Two Different Kinds of Love

8/18/1996

(This text begins about 12 minutes into the audio.)

If a person doesn't celebrate the good news of Jesus in His people in a daily, visible sort of way; if they don't live as if they love others and have reverence for one another because they revere the Christ in people, they love the Christ in people, they love the fact that Jesus' blood has bought these people, and so they spend themselves every day for them; if they don't live that way on a daily basis, then it is almost impossible for someone who does live that way to have true fellowship with them. It's like having fellowship with a tree. They see men walking as trees. How can you truly have a relationship with a person that sees men walking as trees? You really can't. So, apart from a person abandoning themselves through the Son in the Body of Christ unless people are willing to do that because that’s where God is found is in loving people because God is love. Unless we’re wiling to live that way it would be very difficult, if not impossible, for those that DO live in fellowship with the Father and the Son and those that are of the Son or of God, a person in that category would have an almost impossible time having true fellowship with a person that will not live that way because of their pride or selfishness or ignorance in their heart due to the hardening of their heart. It would be very difficult to have true fellowship with a tree.

So basically we are stunting our own growth, harming ourselves desperately, and cutting ourselves off from having a love affair with God through the people of God and celebrating that if we live self-centered lives rather than a Christ-centered, anointing-centered life. A life of loving that which is of God in His water and His water in them. Basically, it is even something to repent of if it's not part of our life. We are not agreeing with God and seeing things the way He does, and so we feel isolated. The seed doesn't fall to the ground and die to self-life, but instead everything revolves around me and what I feel and what I think. If the seed doesn't fall to the ground and die, guess what? It abides alone. But if it dies, it abides in the vineyard of God and there is much to show for it: a hundred fathers, mothers, brothers, sisters.

If anybody listening to this as well as anybody here finds themselves isolated in a self-centered way of thinking, there is clearly something you can do to line your heart, mind, and life up with what it means to love people in an abandoned way. Rather than sitting in self-righteous judgment and selfishly pursuing personal habits and concepts and ideas, have the mind of Christ, and find God (who is Love) and truly love other people around you in a daily, visible, minute-by-minute way rather than attending something or believing a set of things. Give your life away. It's a very real thing.