Do you Perceive (Know) God's Love?
Enough to Make Others Perceive It Too?
Captain Kelly Durant Re: 1-30-10
1 John 3:16
16 Hereby perceive we the love of God, because he laid down his life for us: and we ought to lay down our lives for the brethren.
They say that money can buy a dog, but only love can make his tail wag!
You and I would not be here today if it were not for us knowing (perceiving)God's love! In order to serve and love God and love each other we must experience it through someone! Love is contagious!
Love, in reality is abstract, it is not an object like a pen that you hold and use. But we see love through actions, we feel it, we understand and experience it and know it through relationships and deeds of kindness! Our relationships with others and with God!
Love is everything! Without love, where would you be right now? Without love there would not exist families, nor friends, nor happiness, nor health, nothing would exist because it was with love God that created everything! And it is love that He wants back from us! God wants us to love Him and others as ourselves above (above!) everything!
It was the pure love of God through Jesus that brought the saving of souls and love heals broken bodies. Humanity has never been the same ever since Jesus gave His love!
It was God's love that changed my life and I have been looking for a chance to share God's love with someone everyday ever since then!
16 Hereby perceive we the love of God, because he laid down his life for us: and we ought to lay down our lives for the brethren.
How do we perceive God's love? How does perceiving that Jesus loved us so much that He died on the cross to erase our sins change us so that we too will love that much too?
In this verse we first study that we must perceive the love of God. How do we perceive? We know the story of what Jesus did, how He humbly came down from heaven to love us, heal us, and then died for us to give us eternal life through his sacrifice.
But how do you take perception or knowledge and allow it to transform your heart into a copy of what it absorbed?
How did you or I capture the message of Jesus' love? You and I know about God's love because someone loved us enough to invest their interest and passion for Jesus into us! Someone helped you and I understand the importance and significance of the getting our soul saved from self-destruction and hell!
The Greek meaning of love is this:
?ginw/skw ?ginosko (ghin-oce'-ko); to "know" (absolutely) - allow, be aware (of), feel, (have) know (-ledge), perceived, be resolved, can speak, be sure, understand.
Griego: ?ginw/skw ?ginosko (ghin-oce'-ko);
conocer (totalmente)-permitir, estar conciente, sentir, tener la percepcion o conocimeinto, estar resuleto, capaz de hablar de algo, seguridad, comprensión
Someone helped us discover God's word, the Bible! We perceived it by knowledge, by communication, and by someone's love, and that transmission (or transfer of information with love) is what caused our light bulb to turn on (the eureka) of how Jesus love is so amazing!
Love is transferred from one person to the next! One time I had a funny experience and I will use it to explain how transfers of inspiration can happen. It is more than just knowledge.
I had an experience of going into a McDonalds and some people were laughing hysterically at a table. Nobody knew why. Before you knew it others were laughing at them from other tables. Then the cashiers started laughing. Then myself and everyone was laughing and laughing. Every person that walked in looked around like what is going on and started laughing. It was a moment like I had never experienced! Everyone was just overwhelmed with laughter!
Love is like that, it takes affect and everyone notices the good feeling and everyone around you wants to be a part of it! First comes the knowledge of Jesus, then the Holy Spirit confirms in our spirit this is real authentic love! We then practice & share it!
Jesus love should take over your life totally and make you lovingly contagious! It is not just laughter but acts of kindness done in love that make God's people outstanding, and loving people! Love is serving in disasters, and serving everywhere all the time!
Getting your life back is an act of love from God! And that is what Jesus does for you!
Think about how getting your body rescued by someone, being an act of love, can change your life totally!
Like the people in Haiti right now! Like the girl that was found after 15 days! Imagine you are under thousands of pounds of rubble and one, two, three, four and more days go by and you accept the fact you are going to die but then someone saves you and pulls you out! If you have a new start by someone's love and care, that's love at work and what a life change! John 12:24
24 Verily, verily, I say unto you, Except a corn of wheat fall into the ground and die, it abideth alone: but if it die, it bringeth forth much fruit.
