Study Notes

FOUNDATION STATEMENT: The Commandment of Love is the vital thing in the life of a believer. It is the thing upon which every promise of God’s word hangs. When this commandment fails & slips in the life of a believer, then every promise, every blessing, & every empowerment bestowed on the believer by God is temporary disconnected & shut off. 

 

I.      The operation of every word and every promise in that Bible is hanging and dependent upon the commandment of love (Matthew 22:40)

A.    All of the law and all of the prophets

1.      Law – First five books in the Bible

2.      Prophets – The prophetic books in the Old Testament

3.      When Jesus said this the New Testament wasn’t written yet, but I have to believe if all of that hangs on this, then the New Testament included hangs on this

a.    Parts of the New Testament where prophesied in the Old Testament

B.     God is the Word and God is Love (John 1:1-5, 1 John 4:16)

1.      The Word is Love and Love is the Word

a.    If this commandment of Love is not working, then the Word (which is Love himself) isn’t working either

C.    You cannot be in disagreement with Love and be in agreement with Word and you cannot be in disagreement with Word and be in agreement with the Love

1.      This Word is Love and until you renew your mind to that you’ll continue to be deceived into thinking that you can be careless with the commandment of love and still see the Word of God come to pass in your life

a.    The moment you disagreed with the love of God is the moment that you disagreed with the Word of God

b.    You can’t be in disagreement with love and in agreement with healing, prosperity, victory, deliverance

c.     Christians have desired for years and years to see the promises of God manifest in their lives, but they continue to oppose the very promises they want to see by opposing the very thing that those promises depend upon

2.      To violate the commandment of love is to disagree with and oppose healing, prosperity, victory, deliverance, the anointing

a.    To disagree with love is to agree with sickness, lack, poverty, defeat, depressing, stress, and death (James 3:16)

1)       When you’re in strife and in disagreement with love, you’re in disagreement with the Word and consequently you’re in agreement with the curse

b.    To violate the commandment of love is to agree with and welcome the curse

3.      The ultimate walk of faith is the walk of love

a.    When you’re in agreement with love, you’re in total agreement with the Word

b.    To operate in unbelief is to oppose the Word of God and therefore the love of God

D.    Every promise in this Bible, depends upon love the commandment of love to work

1.      If the operation of the commandment of love is not working in your life then this Bible cannot work for you

a.    EXAMPLE: The way the car depends on the gas, every promise in this book depends on love to work.  Without the gas you can have the best, prettiest, finest automobile on the planet, and it’s useless without gas.  We have the best, prettiest, finest, Book of promises in the world, but every one of those promises depend upon love to work and come to pass in our lives.

b.    Without love working in my life, the Word of God is useless to me

2.      Love is the curtain rod upon which faith hangs, prosperity hangs, peace hangs, joy hangs, the power of God hangs, healing hangs, and victory hangs.

a.    Believers have tried to hang healing up without the rod of love up and don’t get healed.  They’ve wondered why the peace of God isn’t working in their lives, but the rod of love isn’t up.  They’ve wondered why the joy of the Lord is absent from their lives, while the rod of love is sitting on the floor. 

b.    PUT THE ROD BACK UP

3.      We’ve had a church that gets spotted results and then blame their failures on God because they’ve tried to work the principles without the foundation in place that causes all the principles to work and it is the Love of God.

a.    Pray and no results, sow and no result, stand in faith and no result and you wonder why?  I tell you why, because the rod of love that all your prayers, all your seeds, and all your faith hang upon is lying on the ground.  

II.     If the commandment of love is not working in your life, then nothing else works

A.    1 Corinthians 13:1-3

1.      Your praying in tongues is supposed to impart wisdom in your spirit, it’s supposed to build you up on your must holy faith, it’s supposed to edify you and charge your battery, but forget all that if you don’t have love

2.      Your gifts and knowledge and faith without love makes you a useless nobody

a.    Your gifts and knowledge and faith don’t work without love

1)       You can have all of them you want, but without love they won’t work

b.    That means that if the commandment of love is not working in your life, you’re useless to God

1)       God cannot use a person who will not major on the commandment of love

2)       If Love’s not working in your life, then God who is love isn’t working – Love is His way in

