Study Notes

FOUNDATION STATEMENT: As believers we are to love other people the way that God loves us.  When we lack revelation of the Father’s love for us, it will show up in our love for others, and cost us dearly in our lives.  It is a revelation of the Father’s love that will enable you to love other people with that love and see results in your life. - 1 John 4:19-20

 

I.      Your willingness to grow and develop in the character of love will directly determine your ability to get results in your life (Acts 19:13-16)

A.    No Character = No power – No power = No results

1.      Power is the ability to get results

B.     Without the character of love in place in your life you will get no results

1.      Represent God in character and He will represent you in power

2.      Before there is ever going to be a release of God’s power there is always going to be a call for character. 

3.      For us to walk in the power of God like we never have before, we are first of all going to have to walk in the character of love more diligently than ever before. 

4.      The higher you go in character the further you’ll go in power and the more results you’ll see in your life

C.    A CALL FOR CHARACTER

II.     Our ability to love people is limited to the revelation and/or the consciousness that we have of God’s love for us

A.    You first of all must find out how the Father’s love for you, before you are going to be able to love anybody else with that kind of love (John 13:34)

1.      If you don’t know the way that he loved you, then you cannot love others that way

2.      You are limited to the way you can love others, by the revelation and/or consciousness that you have of the Father’s love for you

3.      Your love for others will not go any further than the revelation or consciousness of the Father’s love that you have in your life

B.     We all know that God love us, but the revelation of the way He loves us has not been on the forefront of our minds, consequently we have been falling short in ministering that love to others 

1.      You got to ask yourself all the time, “How does and how did God love me?” and then extend that same love towards others

III.   Let’s remind ourselves of how God loves us and then love others with that kind of love

A.    God’s love for you doesn’t begin with your obedience and end with your disobedience.  His love for you doesn’t start when you start doing what he likes and it doesn’t end when you start doing  something he dislikes (Romans 5:6)

1.      Christ died for the ungodly-The unlovely, the filthy, & the ones that got on his nerves

a.    Ungodly-1 who lacks of reverence towards God, wicked, one who wasn’t like him

b.    God didn’t start loving you when you got everything right; he loved you enough to die for you, when you were doing everything wrong and not even caring about what was right – He died for us when we were wrong

2.      When you were at your worst God loved you enough to die for you-Eph 2:1-6 (AMP)

3.      It doesn’t make sense to love someone who is not worth loving, but God did

a.    It may not make sense to love that person who treated you poorly, who talked about you behind your back, who hurt you, or who gets on your last nerve; but that’s the way He loved you & that’s the way you’re to love others

4.      That loved that moved Jesus to die for a bunch of people who didn’t appear to be worth dying for has been poured out in your hearts by the Holy Ghost

a.    You have the potential to love like this, but potential that is not exercised will never be developed and brought forth 

5.      When you start doing wrong God’s love for you doesn’t stop

a.    God loved you when you were treating Him poorly & not respecting Him & getting on His nerves ; Then your love for others doesn’t begin with them doing right and it doesn’t end with them doing wrong

b.    We want to say that we can’t love them because they don’t act right, the don’t live right, the don’t do right, they get on our nerves, but how many times did we not act right, not live right, and got on God’s nerves, but he kept loving us

B.     God’s love for you is exceedingly patient (Psalm 86:15)

1.      No matter how many times you missed it God just kept on loving you

a.    Longsuffering – forbearing, patient, slow to anger,

b.    Psalm 145:8 – He is not easily annoyed or touchy

2.      Then your love for others is exceedingly patient

a.    Col 3:12-14-That means whatever u do, I can put up with it, & keep on loving you

b.    They may not be saved, they may be getting on your nerves, your flesh may crawl at the sight of them, but your love is exceedingly patient

1)       That means your love towards them is not affected by their consistency in doing wrong or doing what annoys you

c.     Prov 15:18-Be slow to anger & annoyance & it’ill quench strife that’s trying to work

d.    Proverbs 16:32 – He that is slow to anger and operates in the character of love will have access to the power of God

C.    God’s love for you is quick to forgive (Colossians 3:14)

1.      God forgives you of your sin the moment you confess them  (1 John 1:9)

a.    He immediately forgives and washes it from his memory

2.      Colossians 1:14-15 – They are blotted out

a.    Hebrews 10:17, Isaiah 43:25 – I don’t want the remembrance of your wrong to effect the flow of my love in your life

IV.   God’s extended His love towards us and we are obligated to extend that same love towards others (1 John 4:19-20)

A.    What does it mean to love the Father?

1.      To love God is to keep his commandments (1 Jn 5:3, Jn 14:15)

2.      If I don’t love you, then I cannot say that I love the Father b/c to love Him is to keep his commandments and his commandment to me was to love you (1 John 4:20)

B.     I love Him, I keep His commandments, or I love you b/c – THIS IS WHY – He first loved me

1.      I don’t love you because I feel like loving you – I love you because I know the way that he first love me when I was out there acting like a fool and I’m obligated to show you that same kind of love

a.    I know how patient he was with me; I know how long-suffering he was with me; I know how much he put up with; I know how much mercy he showed and how much grace he showed me and that’s why I love you

2.      That’s the way that you begin to exercise love towards others; you develop a consciousness of the Father’s love for you

a.    You think about all the stuff that you’ve done and how many times you must have been getting on God’s nerves.  You need to go back and recollect all the patience and mercy and grace that God showed you.

C.    If God loved us that way, then we ought (to owe, be in debt, obligated) to extend that same kind of love, patience, mercy, and grace towards one another (1 John 4:11)

1.      Romans 13:8 – I owe you my love because of the love that was extended to me

a.    Owe – obligated, owe, ought, must, indebted

b.    I owe you love even if you don’t deserve it, b/c I was shown love even when I didn’t deserve it

2.      Matt 18:22-35-There is a spiritual law here that says whatever is grace & love is granted to you by the Father, you are required to grant that same grace & that same love towards other people

a.    You owe the same love, the same grace, the same patience towards others as God has showed towards you and it’s that character of love that will cause the power to show up