I read once where they did studies on people who had near death experiences. They die on the operating table for a few minutes and they see the light and tunnel and/or an angel. These people almost always change their selfish ways. Their priorities usually shift completely! They value people more, appreciate the good things in life, they become unselfish and sacrificial.
I found a researcher who studied and wrote about this: Kenneth Ring who has identified a consistent set of value and belief changes associated with people who have had a near-death experience. "Among these changes we find: a greater appreciation for life, higher self-esteem, greater compassion for others, a heightened sense of purpose and self-understanding, desire to learn, elevated spirituality, greater ecological sensitivity and planetary concern, and a feeling of being more intuitive."
To know Jesus love is like having a near death (or death) experience, one that overwhelms you so much it changes everything about the way you think, live, and perceive! With love, you can restart life with nothing, no material goods, but you do not care, because you have love!
In space there are bright stars giving off tremendous amounts of light and there are black holes that suck up the all light around them. People are the same, some fuel you with the light of love and some suck you dry taking love but never returning it.
I can tell you about when I was 21 and how God's love impacted me from a near death experience from drugs. I knew about Christianity, I had grown up going to church until age 14, but when I was 21 I was away from God. I was living a selfish life, I was immature and loved only myself.. Did you read my testimony in the magazine?
I knew about God here (head) but I didn't (know) perceive God's love in my heart!
In my life and yours, in the past and present, there are those who impress with their love and light me and those that do not. There is a contrast between Christians who have sincere love and concern, especially for sinners, and between others who do not.
In I Jn 3:16 we should become like Jesus in that we also learn to give our lives, we lay down our lives, for others in love. It is an effect like a chain reaction when you get saved, all you want to do is save another person doing whatever it takes! Your happiness, love, dedication and peace is so noticeable that everyone asks, what is it you have!
You and I perceive Jesus' love with passion and sincerity. In my past my missionary friends gave me an example of Jesus love by how they laid down their lives in service to others! Before I never had met those with a proof of dedication, of laying down their lives for others.
If people can believe that you love them, then they can believe that God loves them!
Do you see how the new people in the church need our love, prayers, passion, us laying down our lives for them so they will perceive God's love?
You and me, all of us need love! I caught the love and the conviction from God's word, that I too must to lay down my life for others! God's love through others changed me!
Now ask yourself, do I share God's love with others powerful enough that the people get impressed that I am laying down my life? People say, Right, The Captains, they have to love everybody, that is their duty, that is their job, but ask yourself, am I really kind and concerned for the brothers, those here in the church, for both new and old members?
Some of you are laying down your lives in love for the brethren and others here in this Corps. But I know there are still some here, as there will always be everywhere, those who think they do not need to serve certain people. Sometimes silence or indifference or the lack of love from a few in a Church can be like a bad apple, it can spoil the rest of the other new apples getting in the barrel!
If you are like a black hole sun absorbing but not giving love, God will accuse you of not knowing Him and of being a liar. Jesus laid down His life and He expects the same!
The Word says: 1 John 4:20
20 If a man say, I love God, and hateth his brother, he is a liar: for he that loveth not his brother whom he hath seen, how can he love God whom he hath not seen?
What kind of a person are you? One with love that will lay down their lives for others as Jesus did? No one needs comfortable Christians who do nothing for anyone but their selves, there is already enough of those, we need radically different Christians who are willing to go the extra mile with someone to show someone to show a supernatural love, especially when there's a need! God and you know how loving or unloving you are!
1 John 4:7
7 Beloved, let us love one another: for love is of God; and every one that loveth is born of God, and knoweth God.
My prayer is that you will keep on being transformed everyday by His love, and if you have not known much love in your life, today is an opportunity for you to know God's love just by asking for the transformation by his supernatural Holy Spirit!
Ask God today, am I worthy of your love? Do I love you, God in return as much as you want me to? Do I love the brethren as you commanded me to do in I jn 3:16? Do I love the prostitutes and sick as Jesus did? If you have few actions to back up your words then you are not deceiving yourself! Will you decide to start laying down your life for your brethren today? Love!
