Study Notes

FOUNDATION STATEMENT:  As believers to develop in the love of God we must commit to exercise the love of God in our lives. 

 

I.      The love of God has been poured out in your hearts by way of the Holy Spirit

A.    Ezekiel 36:26, 11:19 – I’m going to put the ability in you to do what I’m commanding you to do

1.      We need to major on the law of Jesus

a.    John 13:34 – This is the law of Jesus

1)       John 14:15,21, 15:10 – He said my commands

2)       When he referred to the 10 commandments he said, “You know THE COMMANDMENTS.”

2.      All the ten are fulfilled when you do this one (Romans 13:8, Galatians 5:14)

B.     The agape love of God has been poured out in our hearts by way of the Holy Spirit (Romans 5:5)

1.      The ability to walk in agape has been deposited on the inside of you if you’re born again

a.    You don’t need the love of God, you have all of it on the inside of you

b.    The same love that the Father loved Jesus with is on the inside of you (John 17:26)

C.    God gave you a commandment and He would never command you to do something and not give you the ability to do it (Matthew 22:37, John 13:34)

1.      Luke 9:1-2 – He called, he empowered, and then he sent

2.      God would never command you to love and then not give you the ability to do so

a.    “I can’t do it is no longer an excuse.” 

II.     Love is a fruit of the spirit, so it can grow and must be developed in your life (Galatians 5:22)

A.    A muscle that is not used will never develop and become stronger.  The more you use it the stronger it will become.

1.      You can take a muscle that is not very strong, and through exercise and discipline that muscle will become stronger

B.     We must exercise the muscle of Love (1 Timothy 4:7)

1.      Exercise so that you can develop in being more like God who is love

2.      Development will not come without exercise

a.    Whatever you do you will develop in and you cannot develop in that, which you do not do

1)       If you do love, you will develop in love, If you do strife you will develop in strife

3.      Exercise – portrays a person who wants change so much that they are willing to put themselves through vigorous, demanding, strenuous, discipline to bring about the change they desire

a.    The development of a muscle requires that pressure be put against that muscle and then under the pressure that muscle must resist it if it wants to develop – That’s why exercising is uncomfortable

1)       The only way to develop a muscle is when the pressure is put on

2)       Without pressure development cannot be obtained

3)       You can do things before the pressure shows up that will help you to exercise the right way under that pressure, but ultimately development will only take place when that muscle is exercised under pressure

C.    We must begin to confront pressure that when our love walk is challenged we confront the pressure and stay in love

1.      When you are under pressure and tempted to violated the law of love if you will exercise the agape that’s already in you, that agape will develop

a.    Just like that bicep muscle is there even though it may not be seen, love is there even if it can’t be seen

b.    When you exercise that muscle under pressure that muscle will develop strength and that pretty soon lifting that amount of weight won’t be as hard as it used to be

c.     You can develop this love in you to the point that it won’t be so hard to love people anymore because you’re muscle is developed

2.      At some point you’re going to have to love when you don’t feel like loving if you’re every going to develop

a.    If you are never chose to love under pressure, then you will not develop in the love of God

D.    We’ve got to go to work on this love muscle

1.      1 Thessalonians 1:3, Hebrews 6:10 – Your Work of Agape

a.    Love is work and I’m supposed to be working it

1)       It’s a labor, it’s not always easy

b.    We have to work at love, we have to take the time to on purpose to develop this muscle of love in your lives

2.      Philippians 1:9 (AMP) –And this I pray: that your love may abound yet more and more and extend to its fullest development in knowledge and all keen insight [that your love may display itself in greater depth of acquaintance and more comprehensive discernment],

a.    His prayer for us is that our love reaches it’s fullest development.  That our love muscle gets as strong as it can possibly get

b.    1 Thessalonians 3:12 (AMP) – And may the Lord make you to increase and excel and overflow in love for one another and for all people, just as we also do for you,

3.      If there’s no pressure you exercise that love muscle on purpose

a.    When an athlete goes to train he puts his muscles under pressure on purpose

b.    You put your love muscle under pressure on purpose

E.     What developing in the love of God does (John 14:21)

1.      The more that love muscle develops the more

a.    Manifestations we’ll see of the Word

b.    Manifestations will see of Zoe

c.     Power will walk in

d.    The less fear there’ll be and the oppression we’ll see

F.     Love makes the word work, Love makes faith work, Love works to hook you to the anointing, Love will bring prosperity, Love will bring healing, Love will produce days of heaven on the Earth

1.      If you want the change you got to be willing to discipline yourself to such a point that are willing to exercise this love muscle under pressure everyday

2.      If you want the results of that big muscle then you got to be willing to do the exercise and if you want the results of love you got to be willing to do the exercise

III.   Ultimately we can reach a place that love is no longer something that we have to train our flesh to do, but ultimately we can reach a place where our natural reaction is love (Hebrews 5:12-13)

A.    Developing sincere real love (Romans 12:9 AMP)

1.      At first you’re going to have to make yourself love and you’re going to have to do it on purpose because it’s not “a part of you” yet

2.      If you’ll exercise love by practicing loving on purpose you’ll get to a place where you won’t have to try to respond in love because through exercise love has become your natural reaction. 

a.    Through exercise you can develop yourself to a place where love is just who you are.

B.     We need to develop to a place where our automatic response is always love

1.      For everyone who continues to feed on milk is obviously inexperienced and unskilled in the doctrine of righteousness (of conformity to the divine will in purpose, thought, and action), for he is a mere infant [not able to talk yet]! But solid food is for full-grown men, for those whose senses and mental faculties are trained by practice to discriminate and distinguish between what is morally good and noble and what is evil and contrary either to divine or human law.

2.      We get to that place by training in love and practicing love every day of our lives

a.    KJ – By reason of use – You continue to use love and exercise it and develop you’ll reach a place where it’s not a religious exercise, but love is who you’ve become

3.      At first you’ll have to make your flesh do love, but overtime if you’ll continue at that you’ll get to a place where your flesh just automatically does love

a.    Make Love your automatic response

C.    This is going to require discipline on our part to get discipline in the things of love and in the ways of love

1.      There’s got to be a commitment to train in this because if there is no commitment to train you’ll never become automatic in it. 

a.    I can give all the answers that you want to hear, but there’s got to be training taking place. 

2.      This training starts with training our thinking to think love thoughts by confessing the commandment of love

a.    Romans 12:1, Isaiah 55, Romans 8

3.      You have to continue in the love of God to develop in it

a.    John 15:9 – You got to continue in love

b.    Hebrews 13:1 – You got to make love a fixed practice

c.     Ephesians 3:17 – An act of your will

D.    Develop and automatic response called agape (Romans 12:91-21)

1.      Respect other people

2.      Put others above yourself

3.      Give to others to meet their needs

4.      Speak good things over them that persecute you, not bad things

5.      If somebody does you evil, you don’t repay them with evil

6.      Do everything in your power to live in peace with all men

7.      If your enemy is hungry agape, If your enemy is thirsty agape

8.      All’s you’re doing is responding in agape and seeing manifestations in abundance