This is part of a teaching given by Pastor Dan Mohler of www.neckministries.com on "Becoming Love"
There's so much talk about love in the body of Christ and we know God is love and we're called to just not be love but to become love. But you and I don't have the ability to look at somebody and make our self see their value. We don't have the ability to see someone hurting and just care like God cares without the help of God. But what we do have is the ability to yield our heart to him and say, "I want your heart to possess me."
See you can't effectively, seriously, you can't effectively, like God wants to, you can't effectively intercede for your city without loving your city and the people of it. You can't pray for your city cause you're disgusted with it, that doesn't move God. You can't effectively pray for your spouse because you're frustrated with your spouse. You can only pray for your spouse effectively because you see their value and the love of God towards them. Faith works through love. You can't just effectively pray for the sick because they have need and you're supposed to pray. Faith works through love. And I heard the phrase "baptism of love" is God's love towards us and it's very powerful.
If you will yield your heart and just say: "I want to be love. I surrender my opinions and my right to be anything less than love and I receive the grace of God to see through Your heart and become that love."
Baptism of love means immersed into, dipped into the heart of God.
We can't love like He loves without His grace. You can't look out on your city and see the value it possesses without God putting His eye inside of yours. You can watch the news and know we need help and you can pray, but He wants us to see what He sees, feel what He feels. And if you're willing, if you'll just say "I'm yours, I give up my rights in this life except one, the right to possess your heart and become your love." This is really scriptural. May the Lord make you abound and increase in love, one to another and to all. I have no need to write to you for you yourselves are taught by God to love one another. Guess who puts love in us...Holy Spirit is going to make you aware of in the conviction light of God, not condemnation that is never God...you are going to be aware of things that you have held onto in thought, in belief, in whatever that has hindered love, even though you're born again Christian and you will have the privilege at that moment it comes to light you'll just say: God, I release that. Thanks for showing me, my God."
Holy Spirit come in this place.Baptize us in your heart. Baptize us in your love. If faith works through love, Lord, I've got to become who you are. It's not by my works, Lord, it's by your grace I can't make my heart a heart of love, but tonight I can yield to you. Here I am, for you.
God didn't come to just love His church, He came to make us love. I'm telling you if you want to cry for your city, you can. If you want to cry for your neighbor, the grace is here tonight. If you want to see the value of the people you work with, that grace is in the room tonight. This is the message that you have heard from the beginning, you should love one another. We know that we've passed from death to life because we love one another. By this we know love, that he laid down his life for us, we ought to lay down our lives for one another. This is the commandment, that we should believe on the name of his Son Jesus Christ and love one another as he gave us commandment.
Come Holy Spirit.
"Beloved, would you let us love one another, for love is of God and everyone who loves is born of God and knows God."
I want to know you God, for God is love.
"Father in my own strength, I can't make my heart love, I yield to your grace, I yield to you Holy Spirit tonight and I accept the baptism. Just like I received the baptism of the Holy Spirit, I yield to a baptism of love and I allow myself by faith to be immersed in your heart. I yield my vision to you so that you overtake it and I only see what you see. Jesus if you only said what the Father said, and you only did what you saw the Father do, and you said, follow me, then surely your grace is sufficient for us. So let your grace come now God, I've got to have your love, and I receive it now."
I'm telling you that spouse thing I said, I felt that jolt a few folks...we think we have a right to be hurt, and I'm telling you that's deception. We have a right to hurt for people that aren't walking in God. Because if you're right with God, you don't have a problem, your spouse is in trouble.
A man walked into my office many years ago. His wife got on the internet and thought she found 'love.' She got mystified; she filed for divorce in no time and walked out of the house of her husband and two small children to live with a man that she never met. He was broken for a whole week in his bedroom, screaming and yelling at the walls, "How God?! And Why God?! How could this happen?! Why would you let this happen?! My heart is broken, you've got to bring her back! God, how could you let this happen to me?!" Five long days and sleepless nights he screamed like a madman in his bedroom, his life rocked, his world devastated. After five long days, the voice of Almighty God came into his bedroom backed by the presence of an amazing God and he said, "Clarence, would you stop praying that way you don't have a problem." He looked at the ceiling and said, "What? is this some kind of joke?! What do you mean I don't have a problem? I’m holding divorce papers, my children don't have a mother and my wife is in the arms of another man and you say I don't have a problem!!" "Clarence, you don't have a problem, your wife is in trouble, would you pray for her?" He come running into my office, crying so hard and my mind said, 'here we go, this is going to be tough because I've got to preach the gospel that I know.' And he looks at me and says, "Pastor, don't look so alarmed, I'm not crying for me anymore, I've heard from the Lord." He said, I don't have a problem, God is bigger than what has happened. My wife is in trouble." He began to pray and intercede after a quite a long time she came back into town, they got connected, he told her "I love you and I don't see you as if you ever went away. I love you. " They got reconnected and found out she was pregnant not to Clarence and he said, life comes from God, if I've forgiven your sin, then I embrace you and what's in your belly, and I will be the daddy because God is love."
