that I have craved for so long. I know there are more out there like me, as I have met and talked with many of you. This post is dedicated to you! As always with these posts, I speak only from experience, the things the Father has shown me about them, and the things I seek to overcome or have overcome by the power of His love. As I just read on a sister's Facebook post about five minutes ago... "Your ministry is found where you've been broken, and your testimony is found where you've been restored." HalleluYah! IntroductionI would just like to start with a few pointed questions. Many of us are what we perceive to be "mature believers" with a fairly good understanding of the Word and solid faith, so it may be that we won't want to admit some of the issues that lurk deep within in our hearts. I pray that now in these last moments of time that we have reached a place of pure transparency where we are not the least bit afraid to admit our weaknesses, because it is in that type of humility that the strength of our Savior will break through and shine for all to see! With that...
If any of this is true for you, I get it! I think most believers experience this at some point in their walk and to varying degrees, but then there are others who seem to be plagued with it, as if it won't ever end. I can only ask these questions, because the answers have all been "yes" for me. If you answered the same, then I am prayerful that this sharing will be an edification to you... depositing a seed of testimony of His faithfulness and Word into your heart that will bring about an overcoming in this area of your walk. As Paul said, and I paraphrase... It is by the comfort and overcoming of our own trials that we offer the same comfort to others, that they may also overcome! We who struggle more deeply with these issues have a perception of ourselves as "step-children". We don't really know the full "why" that we struggle to believe the absolute wreckless, pure, and perfect love of God is not for us, but instead it is for the others. We don't want to feel this way and we know we shouldn't, but our actions and lack of faith in this area often scream that we do. The fact is that we don't fully believe His love for us... we don't believe it to the point that we can consistently rest in it as a rock and firm foundation. We focus on our unworthiness -- our own selves -- more than we focus on Him -- His pure nature, His purified words, and the holy sacrifical proof of His love. We trump His truth for our own, and many have found this so "comfortable" that we actually hold on to it. The bottom line is that we are an "unloved" bride... our spirits yearn for Him and our souls desperately love Him, but the unwavering oneness has not yet come... and this has nothing to do with Him and everything to do with us. My storyMy struggle with this was not in the beginning when I was first reborn and completely changed in a moment's time (back almost 30 years ago). At first, I was that child... beileving all, receiving all, and living it all! I had no reservations and no doubts. I was being held and cradled daily by my Heavenly Father, and I did not question His love for me at that time. That was a wreckless abandonment on my part, and I have desperately missed that childlike life walking with Him. Having said that, I also realize that although my faith was childlike, I was also seeing things as a child, immature in my walk. Growth, and especially into mature spiritual adulthood, is often painful... and sometimes extremely painful; and it is always necessary. So what happened to my childlike faith? Well... a whole lot. Some of what happened is because of my own actions, and some of what happened was the Father's purpose for me... to bring me full circle to where I am today with a testimony of His goodness. The story of what happened is actually very long, so I am not going to get into a lot of detail about that. I will say that not only did I get temporarily trapped in a works-based, condemning doctrine that left me in bondage for a while, but I also was a victim of a religious group that condemns others (and sometimes to hell) who do not have their same blood/skin color. And when I say I was a "victim", I only mean that I was their target. I was not a victim in the sense that I was totally innocent. I allowed someone I love and deeply trusted to influence me and feed me this doctrine, and because of my extreme vulnerability at that time (from both tragedy and dealing with other very emotional issues), I was a sitting duck so to speak. Having said that, I accept my full responsibility for what happened. It took me almost four years to overcome the damage that was done -- and part of that damage was a loss of my childlike faith in believing that I was chosen by the Heavenly Father and part of His precious family that He loves at all costs. I lost my First Love, because I simply could not believe that His love for me was the same as it was for others. I worked like the dickens to receive His love although never feeling that anything changed... except that I was slowly tiring out. It is a bondage of torment to desperately love a God whom you feel does not love you, but another instead, and I never want to experince that again. While I am on this topic, and now that I am fully free from all the bondage and false doctrine, I would like to take this opportunity to say something about this. This very thing that happneed to me is still happening to others right