Living in the Abundance of God (12 page)

T
o live in the abundance of God is to live as Jesus lived. One of the beautiful dimensions about the life of Jesus is expressed clearly in Matthew 14:14: “And when Jesus went out He saw a great multitude; and He was moved with compassion for them, and healed their sick.” If we miss out on the heart of Jesus for others, we will miss the abundant life He has for us.

What moved Jesus? It was divine compassion rising up in His heart. He felt the divine flow of love flowing out of His spirit. Which way did it flow? It flowed toward the multitudes. When it flowed toward the multitudes, Jesus followed the flow of compassionate love and helped the hurting, sick, fallen, and those tormented by Satan. The end result was that the healing love of God brought deliverance to the suffering people of that day.

Compassion moved Jesus. Love directed His life. It led Him constantly.

The divine flow of God’s love can move you toward the people God wants to reach. We need to watch for the rising of this supernatural love in our hearts and be ready to follow wherever it flows.

One of the most remarkable scriptures in God’s Word is found in 2 John 6: “And what this love consists in is this: that we live and walk in accordance with and guided by His commandments (His orders, ordinances, precepts, teaching). This is the commandment, as you have heard from the beginning, that you continue to walk in love [guided by it and following it]” (
AMP
).

In this verse is found a powerful life principle:
continue to walk in love [guided by it and following it]
. Nothing in all my experience as a Christian, apart from the baptism of the Holy Spirit, has proved richer or more profitable to me personally than the spiritual truth of the power inherent in the divine flow of love.

Another scripture that I find very helpful is this: “And we know (understand, recognize, are conscious of, by observation and by experience) and believe (adhere to and put faith in and rely on) the love God cherishes
for us. God is love, and he who dwells and continues in love dwells and continues in God, and God dwells and continues in him. In this [union and communion with Him] love is brought to completion and attains perfection with us, that we may have confidence for the day of judgment [with assurance and boldness to face Him], because as He is, so are we in this world. There is no fear in love [dread does not exist], but full-grown (complete, perfect) love turns fear out of doors and expels every trace of terror! For fear brings with it the thought of punishment, and [so] he who is afraid has not reached the full maturity of love [is not yet grown into love’s complete perfection]” (1 John 4:16–18
AMP
).

Love goes to the door, opens it, and commands, “Fear, you go out!”

This doesn’t mean you are not a Christian if you have anxieties and fears. It just means that you need to grow a little bit more and learn more of God’s Word.

“We love Him because He first loved us” (1 John 4:19).

God is a great big wonderful God. We cannot put Him in a corner and say, “This is all there is to God.” There are so many scintillating, marvelous rays of the divine personality that we could never capture them all. But one of the richest is this: God is love.

There are two forces in the world—fear and love.

Dread, terror, and fear bring sickness, sorrow, trouble, and anxiety.

On the other hand, there is the kingdom of love. This flow of love brings life, health, and peace.

The enemy would make us believe that the burden of dread and fear that he places on the human heart is sent from God. He tries to make us think that we are trembling at the voice of God, when all the time he is the one who is causing our anxiety.

Some people say, “I can’t understand the difference between the voice of God and the voice of the enemy.” There are some areas where this may be true in a sense, but usually you will find it is the enemy who brings fear, and it is God who brings love.

I never become frightened when my wife says to me, “Darling, I love you.” This doesn’t disturb me. It doesn’t make me tremble or run to a counselor and say, “I am disturbed because my wife says she loves me.” That would be foolishness. It brings comfort and joy to my heart to know that my wife loves me.

Love doesn’t bring fear and torment. Satan does!

When the enemy comes along with his bag of fear, we shake and tremble. “I was afraid” was the excuse of the man who buried his talent in the earth (Matthew 25). Fear caused him to bury his talent rather than use it.

God is not the author of such fear.
God is love!

There is a way in which we should fear God, and this kind of fear is more than just reverence, which is the way we usually think of fearing God. When God tells us to do something, we must do it. Otherwise, we will have to accept the consequences of disobedience to His commands.

As for me, I am not going to fool around with God, because there have been times when I’ve had to learn the hard way. God will put you through one of His grades in the school of life, and you’ll be sure to graduate, because you won’t want to go through that a second time!

God loves those who tremble at His Word. We should be ready to listen to Him.
But this is a different kind of reverence and fear. The fear that the enemy brings has torment.