Oh that we would understand that we love not our own lives unto death and because of that, we are untouchable. Oh that we would understand we love not our own lives unto death. What shall I fear, the Lord is my helper, what shall man do to me? God that we would understand. Let go for justification for pain, offenses and hurt, wooo, this is going to be strong...that we step out of the enemy's camp and mindset and emotions and enter yours.
True story about that man, it wrecks me every time I think about it. I had no plan to share it but it seemed important to Holy Spirit. Why am I hurt? Why am I offended if I love? God's arms aren't crossed with his face turned in a scowl saying I can't believe they did that, I can't believe they went there. God is hurting for his children that are lost. Be merciful as I am merciful. Freely you have received, freely give.
Hosea, I want you to go marry Gomer and I want you to bring her into your house to be your wife because I want to prophesy to my children Israel for they've all played the spiritual harlot and they've all had many lovers but I love them. Yes, Lord. Some time goes by and Gomer's back out where she used to be. What do you mean what should you do? Go back out and get her and bring her home because my message to Israel is you can't make me stop loving you.
You say, Dan that will open the door for people to live unaccountable and loose. No, my bible says the goodness, the true goodness of God leads man to repentance and I believe the word over how we feel. Love will break men down and bring them to their knees. I'm telling you all you gotta do is say, "Lord, I'm willing to take this step of faith and let go of myself tonight. I give up the right to be offended. I give up the right to be vulnerable. Tonight, I sit, kneel, stand before you and say, I love not my own life unto death, give me grace to show me what it means. I surrender to You.
Why give transgressions a voice when love covers a multitude of sins. Why would we give it a voice now that the light has come?
Every mindset of counseling would freak out at what I'm saying but the gospel understands, Jesus understands what I'm saying. I remember hearing He's the Spirit of Counsel, He's the Spirit of mine, He's the Spirit of love. I'm preaching some intense true analogies and I see now why cause God's saying to you, "do you want my heart or do you want to hold onto yours? " I'm going to say it straight. One is a heart of freedom and one is bound. Oh my God, I hear God giving us a choice. Are we going to sit here and say, "I don't want that, I can't handle that, I won't and possess the right to your own heart and maybe only incorporate Him into your life or are we willing to say, 'you know what, my life is yours I want your heart. God I want your heart.'
He who does not love does not know God because he is love...and in this the love of God was manifested towards us that he sent His Only son into the world that we might live through him. I can't live through him and bypass his heart. Holy Spirit come, come and make me your love. In this is love, not that we loved God, but that He loved us and He sent His Son for us, He showed us mercy. Beloved, if God so loved us, we ought to love one another. No one has seen God at any time but if we love one another, God abides in us and His love has been perfected in us. We have known and believed the love that God has for us for God is love and he who abides inlove abides in God and God in him.
It almost sound redundant but it's not...I'm just reading over and over, one scripture after another...it must be important. Love has been perfected in this, we have boldness in the day of judgment because as he is so are we become. You want that? You willing to forgive, church? Are you willing to ask grace to come and overtake you? I'm telling you, we can't cry out for a city until we see it's value, right? Until we really love like he loves we can't effectively pray like we want to. We can see the need and we can cry out because of the need, we can watch the news and see a gang and this and that and pray and go against it because we disagree with it, but God loves them. You cry because they're lost. You cry because they're deceived. You say, OH God, this can't be, bring change. Not just for our sake, but for their sake. We've got to have his heart. Come Great Spirit of God and baptize us in your love. I want to have the capacity of the Spirit of God to embrace a man that crossed that line with my wife. Because God embraced me when I crossed that line with him. Does that give my permission to be this or that and another? That's between her and God. I believe different. I believe I'm called tolove, not justify my way around it. My issue is Love. Are you hearing this? Do you really want this? Tell Him you want this. I becomelove. I become love. I become love.
See the value of people around you and feel what God feels. Not be disgruntled by them and say, boy we need to pray for them. But look at them and say, MY God, they don't understand the precious gift of life slipping away, it's so frivolous and empty, there's so much more to them, God have mercy on my family because of the value you placed on them. Make a draw on the glory of God that has been destined for their lives, because you love them. You don't pray for somebody because they irritate you. You don't pray for somebody because they haven't shown you respect. You pray for somebody because they're not seeing what they're called to see and they're not living what they're called to live. Don't pray from the point of what you see going on...pray by the grace of God and the love of God. Don't give men the right to hurt you because you've become love.
As he is so are we....
Be imitators of God...blamelessness, harmlessness..walk in love just as Christ has loved you and given himself for you...