now. The Body of Christ is extremely divided with many who are way too quick and willing to condemn others over their interpretation of scripture, completely forgetting that we only see in part and that there is only One who can condemn another. This condemnation is NOT love, and that right there is a direct violation of the commandments of Yahusha/Jesus under the New Covenant. This is a major issue today, and it is one about which I will speak up, as well as actively work to help set others free who are trapped and knowing they need to get out. This is so serious that it can affect salvation either way. It simply should not be, as we are all a part of the same Body - HIS Body - and we don't have the right to cut anyone out, because they're not following our same doctrine. We judge by their fruit of the Spirit, as we are told in scripture. If the fruit is there and they are consistently surrendered and seeking the perfection of that fruit through the only One who can complete it, then we are commanded to love and accept them and let HIM, their Creator and Judge, deal with anything else that might be missing or that needs further development. He knows them as we do not! The foundation of perfect loveHereby know we that we dwell in him, and he in us, because he hath given us of his Spirit. And we have seen and do testify that the Father sent the Son to be the Saviour of the world. Whosoever shall confess that Jesus is the Son of God, God dwelleth in him, and he in God. And we have known and believed the love that God hath to us. God is love; and he that dwelleth in love dwelleth in God, and God in him. Herein is our love made perfect, that we may have boldness in the day of judgment: because as he is, so are we in this world. There is no fear in love; but perfect love casteth out fear: because fear hath torment. He that feareth is not made perfect in love. We love him, because he first loved us. 1 John 4:13-19 Beloved, let us love one another: for love is of God; and every one that loveth is born of God, and knoweth God. He that loveth not knoweth not God; for God is love. In this was manifested the love of God toward us, because that God sent his only begotten Son into the world, that we might live through him. Herein is love, not that we loved God, but that he loved us, and sent his Son to be the propitiation for our sins. 1 John 4:7-10 These scriptures are worth meditation that we might have the full understanding -- that understanding that washes us and exposes our weaknesses as it divides soul from spirit and the thoughts and intents of the heart. The Word is supernatural and will change us, if we soak it in and make the choice to believe it and speak it. Obviously, this takes faith and discipline. We were made in the image of the Father, because He wanted to share His essence with us, which is light, love, goodness, and glory. He first loved us. We have His breath in us -- His life and being. But what is His image? We know He is Spirit. But if His image is manifested, we see His Son first and foremost, the very image of the invisible God, which is the fullness of the diety of God... the face of the Heavenly Father. But then there's us... also made in His image and likeness, created to share in the amazing things of Him. Because we came from Him and we have been restored to Him through His Son by faith, then His essence of love is also manifested in us. It is the very love of Messiah Yahusha/Jesus Christ that gives us our being. This very fact shows an unsurpassable, unsearchable, immeasurable, and unquenchable love for us. And because we are His image through His Son, we cannot be separated from His love... unless we choose to be. Surely this is one of the reasons that Paul said he believed that NO THING anywere or ever can separate us from His love; it something so firm that it cannot ever be changed for any reason... but yet do we wholeheartedly believe this? No man can come to me, except the Father which hath sent me draw him: and I will raise him up at the last day. John 6:44 God is love, and only His love has the power to initially draw us in, away from ourselves while we were yet sinners, to the point we broke under it. In this humble breaking, we believed and received the love of His Son, and we were changed because of it! Many of us were drastically changed in an instant -- a true rebirth experience we can still articulate to this day and will never forget. That is the absolute power His love has upon us... it belongs to us, and it belongs in us. We have been purchased -- bought and paid for -- by the life (blood) and love of Christ. We've heard these words before, but do we ponder the magnitude and glory of it?? Do we still bask in it and consistently operate in it? I remember how much I used to think of my day of salvation over and over... like a first kiss from the only one who ever really loved me. Oh to know wholeheartedly that because He saved me, He loves me now and forever! Again, what drew us to the Son in the first place was the Father's perfect love for us. It is the sole basis for our faith, for faith works by love (Galatians 5:6). The word in the KJV is "worketh", and it means "operative, be at work, put forth power", and it comes from a word that means "active". Faith cannot be active without love. The love drew us in... all the things that the Word says that love is... this drew us to the face of the Son, and it has the power to keep us -- HIM IN US, the hope of glory! So if love was the start of it all, and He called us and saved us in and through that love, why would we ever think or believe that this love is not still strong and active and sure within us now? His love is everlasting and unchanging... it cannot be influenced by anything, like ours can. Charity (Love) suffereth long, and is kind; charity envieth not; charity vaunteth not itself, is not puffed up, doth not behave itself unseemly, seeketh not her own, is not easily provoked, thinketh no evil; rejoiceth not in iniquity, but rejoiceth in the truth; beareth all things, believeth all things, hopeth all things, endureth all things. 