3.      You can sow your seed and give everything that you have to feed the poor even to the point that you give your body to be burned, but a seed that is sown when the love of God is not working in your life profits you nothing

a.    If love is not working in your life, you’ll give, and give, and give and give and never see the harvest off of the seed that you’ve sown because love is what makes that seed work and produce a harvest

b.    Matthew 5:23-24 – It profits you nothing to sow a seed when the commandment of love is not working in your life

B.     Faith works by love (Galatians 5:6)

1.      Faith working in your life is dependent upon the love of God and if love is not working faith won’t work

2.      Mark 11:22-25

a.    Jesus is talking about believing and speaking and believing that you receive and he concludes his teaching on that topic that if you have aught against any forgive

b.    In other words you can pray the prayer of faith, speak words of faith and believe you receive and never see any results because if love is not working in your life then your faith isn’t working

C.    The love of God is what makes the armor of God work (Ephesians 6:10)

1.      Before you put on one piece of armor you’d better get in love and be strong in love first, because none of that armor works when love isn’t working. 

a.    That armor is useless without love

b.    You go out to battle and an arrow comes and you lift up your shield and the arrow goes through your shield and sticks you in the arm.  You look up and here comes another arrow at your breastplate and it goes through and sticks you in the shoulder.  You march forward and your belt of truth that is supposed to be holding up your weapons falls down and you lose your weapons.  As your march forward your feet are getting weary, tired, and worn out.  You finally get in striking distance of your enemy and you take your sword and begin to swing it at your enemy, but it’s not affecting him the way it should.

c.     You look like a soldier because you’re out on the battlefield and you’re fighting, but you’re never getting the results that a soldier should get.  You have the form, but not the power. (2 Timothy 3:1-5)

2.      You’re putting on the armor of God, the armor of Love

a.    Put love on first and then try that armor out

III.   Until the Love of God is primary in your life you will continue to live your Christian life with spotted results always having form, but constantly lacking the power to get results

A.    When you neglect the commandment of love you deny the power to get results (2 Timothy 3:1-5)

1.      You have form, but no power because you neglect what’s primary

B.     The love of God must be primary if you want results

1.      Matthew 22:38 – (AMP) – Principal (main, primary, prime, major, most important, key) command, Most important

a.    First – Chronologically or in order of importance, best, chief, beginning – Nothing is better or more important than this, this is the beginning

b.    Great-(Mega) of position, important – positionally there’s nothing greater than this

2.      Colossians 3:14 – Above all these things put on love

3.      1 Peter 4:8 – Above all things put on love

4.      1 Corinthians 12:31 – A gift that is better and higher than them all

a.    AMP-But earnestly desire and zealously cultivate the greatest and best gifts and graces (the higher gifts and the choicest graces). And yet I will show you a still more excellent way [one that is better by far and the highest of them all—love].

5.      1 Corinthians 13:1-4,13 – The greatest is love

6.      1 Corinthians 14:1 – Make love your aim and great quest

a.    Follow after – pursue, pursuing a person on foot in a chase, striving and pressing on to a goal with intensity, press on

b.    AMP EAGERLY PURSUE and seek to acquire [this] love [make it your aim, your great quest];

C.    Why is there such priority on this commandment of Love?

1.      Without it you don’t have peace, you don’t have joy, you don’t have prosperity, you don’t have healing, you don’t have deliverance because all those things hang on this commandment.

a.    When you build a house you start with the foundation first because if you don’t you walls won’t work the way their supposed to work, the roof won’t work the way it’s supposed to work, and nothing will work the way its supposed to work and it won’t be long until you’re in the middle of that house without every part of it piled up on you, not working. 

b.    That’s the picture of Christianity we tried to live our Christian lives without laying the foundation first and now many Christians are just sitting down in middle of the house of their lives with all these great things on top of them not working.  You know they’re supposed to work, but their not.

c.     Psalm 11:3 – If the foundation is there, what can you do? Nothing

2.      When you put your rod back all these things start to work a lot better.

a.    Example: That day on the hill when joy started working

IV.   It’s a commitment to the commandment of Love that will enable you to walk in the fullness of the promises of God (1 Corinthians 13:9)

A.    We might be walking in a partialness of joy, peace, faith, prosperity, and victory, but when the love of God comes on the scene that which is in part will be done a way with and you will experience joy, peace, faith, and victory if fullness like you never have before. 

1.      I’ve had enough parts, I want fullness!!!

B.     Love will take you from partial to fullness

1.      Love will take you from meritocracy to God’s best