This is by no means an exhaustive teaching on the subject, but the thought I’d like to give here concerns your love life. I hear people sometimes talk about the deep things of God … growing in God … having deep revelations … having new revelations …, but there is no greater revelation than that of love. You’re not likely to grow in God much beyond your love walk. Again, this is not exhaustive, but to some it can serve as a reminder. Scripture tells us that God is Love. Jesus is God manifested in the flesh … as the Word made flesh, so Jesus is Love, the Word is Love. Jesus explained that the greatest commandment is to love God and the second is like the first, to love others. In John 13, Jesus gave a new commandment, to love others as God loves. In the Old Testament, the commandment is to love others as you love yourself, but in John 13, it’s new to now love as God loves others. Both are still commandments, but now through the new birth … that is, being born again with the Spirit of God on the inside through Jesus Christ, the love of God is shed abroad in our hearts by the Holy Ghost. II Corinthians 5:17 says the Christian is a new creation, that is, the spirit is created new by God the moment one confesses Jesus as Lord and believes in the heart that God raised Jesus from the dead. This new child of God, like a babe in Christ, needs to grow and develop. And now, the very love of God is on the inside … in the heart. In Galatians 5, love is the first listed as one of the nine-fold fruit of the spirit. Love is a commandment, but now one that can be kept from the inside … in the heart. The Bible says to put on the new man, which after God, is created in righteousness and true holiness. Love is a decision, apart from feelings and emotions, and now a commandment that the Christian can keep from the heart. Romans 13 says love is the fulfilling of the law and something we always owe and can never have paid up. James 2 calls love the royal law. I could go further and mention many Scriptures. I Corinthians 13 says that you can have all faith, have all revelations, etc., but without love, it’s nothing. Galatians 5:6 tells us that faith works by love. Many, many Scriptures speak of love and how we are to treat others.

How you treat people is very important to God, especially those with whom you have relationships, both spiritual and natural. Relationships are important to God. Your spiritual relationships, your brothers and sisters in Christ, your natural relationships, and even how you treat those outside of the Church … it’s all important to God how you treat people. I understand at times you have to be bold, sometimes confrontational … sometimes you shake the dust off your feet and leave people who will not receive your ministry and testimony of the Gospel of Jesus Christ, but that’s not my focus here. I do mention this, however. This writing is to remind you that overall, we should constantly monitor how we’re treating people … our motives, our emotions, our reasons, and let the love of God dominate and influence us. In 1 Peter 3, we’re told that how we treat our spouses can hinder our prayer lives. The very last verse of the Old Testament mentions relationships, specifically the heart of the fathers towards the children, and the heart of the children towards their fathers. That’s the closing verse of the Old Testament. That alone might indicate its importance.

So, how are you treating people? Is it with kindness? Is it with consideration? Do you wonder how your actions and reactions are making them feel? Do they get hurt? Do they wonder if they’re important or of any worth at all based on how you have treated them? Do they feel small and of little or no value to you? Do you give them attention? Do you try to make them feel like they have value, worth, and importance to you? Something simple like not returning a phone call or an e-mail can cause someone to not feel important to you. Is that something to consider? If you realize you’ve hurt someone, do you do the hard thing and apologize even if you don’t think you did anything wrong? Do you try to reconcile and restore? Do you try to make sure that person’s feelings are important and that person is valuable to you? This by far is more important to God … and to you spiritually … than many of the deep revelations that many are striving for. You won’t likely grow in God much beyond your love walk. I’ll mention here, I’ve been in a healing ministry for over thirty years. I’ve seen many people get healed, but sadly, I’ve seen more who didn’t. This is one reason … for again, faith works by love.

Healing, for example, when experienced through the ministry of another, is often a result of the combination of the anointing and faith. A greater anointing might require less faith. Greater faith might require less anointing. But even then, the healing is kept by the faith of the individual. And God expects more of the Christian who has been saved longer and should know more. He looks at the heart; He looks at the life. Thank God for His mercy! We can appeal to Him for forgiveness and mercy. We can purpose to make things right and have hearts ready to receive. Some, though, have never really learned Bible-faith and what that really is. They’re hoping God will do something some day, or they’re saying they believe that God can, or that He will sometime. So, that person would have difficulty in receiving and keeping their healing, for example. Faith is an important ingredient, absolutely! But again, faith works by love. So many people miss it here. If Jesus ever mentioned anything that would hinder faith, He mentioned unforgiveness. People are too cavalier and casual about their love life … that is, how they treat people … how they forgive people … their relationships … their actions and re-actions and how those affect others. Too many times I’ve seen people do things or say things … or neglect things … that hurt others … and they don’t even seem to consider it. And more importantly, when they realize it or it’s pointed out to them, they still do nothing to correct the situation. They don’t try to repair, restore, or reconcile. Too often, instead of repairing anything, they themselves get offended at the mere mention that they did something wrong and hurt someone else! Humility is clothing that would fit well at a time like this. We should consider the feelings of others instead of just our own emotions. We should act and react on love as a decision instead of our own feelings and emotions. We should consider how our actions affect others. We should use words that are uplifting and also have actions that correspond … to not love in word alone. Let’s love one another.

Tony McCanless

To order this and other tri-fold tracts: http://mccanlessministries.com/books.htm