1 Corinthians 13:4-7 The attack on love - fearSometimes it doesn't matter how many times we read the words of love within the Word of Love, some of us still cannot grasp it and therefore minimize it in our minds, influenced by the lies of the enemy. And those lies are usually tailored to our specific life story... our soul's deep inner struggle based on childhood experiences and just our general course of life. The enemy knows just which lies to tell us and he always picks those prime times of vulnerability. He knows his lies will usually resonate with us, sometimes more than the Word. This is not our heart's choice; we don't want this. This is our programming, and this is why every single thought has to be taken captive to the Word only, which takes determination and discipline by both faith and self-control. Just as we have read over and over, we simply must renew our minds, and this is usually a process depending upon how deep the tainted roots go. The enemy knows the love the Father has for us, and I believe it is his #1 motus operande to diminish our understanding and grasping of this love through his crafy ways. He knows the power of our fully receiving this love; he knows it is the foundation and fuel of our faith! He also knows the bad foundations that make up the houses of our lives, because he typically has been the author of them. He reminds us of this constantly, causing confusion and unbelief, in an attempt to ultimately extinguish any memory of God's love from our hearts and minds. And sometimes we don't even realize it as it goes on for years and years, with some ultimately perishing from lack of the knowledge -- the intimate "knowing" of the Creator's perfect love for us individually, manifested in the Son. As creations of Almighty God made in His own image or likeness, we need love just as we do air... we simply must have it. This is His nature in us, not our own. We know, and so does the enemy, that when we do not receive love as a baby and/or child, we find it difficult later in life to receive love and especially to give love. Love is so foundational that without it in our beginning years, we cannot function properly in the world. Many without the foundational love of their parents can become extremely wayward, prone to grave sins such as perversion, hatred, and murder -- all which can likely be traced back to fear. It's almost as if... no love, no life. Because He is love and we are of His image, love in general has to be our foundation. And when we shift to spiritual things and our journey towards being transformed into the image of the Son, perfect love must be the foundation. It is the enemy's goal to replace the perfect love with the imperfect, which is ultimately fear, unbelief, and even hate. However, we can never forget that the power and love and sound mind that has been given to us is authority! And in that authority, we must rise up and expose the enemy and take back that which was freely given to us as ours, forevermore! Here again, it takes faith... founded and grounded in love. It's just so simple... lack of love equals lack of faith. For God hath not given us the spirit of fear; but of power, and of love, and of a sound mind. 2 Timothy 1:7 As we know, there is no fear in love, because the Father's perfect love manifested through the Son casts it out! There is no room for both! Fear is the number one reason that some have not yet fully received the fullness of His love. It is fear of rejection, fear of disobedience, fear of failure... fear of everything spiritual! Fear is foundational to so many spiritual and physical ailments, whereas love is always the cure! While perfect love produces such immovable peace, fear produces so much dis-ease and torment!! The doubt, the guilt, the restlessness, and the overall instablity of our spiritual walk can very much be described as torment... at least it was for me at times. The bottom line is that if we are unable to receive and give His love, it's simple... we have fear. If our receiving of His love is out of whack in any way, then our whole walk will be. Our walk and our faith will be unstable and somewhat unsure with plenty of highs and lows. Naturally, because faith works by love, then faith is not complete without love, and faith cannot function in fullness without love. And to add the icing to the cake, we will lack the power of that love that enables us to love Him and our brethren with a pure heart in a way that can endure and overcome all, ultimately to the point of laying our lives down in love. It is by HIS LOVE that we are able to love Him and worship Him, sacrifically, in spirit and in truth, as well as love our brethren as ourselves. It is impossible without His love. One day as I was pondering all of this, I wrote out a simple correlation that is also a complete contrast. Love is truly the more excellent way!