I want your heart, God.
There's so much talk about love in the body of Christ and we know God is love and we're called to just not be love but to become love. But you and I don't have the ability to look at somebody and make our self see their value. We don't have the ability to see someone hurting and just care like God cares without the help of God. But what we do have is the ability to yield our heart to him and say, "I want your heart to possess me."
See you can't effectively, seriously, you can't effectively, like God wants to, you can't effectively intercede for your city without loving your city and the people of it. You can't pray for your city cause you're disgusted with it, that doesn't move God. You can't effectively pray for your spouse because you're frustrated with your spouse. You can only pray for your spouse effectively because you see their value and the love of God towards them. Faith works through love. You can't just effectively pray for the sick because they have need and you're supposed to pray. Faith works through love. And I heard the phrase "baptism of love" is God's love towards us and it's very powerful.
If you will yield your heart and just say: "I want to be love. I surrender my opinions and my right to be anything less than love and I receive the grace of God to see through Your heart and become that love."
Baptism of love means immersed into, dipped into the heart of God.
We can't love like He loves without His grace. You can't look out on your city and see the value it possesses without God putting His eye inside of yours. You can watch the news and know we need help and you can pray, but He wants us to see what He sees, feel what He feels. And if you're willing, if you'll just say "I'm yours, I give up my rights in this life except one, the right to possess your heart and become your love." This is really scriptural. May the Lord make you abound and increase in love, one to another and to all. I have no need to write to you for you yourselves are taught by God to love one another. Guess who puts love in us...Holy Spirit is going to make you aware of in the conviction light of God, not condemnation that is never God...you are going to be aware of things that you have held onto in thought, in belief, in whatever that has hindered love, even though you're born again Christian and you will have the privilege at that moment it comes to light you'll just say: God, I release that. Thanks for showing me, my God."
Holy Spirit come in this place.Baptize us in your heart. Baptize us in your love. If faith works through love, Lord, I've got to become who you are. It's not by my works, Lord, it's by your grace I can't make my heart a heart of love, but tonight I can yield to you. Here I am, for you.
God didn't come to just love His church, He came to make us love. I'm telling you if you want to cry for your city, you can. If you want to cry for your neighbor, the grace is here tonight. If you want to see the value of the people you work with, that grace is in the room tonight. This is the message that you have heard from the beginning, you should love one another. We know that we've passed from death to life because we love one another. By this we know love, that he laid down his life for us, we ought to lay down our lives for one another. This is the commandment, that we should believe on the name of his Son Jesus Christ and love one another as he gave us commandment.
Come Holy Spirit.
"Beloved, would you let us love one another, for love is of God and everyone who loves is born of God and knows God."
I want to know you God, for God is love.
"Father in my own strength, I can't make my heart love, I yield to your grace, I yield to you Holy Spirit tonight and I accept the baptism. Just like I received the baptism of the Holy Spirit, I yield to a baptism of love and I allow myself by faith to be immersed in your heart. I yield my vision to you so that you overtake it and I only see what you see. Jesus if you only said what the Father said, and you only did what you saw the Father do, and you said, follow me, then surely your grace is sufficient for us. So let your grace come now God, I've got to have your love, and I receive it now."
I'm telling you that spouse thing I said, I felt that jolt a few folks...we think we have a right to be hurt, and I'm telling you that's deception. We have a right to hurt for people that aren't walking in God. Because if you're right with God, you don't have a problem, your spouse is in trouble.
A man walked into my office many years ago. His wife got on the internet and thought she found 'love.' She got mystified; she filed for divorce in no time and walked out of the house of her husband and two small children to live with a man that she never met. He was broken for a whole week in his bedroom, screaming and yelling at the walls, "How God?! And Why God?! How could this happen?! Why would you let this happen?! My heart is broken, you've got to bring her back! God, how could you let this happen to me?!" Five long days and sleepless nights he screamed like a madman in his bedroom, his life rocked, his world devastated. After five long days, the voice of Almighty God came into his bedroom backed by the presence of an amazing God and he said, "Clarence, would you stop praying that way you don't have a problem." He looked at the ceiling and said, "What? is this some kind of joke?! What do you mean I don't have a problem? I’m holding divorce papers, my children don't have a mother and my wife is in the arms of another man and you say I don't have a problem!!" "Clarence, you don't have a problem, your wife is in trouble, would you pray for her?" He come running into my office, crying so hard and my mind said, 'here we go, this is going to be tough because I've got to preach the gospel that I know.' And he looks at me and says, "Pastor, don't look so alarmed, I'm not crying for me anymore, I've heard from the Lord." He said, I don't have a problem, God is bigger than what has happened. My wife is in trouble." He began to pray and intercede after a quite a long time she came back into town, they got connected, he told her "I love you and I don't see you as if you ever went away. I love you. " They got reconnected and found out she was pregnant not to Clarence and he said, life comes from God, if I've forgiven your sin, then I embrace you and what's in your belly, and I will be the daddy because God is love."
