doesn’t make any difference how much we read; it’s how much we digest that counts.” That has been the secret of my life. After that revelation to my heart, it didn’t matter to me whether I read half a verse or whether I read a whole book. I read until one thing happened: I began to partake of the life of God. Life came to me out of it.
This same thing can be true of listening to Audio’s. There are people who turn MP3’s on and go about doing something else, never hearing anything that’s going on. It isn’t how much you listen to; it’s how much you absorb that counts. Do one thing: Listen until you partake of the life of God.
ASSIMILATE IT
Jesus said to the Pharisees: “You search the Scriptures, because you think that in them you have eternal life; and it is these that bear witness of Me; and you are unwilling to come to Me, that you may have life.” John 5:39–40.
If you spend your day reading the Scriptures, will that guarantee that God will give you eternal life? No, life is something you assimilate. It’s something that you eat. Eat the Scriptures. Feed upon the Word. That’s where the life is.
Here’s the process: Every living organism has a process by which there is an intake, assimilation, and elimination. What you eliminate is what cannot be absorbed into the body to become tissue, or energy, or part of revitalizing the bloodstream. You must take in the Scriptures and be given to the Word of God, but you must also be able to assimilate it and digest it. Don’t think that you please God just by listening to a message; it’s what you take into your being that is important, for then it becomes a part of you.
Changes are not worked by discipline so much as they are worked by assimilation. Expose yourself to the Word. Take it into your being. It may take you a while to assimilate it but be like one of those boa constrictors that swallows a pig. Lay low for a while and just keep working on it; pretty soon you will have assimilated and digested the whole thing!
Jesus therefore said to them, “Truly, truly, I say to you, unless you eat the flesh of the Son of Man and drink His blood, you have no life in yourselves. He who eats My flesh and drinks My blood has eternal life; and I will raise him up on the last day. For My flesh is true food, and My blood is true drink. He who eats My flesh and drinks My blood abides in Me, and I in him. As the living Father sent Me, and I live because of the Father, so he who eats Me, he also shall live because of Me.” John 6:53–57.
As a result of this many of His disciples withdrew, and were not walking with Him any more. Jesus said therefore to the twelve, “You do not want to go away also, do you?” Simon Peter answered Him, “Lord, to whom shall we go? You have words of eternal life.” John 6:66–68.
The term “the Living Word” comes from the fact that God has given us a Word that is alive. The power of life comes by a Word from God that you digest, that you assimilate, and something happens to you.
Of course, this is exactly what we’re talking about when we come to Communion. We’re going to sit here and talk about the Lord. We’re not going to eat a pinch of crackers, take a sip of wine, and say that we fulfilled a ritual. We’re going to be aware that what we are doing is an act of faith.
Jesus said, “This is My body which was given for you. This is the New Covenant in My blood” (I Corinthians 11:24–25). Eat it. Drink it. Communion is not to be a ritual; the idea is that you’re going to reach in with faith to partake of the life of Christ. The life of God must be real to you.
This is something God told us to do, and we will do it with faith. We draw the life of God into the Communion. We breathe His life into it. We eat it. You can realize what Jeremiah must have meant when he said, “Thy words were found and I did eat them” (Jeremiah 15:16). As we eat, we are transformed.
I urge you therefore, brethren, by the mercies of God, to present your bodies a living and holy sacrifice, acceptable to God, which is your spiritual service of worship. And do not be conformed to this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your mind, that you may prove what the will of God is, that which is good and acceptable and perfect. Romans 12:1–2.
The Greek word for transformation is metamorphoo, from which we get the English word “metamorphosis.” That’s the thing that makes a little worm spin a cocoon and come out a butterfly. A completely new life comes out of it. When you approach God through the mind, you rarely find Him. But when you approach Him through faith, your spirit will eat and partake and draw on Him.
EAT HIM
All that God is you can partake of. If the Word of God means anything at all, it means that He became human so that our faith can reach back and make us divine. Whatever God did in making Himself understandable and available to the human being was so that the human being would know that he could participate and partake and eat of God. Eat of Him. Eat of His Word. Eat what He is.
“Well, it sounds very mystical and complicated. How do I do it?” You can sit and talk and say, “Well, I’ve been burdened for this or that thing.” Okay, first you sit here and take a sip of wine. Then have somebody who is next to you make a prayer request for something that he wants God to be in his life. Then break your bread with him. Agree with him. Just agree together in His name.
What does it mean to agree? Sumphoneo is a Greek word that means, in an English derivative, “crying together.” So, we have symphony. You all tune up your violins, and you have a symphony. You’re in tune with each other. You’re in agreement. You cry together—just a simple agreement of faith.
Instead of trying to change and make yourself better and reform, why don’t you just appropriate enough of God so that you do change? Take something into your life that is a catalyst for change.
Do you want to change? You can. Don’t go on some awful self-guilt, condemnation trip. If something is wrong, be honest about it and say, “I sinned before God. That’s wrong. God, please forgive me. But now I’m going to draw You into my life to change.” You have never really repented until you have taken a step toward a positive answer in God.
Have you ever had a real meeting with the Lord in Communion? Has it ever been that real to you? I don’t think that we really meet God until in some Word He reveals Himself as the answer, the food, the strength we need.
The thing that changes you is that you feed upon something in God. I think that the people who search the Scriptures the best are the ones who are looking for some promise that covers what they need right then.
Every time you read in the Scriptures about God, you notice that He is concerned about giving Himself some name that meets the need.
He told Abraham: “I am Jehovah-Jireh—the Lord who provides” (Genesis 22:14).
He called Himself “El Shaddai—the great-breasted one” (Genesis 17:1). God can be a mother to you. He can be a father. He can be a redeemer, or life, or truth, or an open door. He can be anything that you need.
Whatever God is, let Him be what you need right now. Do you need wisdom? Ask of God and He will give you wisdom (James 1:5). He is the way and the truth and the life (John 14:6). In Him are hid all the treasures of wisdom and knowledge (Colossians 2:3). Begin to eat of Him. Think upon Him. Say, “God is going to be real to me.” Think about that in your mind. This is why we take Communion.
What counts isn’t your record as a human being. The Scriptures teach that the people who are changed from glory to glory are transformed because they’re exposed to God (II Corinthians 3:18).
That’s it; it’s a metamorphosis. Partaking of the divine nature doesn’t just happen because you discipline the human nature. Eat Him! Drink Him!
This hasn’t been like what you would call a service; what you really had in this Word is a meeting with God. The Scriptures speak in such a way that you get an idea what the early churches used to do. They talk about their love feasts. They loved each other so much. In fact, when Jude speaks about betrayal in the book of Jude, he talks about certain Judas-type individuals and says, “These are hidden rocks in your love feast” (Jude 1:12)—meaning the hidden rocks below the surface that you can’t see when you’re sailing a boat. The things in the love feast are there. But what each person has to determine is that he, with his faith, is accepting a great thing from God. Take the wine and the bread and exchange it back and forth with love and faith for each other. Say, “I’m receiving this from the hand of my brother as though it were my Lord Himself who were feeding me, and as though my brother were causing me to feed upon the Lord. And I reach to my sister, my brother near me, and I feed them in faith. They’re going to have something real from God.”
Have you ever heard the Communion called a celebration? It’s a celebration because it has to be a faith that reaches in and says, “He died to give me life. He opened up something on a human level so that I can draw it, and every time I do, that divine nature becomes stronger in me.”
Day by day, feed upon the life of God. Really, you are what you eat. It isn’t what you read or what you hear that is important; it’s what you assimilate and take into your being that counts. None of you will ever be the same again. If you keep hungering after Him, you’ll be like Him.