The "unloved" brideSo why is it that in some cases this perfect love does not seem to keep us? How is it that some struggle for years and years to fully receive this love and allow it to perfect their faith to that place of great faith whereby the just must live? Again, we have tainted foundational roots passed down from generations before us, and these are open doors for the enemy's lies; and many times these are perceived to be in agreement. Then there are all our own mistakes, life's happenings, God-ordained sufferings, and the like that all can feed into the cesspool of bad thoughts. Sometimes it is a great deal to overcome! But this is the true test of what is required of us... to endure in faith and overcome by the blood of the Lamb!. When we can truly receive His perfect love and sincerely rest in this love, it will conquer all and endure all -- and it will cover a multitude of sins! We have faith, hope, and love... but the greatest of these will always be love! Only His love delivers, restores, redeems, renews, and equips! As I have perceived my own self over the last years as well as others like me, I see the ups and downs and backs and forths of truly resting in Him, and I know this "instability" is because we were not yet made perfect in His love. There is only one reason for this... we were not fully believing it nor RECEIVING it. In my case, it is truly as if it was stolen from me, because I know it was once there!! I know this has been why, and to this I've said so many times... Oh how long my Father; when will you restore me to your love and the joy of my salvation? Help my unbelief that I may know the height, depth, length, and width of the love of your Son and receive all your fullness, that I may give it back to you and those you desperately love!! I have good news about this "attack" on love. The Father knows our struggles and hears our cries, and He will restore and renew!! He will finish! Our purchase and redemption was at too great a price and in too great of love for Him to walk away! This is why He will leave the 99 to come get us! We are His workmanship created for good works -- created by Him, for Him, and through Him. We are of Him, we are His Body, and He will never leave nor forsake us! To leave us would leave Himself incomplete. We can believe and rest in this for all our days, no matter what happens. Back in 2017 when I was in the thick of overcoming this false doctrine that almost extinguished my belief of His love for me, I remember laying in bed and thinking of His love and how I was struggling to receive it. It had been said to me so many times in the previous few years that I was not the object of His love and that it belonged to another. There were actually several reasons that caused me to begin to believe this, but that is not for now. In His great mercy and compassion, He then very gently showed me a scenario that I have never forgotten. First, a marriage of a husband and wife is an example here in the earth of His covenant with us. In this covenant, if the wife (or the husband) doubts the love and commitment of the husband, she will be unable to receive his love. As a result, their intimacy will be broken and incomplete; neither one of them will be in a restful state of trust and oneness, especially the one who doubts. The relationship will be strained, and the one who doubts lives a life in the marriage of unfillment, doubt, and misery. This is also a loss to the other. A marriage is supposed to be a three-fold chord with the Heavenly Father in the midst, but He can only be in the midst of true agape love, because He is that love. When the Father's love is the Source of our union with His Son, manifested through His Son, then our oneness cannot be broken. Our existence in Him is one of peace, rest, love, and not one ounce of fear that it will ever change -- we are His, and He is ours. In this, we can endure anything! Ephesus and LeahAs I was trying to put all these puzzle pieces together for this post, I thought of the correlation of the "unloved" bride to both Ephesus, the first church of Revelation, and Leah, Jacob's first wife. I think both of these are important and very applicable, especially now as we are in the midst of the last of the birth pangs before Tribulation begins. Ephesus was the church known for losing its first love... but why? Although they steadily worked for Him, had extreme intolerace for evil and falseness -- even exposing lies and liars, they had left their first love. Many of them had "lost that lovin feeling" so to speak; they