The Spirit of Unforgiveness vs. God's Love of Agape

How often we as either one of God's children or as an unbeliever encounterd the Spirit of Unforgiveness. Unforgiveness festers into grudges, bitterness, hatreds, revenge which in time takes over our whole manner of living and health. How sad when such actions turn into our representation of the Lord Jesus Christ. As we feel another has committed one fault against us, we are expert at coming right back with either entering into the sin of bitterness, unforgiveness, or gossip trying to get another to be on our side, which explodes into days, months, and years of remembering past wrongs that were committed against us which finally festers in our lives putting us into deep bondage.

As Christ's representatives on this earth, Matthew 6:l2 mentions God's will that we 'forgive one another as God has forgiven us; and, so, of course, our passionate wish is to stay in the obedience of the Lord and forgive...Right? Unfortunately, this hasn't always been the case. Unforgiveness is at epidemic proportions and has been since the fall in the Garden of Eden.

The Good News is Yahweh sent His only begotten Son to bring us a new life through Him. God sent us His Son with a message, “I will love you with all my heart, with all my mind, with all my soul and with all my strength.” He showed this by giving us His life on the cross where He uttered these words,

“Forgive them, Father, for they know not what they do.”...Luke 23:34. On the cross, Jesus gave Himself as an atonement for all our sins..including this great sin of unforgiveness.

God's love came to bring us out of the letter of the law into His grace or unmerited favor from God.

Jesus died on the cross. He was crucified between two thieves. That day, the Love of Agape was lifted up right in the center of those who deserved death. In death, God's Son was located in the center. God's love has always been located in the 'center' of the Lord's Heart towards us. And, when that Agape Love of God becomes manifest in your life, as you take your place by His side, all fear and even feelings of unforgiveness disappear. Amen? Put Jesus and His character in the midst of any trial of life and see your fear, any bitterness, or unforgiveness disappear.

Each one of us are to be 'ministers' and 'God's representatives' as we die daily and allow Him to walk, move, and have His being through our hearts. God wants His Love of Agape to walk, move, and have its existence living through our hearts for all to see. This has always been God's true message and Gospel...His Love of Agape. It is so important to emphasize the fact that we, as Christ's children are God's ambassadors to His very character to one another and the lost not showing the world's hatreds and strife especially amongst our own. How we grieve the Holy Spirit within our hearts.

For those who walk daily in that passionate love affair with the Lord Jesus Christ, I would like to stop and honor you for you have made the decision to humble yourself, bend your knees, and give your life as an offering to God..not 'having' to serve Him as a law or rule but to allow Christ to come forth and show Himself through you to people who are destined to die in their sins. Remember, the Lord is not unrighteous to forget your work and labor of love for not only those in the church but for the lost as well.

In I John 4:l0, it says, 'In this is love, not that we loved God, but that He loved us and sent His Son to be the propitiation for our sins.' This is the true definition of the agape love of the Lord towards us all.

I Corinthians l3 is not the true definition of love. I Corinthians l3 is only a description of God's love.

This is the true definition of God's love...not that we loved God through all our works and keep God's law but that He first loved us.

For much too long, the church has emphasized that we should love God with all our hearts, with all our souls, and with all our hearts, and all our strength. But, the true love is not that we loved God but that He first loved us...all lost in their sins and worthy of death. King David, himself, failed to keep God's law of love. All this time, God knew that none of us could. Think about this...Even the greatest commandment of loving each other was given to show man's lack and our need for a Savior.

We need to confess our unforgiveness and bitternesses to God and also confess that in ourselves, we aren't even able to love God with all our hearts, soul, mind, and strength. What we lack, Christ provides.

Think about this...we are no longer under the law. We are under grace. Under the law is an old and dying way but under grace it is a new and living way. The more we come closer to Jesus, the more we live. Under the law, we are bankrupt but under grace, the Lord imparts His life in us as a free gift.

Forsaking and dying to the world's ways and picking up your cross, dying daily in obedience to the

living Holy Spirit within, have the confidence that through Him and His love showing forth through you that you are contagious. You are infectious. God's righteousness showing forth through you touching the unclean and making them clean.

There is no coercion in the COMPELLING MINISTRY OF HIS LOVE IN US...it is irresistible and triumphant. But it sure requires us to forsake and commit and relinquish any bitternesses or unforgiveness we have stored up for years to Christ and it requires that we COME UP HIGHER into those new dimensions of relationship and ONENESS IN HIM, if we are to be an expression of His AGAPE-NATURE to man. Unconditional love! No hype, no entertainment programs, no selected worldly attitudes, no selected worldly methods adapted to religious exercise. It is that flow of HIS ANOINTING, a SPIRIT OF LOVE, and it will compel others to come to Him instead of withdraw.

It is the expression of the New Covenant, “not imputing their trespasses unto them, but beseeching them with the genuine love of agape. No more guilt and condemnation heaped upon man, no binding them with fear or doctrines of torment and damnation, but that free flow of HIS LOVE to embrace and lift up the fallen. Compassion, mercy and forgiveness shall draw the weary, refresh the exhausted, and give hope to a world that has long waited for its hour of redemption.

'Come up higher to the Love of Agape, I hear Him say, to walk in a more excellent way,

No more to tread the paths of self and sin,

Letting go of the things of yesteryear, the dawning of His day draws near,

In Christ, alone, your life is found, where love, joy, and peace abound .

Yes, come up higher into that special love of the Love of Agape in your midst. Amen.

I pray all is well with you...