Oh that we would understand that we love not our own lives unto death and because of that, we are untouchable. Oh that we would understand we love not our own lives unto death. What shall I fear, the Lord is my helper, what shall man do to me? God that we would understand. Let go for justification for pain, offenses and hurt, wooo, this is going to be strong...that we step out of the enemy's camp and mindset and emotions and enter yours.
True story about that man, it wrecks me every time I think about it. I had no plan to share it but it seemed important to Holy Spirit. Why am I hurt? Why am I offended if I love? God's arms aren't crossed with his face turned in a scowl saying I can't believe they did that, I can't believe they went there. God is hurting for his children that are lost. Be merciful as I am merciful. Freely you have received, freely give.
Hosea, I want you to go marry Gomer and I want you to bring her into your house to be your wife because I want to prophesy to my children Israel for they've all played the spiritual harlot and they've all had many lovers but I love them. Yes, Lord. Some time goes by and Gomer's back out where she used to be. What do you mean what should you do? Go back out and get her and bring her home because my message to Israel is you can't make me stop loving you.
You say, Dan that will open the door for people to live unaccountable and loose. No, my bible says the goodness, the true goodness of God leads man to repentance and I believe the word over how we feel. Love will break men down and bring them to their knees. I'm telling you all you gotta do is say, "Lord, I'm willing to take this step of faith and let go of myself tonight. I give up the right to be offended. I give up the right to be vulnerable. Tonight, I sit, kneel, stand before you and say, I love not my own life unto death, give me grace to show me what it means. I surrender to You.
Why give transgressions a voice when love covers a multitude of sins. Why would we give it a voice now that the light has come?
Every mindset of counseling would freak out at what I'm saying but the gospel understands, Jesus understands what I'm saying. I remember hearing He's the Spirit of Counsel, He's the Spirit of mine, He's the Spirit of love. I'm preaching some intense true analogies and I see now why cause God's saying to you, "do you want my heart or do you want to hold onto yours? " I'm going to say it straight. One is a heart of freedom and one is bound. Oh my God, I hear God giving us a choice. Are we going to sit here and say, "I don't want that, I can't handle that, I won't and possess the right to your own heart and maybe only incorporate Him into your life or are we willing to say, 'you know what, my life is yours I want your heart. God I want your heart.'
He who does not love does not know God because he is love...and in this the love of God was manifested towards us that he sent His Only son into the world that we might live through him. I can't live through him and bypass his heart. Holy Spirit come, come and make me your love. In this is love, not that we loved God, but that He loved us and He sent His Son for us, He showed us mercy. Beloved, if God so loved us, we ought to love one another. No one has seen God at any time but if we love one another, God abides in us and His love has been perfected in us. We have known and believed the love that God has for us for God is love and he who abides inlove abides in God and God in him.
It almost sound redundant but it's not...I'm just reading over and over, one scripture after another...it must be important. Love has been perfected in this, we have boldness in the day of judgment because as he is so are we become. You want that? You willing to forgive, church? Are you willing to ask grace to come and overtake you? I'm telling you, we can't cry out for a city until we see it's value, right? Until we really love like he loves we can't effectively pray like we want to. We can see the need and we can cry out because of the need, we can watch the news and see a gang and this and that and pray and go against it because we disagree with it, but God loves them. You cry because they're lost. You cry because they're deceived. You say, OH God, this can't be, bring change. Not just for our sake, but for their sake. We've got to have his heart. Come Great Spirit of God and baptize us in your love. I want to have the capacity of the Spirit of God to embrace a man that crossed that line with my wife. Because God embraced me when I crossed that line with him. Does that give my permission to be this or that and another? That's between her and God. I believe different. I believe I'm called tolove, not justify my way around it. My issue is Love. Are you hearing this? Do you really want this? Tell Him you want this. I becomelove. I become love. I become love.
See the value of people around you and feel what God feels. Not be disgruntled by them and say, boy we need to pray for them. But look at them and say, MY God, they don't understand the precious gift of life slipping away, it's so frivolous and empty, there's so much more to them, God have mercy on my family because of the value you placed on them. Make a draw on the glory of God that has been destined for their lives, because you love them. You don't pray for somebody because they irritate you. You don't pray for somebody because they haven't shown you respect. You pray for somebody because they're not seeing what they're called to see and they're not living what they're called to live. Don't pray from the point of what you see going on...pray by the grace of God and the love of God. Don't give men the right to hurt you because you've become love.
As he is so are we....
Be imitators of God...blamelessness, harmlessness..walk in love just as Christ has loved you and given himself for you...
I want your heart, God.