The deepest desire of my heart is that I might please Him who counted me worthy to be called into His service and to be a useful instrument in His hands. But even greater than my desire to be used by God is His desire to use me. He wants us all to be fruitful Christians, and He wants to help us be fruitful.

Some people say to me, “I would like to feel God.” When they say this, they are usually thinking of some sort of emotional or physical sensation. They want to feel something like an electric current surging through their body as evidence that God is with them. Or they want an experience such as they may have heard about from someone else—fire out of heaven, flashes of lightning, or a bright light shining down from heaven. They think that is the only way to feel God. But that is not the only way. We can feel God’s presence and power in many ways.

God is love. There is a way of feeling God by feeling love. When “the love of God has been poured out in our hearts by the Holy Spirit who was given to us” (Romans 5:5), we are feeling God.

There can come into our lives a flow of divine love and compassion that has nothing to do with our minds. It has nothing to do with our personalities. It is implanted instantaneously and supernaturally in our hearts and rises up in us. Then it flows out of us toward individuals. This is surely the moving of God. When you feel this love, you are feeling God, for God is love.

I remember the first time I felt this divine flow of love—this surging of God’s power. Shortly after I received the baptism of the Holy Spirit, I told my congregation that God is a miracle worker and that I was praying for miracles to take place in our church. However, it didn’t happen, and I cried to the Lord, “Why don’t you confirm your Word, Lord?” I learned that there is a vast difference in telling people that and in preaching the Word of God. The Bible says that the disciples “went out and preached everywhere, the Lord working with them and confirming the word through the accompanying signs” (Mark 16:20). God has not obligated Himself to confirm what I say. He has obligated Himself to confirm what He has said.

The Lord showed this to me and spoke to my heart, “Son, go out on that platform and preach My Word, and I will confirm my Word. I will stand behind My Word.”

I began to do this. Sunday after Sunday, I faithfully preached the Word. Then one Wednesday night God seemed to give me a special anointing, and the scriptures became alive as the words poured from my heart to the congregation. As I began to talk about the Jesus of the Bible, it seemed as though He marched right out of the scriptures from the Gospels and stood in our midst.

Faith began to rise. Suddenly I noticed a girl about twelve or thirteen years of age sitting in the front of the church. She had a clubbed foot and had to wear a special built-up shoe. Her ankle was as stiff as steel. I felt a divine flow of love in my heart streaming out toward this girl. Something welled up in me like a golden bowl full of love. I didn’t think about her being sick or crippled. It was not so much that I was conscious of her being in need of healing. I felt only a supernatural kind of compassion for her. This love just poured out of me, and I felt as if I wanted to go to her and pick her up in my arms.

It was that night, without my even laying hands upon her, that suddenly, as she looked to Jesus, her ankle instantly became normal. A miracle of God took place as a result of the divine flow of love to her.

If you wonder why it happened, know simply that it was God!

God is love, and he who feels love feels God.

The scripture in 2 John 6 states to “continue to walk in love [guided by it and following it]” (AMP).

Do you want to follow God? Then follow love.

Do you want to be guided by the Holy Spirit? Then be guided by love.

Wherever that stream of love flows out, follow it.

Many times over the years I have had it stream out of me toward others, both those near and those far away. I have picked up the phone and called them. If I had been completely honest with them, I would have said, “Friend, there is a stream of love flowing out of me toward you.” But usually I don’t tell them this. I just minister to them on the thing that is on my heart, and I do it in the Name of the Lord Jesus.

God mends hearts. He encourages lives. He works miracles by His love.

Follow love! Be guided by love!

If you wonder,
Where is God? Where is He leading me? To whom does He want me to minister? How will I know?

God is love. Follow love. Be guided by love.

I once heard Oral Roberts tell of the time when he was called to the hospital to minister to the sick baby of one of the employees who worked for him. The child was very near death and had been placed under an oxygen tent. No visitors were allowed; however, Roberts was permitted to go into the room. He could not lift up the oxygen tent to lay hands on the baby and pray for him, so he just reached a finger under the corner of the tent and touched its tiny foot.

As Roberts stood there for what seemed a long time, he felt something wash through him and into the child. God’s love was flowing through him to the baby. The next morning the child was well on its way to recovery!