left. Their eyes were on exposure and all the lies they could not bear, and their dove's-eye focus was diverted from their Beloved Savior. Did many of them begin to feel like this "unloved" bride? I believe so, because when you begin to focus on anything but Him, your oneness with His love will begin to wane, and the first thing you will notice is a distance from His love and presence. You begin to feel "unloved". I find it very interesting that one of the prevelent issues in the Body today is division based on intolerance of what is perceived to be false. The "truth" (and in some cases this is a perceived truth) is then used to condemn others and results in separation and division. I have seen this and experienced it from both angles, and I can tell you that love absolutely dwindles in this place. Love is not the focus; the first love is diminished! Yahusha/Jesus told this church to repent and remember from where they had fallen, or else He would personally come and remove the lamp (that burning light of Yahusha) out of its place. And where is its place?? IN US!! The lamp that can only burn from HIS LOVE begins to dim, and the only thing that can restore it is the FIRST LOVE! Then and only then will we be able to do the first works and keep our eyes on the Sole Source of all that matters; only then we will be able to overcome so that we will be allowed to eat from the Tree of Life, which is in the midst of the paradise of God! Then there's Leah... the disappointing surprise to Jacob, the second choice. In essence, this is the Gentile Bride of Christ, where Rachel represents the Israel as the chosen bride of Christ, the first choice. How many of us (erroneously) feel like Leah -- loved by our Beloved secondly to others, not as much as others, and even compelled to "work" like Leah with the mandrakes in order to feel loved by Him? I can only imagine how she felt on her wedding night and then through those seven years before Rachel and then all the years after that. Leah was known to have a "light in her eyes" that was soft and tender. There is no doubt that Leah suffered and very likely felt like an "unloved" bride. However, there is much more to say about Leah in the second part of this post, titled "The Loved Bride". The unloved bride never has to stay as "unloved"... especially not in the care of the Heavenly Father! ConclusionI have loved you with an everlasting love; therefore I have continued my faithfulness to you. Jeremiah 31:3 If you are an "unloved" bride today, even just a little hint of it, I know the Father would have you first go back and focus on His love - go back to your First Love, and do it now. If your receipt of His love is even a little bit unsure or unstable, your faith will be the same. Of course, not only can you not please the Father without faith, it will also affect the stability of your walk and your ability to endure and overcome. He Himself told us and showed us that there is no greater love than of him who will lay his life down for a friend, which He did for us and what He wants us to be able to do as well. This is where we are headed in these last days, as we have been chosen to be His and be here alive at such a time as this. We must go back to our first love in a humble repentance in admitting where we are, how we got there, and then breaking down that wall of self -- our weaknesses, our failures, our unwothiness -- to fully receive His love! We received His love once in the beginning and became a new creation; we must fully receive it now and hold on to it with all our might in the full assurance of faith... unto endurance! This is the key to it all! I will end this post about the "unloved" bride with words that my sister from South Africa heard from the Father a few years ago. This applies to us all -- it is a pearl of wisdom that if we can accept and live, we will steadfastly remain in Him. My child, there is not one thing you can ever do to that will cause me to love you less or more. Please make sure that you also read the second part of this post, which is titled, "The 'Loved' Bride". It is so very encouraging!! Both posts are incomplete without the other!
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Special NoteThese writings are written in love and a spirit of servitude. They are not designed to judge but make us think. We are all sinners in need of saving, and we all need encouragement and absolute truth to endure on the narrow road to sanctification and ultimately eternal life. Categories
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