Pursue love, yet desire earnestly spiritual gifts, but especially that you may prophesy. 1 Corinthians 14:1.
Today your LORD (יהוה) God (אלהים) says:
Life is as easy or as hard as you make it for yourself and others. Many of you make things way too complicated because your mind is always below and not above where you are seated with Christ at My right hand.
Therefore if you have been raised up with Christ, keep seeking the things above, where Christ is, seated at the right hand of God. Set your mind on the things above, not on the things that are on earth. For you have died and your life is hidden with Christ in God. Colossians 1:1-2.
Look at what really matters, what at the end of your life in the window of time will be important as you walk over with Me into eternity. I have told you that anything done other than with the motive of love means nothing to Me for it is not eternal. 1 Corinthians 13:1-3; 1 Corinthians 3:10-15. Remember I made you in My image and according to My likeness and I am love and who I am is My purpose and that is your purpose as well. Together we are love, which is the strongest power in the world and not just the world but in all places and things in heaven and on earth. Love is above all and before all and never fails. So if you want to focus on what really matters begin with focusing on love.
Then the question is what is love and how do you focus on it throughout your day and night? I think in love, talk in love, and walk in love and all else is foreign to Me and cannot enter or dwell in Me. And I tell you to imitate Me as My dear children and walk in love. And I give you Jesus as your focus to see how love operates in your humanity. And what do you see Jesus doing? He was careful to match His Words with Mine and do the works I showed Him to do.
He unwaveringly kept His eyes on Me through prayer, applying My Words that exactly fit the situation at hand, and looking at all people as My plan and creation with understanding and compassion. He came to save you not to judge you. He looked at the potential in each person, the plan I had for them, and the gifts I put in them, He looked through to see the heart. In other words He had joined His heart with Mine and matched His way of encouraging people to be who I made the to be with Mine.
And you have a good example of this in how I spoke with Gideon. He had a very low opinion of himself as weak and he operated in fear, believing himself unable to take authority over the enemy. When I greeted him I called him a mighty champion with the strength of an entire army, in Hebrew a gibbor (גִּבּ֥וֹר) hayil (הֶחָֽיִל), and at first he doubted I could possibly mean him, but working with Me that is just what he became. I drew out of him who I had made him to be, the real him, by My Word. I did the same with Abraham, Moses, Isaiah, Jeremiah, Mary, Peter, Paul, and myriads of those whose stories you will only know in Heaven but that cloud of witnesses surrounds you even now, cheering you on, for all are alive in Me.
And what does love look like in the flesh in Jesus?
You know of Jesus of Nazareth, how God anointed Him with the Holy Spirit and with power, and how He went about doing good and healing all who were oppressed by the devil, for God was with Him. Acts 10:38.
I sent Him to seek out and save the lost, Luke 19:10, and to undo the work of the devil done in your lives, 1 John 3:8, by giving you authority over all evil, Luke 10:19, and bringing you to newness of life, abundant life, the life that is life indeed. John 10:10. The devil is a thief of all that I give you if you let him take it and do not resist him by enforcing and standing on the truth of My Word.
The thief comes only to steal and kill and destroy; I came that they may have life, and have it abundantly. John 10:10.
And to give you a focus in this by which to capture your thoughts to line up with your purpose I define love for you.
Love is patient and kind. Love is not jealous or boastful or proud or rude. It does not demand its own way. It is not irritable, and it keeps no record of being wronged. It does not rejoice about injustice but rejoices whenever the truth wins out. Love never gives up, never loses faith, is always hopeful, and endures through every circumstance. Love never fails. 1 Corinthians 13:4-8.
So the first place to focus is your purpose to be love, which leads to fellowship with Me and those in the body of Christ, and to being fruitful, producing the fruit of the Spirit in all you do as a branch on the vine of Christ. You are to bloom in grace and bear fruit in grace by being filled with the Holy Spirit that flows into your heart constantly the more firmly attached you are to the vine of Christ. And you attach to and abide in that vine by remaining in, continuing in, and doing My Word.
So Jesus was saying to those Jews who had believed Him, “If you continue in My word, then you are truly disciples of Mine; and you will know the truth, and the truth will make you free.” John 8:31-32.
I am My Word and Jesus is My Word and you were formed by and from My Word but you become the person of your own word. If you choose to align your words with Mine, which in Greek is “homologia,” that is, speaking in agreement with My Words then the fruit of your lips becomes the harvest of the fruit of your life.
“And the one on whom seed was sown on the good soil, this is the man who hears the word and understands it; who indeed bears fruit and brings forth, some a hundredfold, some sixty, and some thirty.” Matthew 13:23
Love sets you free to be the you I made you to be.
Jesus answered them, “Truly, truly, I say to you, everyone who commits sin is the slave of sin. The slave does not remain in the house forever; the son does remain forever. So if the Son makes you free, you will be free indeed.” John 8:34-36.
I have lavished My grace upon you in Christ Jesus and by that grace I have brought you into My secret, holy place by a new a living way that Isaiah termed the “Highway of Holiness.” For you have redemption, the forgiveness of all your sins, by His blood. I have laid My hand upon your head and heart, My shalom peace to there impart, for those who walk with Me in love will bring down showers of blessing from above. All are blessed by one who loves.
I have made you a fortress of shalom and poured My love into your heart by the gift of the Holy Spirit. No evil can penetrate the mind or heart of one who has given their heart and soul and body into My care. I have given you the mind of Christ and given you His heart to replace your heart of stone so that I can abide in you and you in Me. I tabernacle with you so that all we do we do together. Doing things with Me makes your life so much better than if you try to do them alone for Me, or let Adam, without Me by his own choice.
The problem is that people do not know Me or who they are in Christ because they do not read and study the Word for themselves with My Spirit. They are more interested in the things of the world that are full of empty show. But if you look into My Word, which is the perfect law of liberty, you will become a new person that will make your life full of beauty and amazing encounters. Impossible things become possible, like they did for anyone who walked any amount of time with Jesus. Everything changed in their lives for the better.
You are not trying to get things from Me, it has pleased Me to give you the Kingdom. Come to know and believe in the love I have for you. Focus on that and be loved, forgiven, healed, prospered, blessed and favored. And yet many of you were trained to bombard Me with novenas, prayers of begging entreaty like I have all the good things and you must cajole and beg Me to give them out to you, especially if you keep begging Me and saying rote phrases for a certain number of days. That is totally unscriptural. It has please Me to bless you with every spiritual blessing in Heaven so you could come with confidence to My throne of grace and receive them and find them with love. It has pleased Me to raise you up with Christ and seat you with Him and Me at My right hand in the position of authority and power. It has pleased Me to give you the abundance of grace and the gift of righteousness so that you reign in life through Christ Jesus. It has please Me to anoint your head with the oil of joy by My Spirit and to fill your cup until it overflows. It has pleased Me to put all your sins on Jesus and forgive you of everything the divided us. It has pleased Me to put all sickness, disease, pain, shame, and your sins on Jesus and give you His healing, health, pain free body and soul, and His righteousness. He redeemed you from the curse of the law (sickness, poverty and eternal death) by becoming a curse for you and gave you the Blessing of Abraham and the promise of the Spirit by faith. He gives you eternal life and that is pure joy and that is love in action before your eyes and in your heart.
I love you. Give Me the opportunity to express My heart in, with, and through you. Focus on love, focus on praise, focus on everyone getting saved and that is what really matters so now go and live accordingly, it is a delightful way to walk. And in our next life lesson we will explore “focus on praise.”