“And I pray that he would unveil within you the unlimited riches of his glory and favor until supernatural strength floods your innermost being with his divine might and explosive power. Then, by constantly using your faith, the life of Christ will be released deep inside of you, and the resting place of his love will become the very source and root of your life” Ephesians 3:16-17 TPT.

“I am contending for you that your hearts will be wrapped in the comfort of heaven and woven together into love’s fabric. This will give you access to all the riches of God as you experience the revelation of God’s great mystery- Christ. For our spiritual wealth is in him, like hidden treasure waiting to be discovered-heaven’s wisdom and endless riches of revelation knowledge…In the same way you received Jesus our Lord and Messiah by faith, continue your journey of faith, progressing further into your union with him! Your spiritual roots go deeply into his life as you are continually infused with strength, encouraged in every way. For you are established in the faith you have absorbed and enriched by your devotion to him…For he is the complete fullness of deity living in human form. And our own completeness is now found in him. We are completely filled with God as Christ’s fullness overflows within us. He is the Head of every kingdom and authority in the universe” Colossians 2:2-3, 6-7,9-10 TPT.

“Then you will be empowered to discover what every holy one experiences- the great magnitude of the astonishing love of Christ in all its dimensions. How deeply intimate and far-reaching is his love! How enduring and inclusive it is! Endless love beyond measurement that transcends our understanding- this extravagant love pours into you until you are filled to overflowing with the fullness of God! Never doubt God’s mighty power to work in you and accomplish all this” Ephesians 3:15-20 TPT.

“May you experience the love of Christ, though it is too great to understand fully. Then you will be made complete with all the fullness of life and power that comes from God” Ephesians 3:19 NLT.

“Three things will last forever-faith, hope, and love- and the greatest of these is love. Let love be your highest goal!” 1 Corinthians 13:13, 14:1.

“God is love, and he who abides in love abides in God, and God in him” 1 John 4:16.

Love should be the foundation of my life as a follower of Jesus. I love the passion translation from Ephesians 3:17 where Paul writes I pray that “the resting place of his love” should become the very source and root of our lives. Everything else builds from that foundation of love. I will never be able to fully overflow with His love without receiving the love of God poured out through Christ Jesus. When we choose to unite our lives to Him and become one with Him, His Spirit comes to dwell in us. We are born again, born of the Spirit (John 3:6-8). We are made completely new (2 Corinthians 5:17). He brings us into His family, shining His light into our hearts expelling the darkness, and filling us with His light and love (Ephesians 2:13, John 1:12-14, 2 Corinthians 4:6). When we fully surrender every part of our hearts to him, we invite this light to fill every part of our hearts, and His Spirit to live in us. “We know how dearly God loved us, because he has given us the Holy Spirit to fill our hearts with His love” Romans 5:5 NLT.

Love is the simplest word and the most challenging to walk in. The more I journey with Jesus the more I believe following Jesus can be wrapped up in one word love. We receive His love, learn to abide in His love, are empowered by His love and overflow with His love to others. This seems simple like we should be able to master this. However, modeling love from God is a deep thing that becomes impossible without His love being the source of our lives. This love has no hidden agenda or bias. This love has no sides (Joshua 5:13-14). Jesus taught us to even love our enemies and to bless those who curse us (Luke 6:27-38). He called us to be ambassadors to walk as He walked in this earth (2 Corinthians 5:20). Love modeled after Jesus takes us being firmly rooted in Him and filled with His Spirit. His love becomes our nourishment and strength as we are growing in Him. “I am praying…for all who will ever believe in me through the message. I pray that they will all be one, just as you and I are one- as you are in me, Father, and I am in you. And may they be in us so that the world will believe you sent me” John 17:21. We have been grafted into Jesus like a branch into a tree our life and nutrients to grow coming from Him (Romans 11:17, John 15:3-5).

Jesus came as a light bringing healing and love to those oppressed. He had favor with men and God in the communities He went to (Luke 2:52, Mark 12:12). However, there was opposition the religious leaders and his own family did not believe in Him. Jesus would heal someone, and the people would declare he casts out demons by the ruler of demons! (Matthew 12:24). The people from his own town and family were offended at him (Mark 6:1-4). He was not honored in his hometown or among his relatives or his family. The prophet Isaiah says, “He was despised and rejected- a man of sorrows, acquainted with deepest grief….” (Isaiah 53:3). Yet he came to the earth driven by love. However, he was rejected by the very people he came to love. Even one of his close friends betrayed him to death. Another friend denied even knowing him after walking closely together with him for years. Jesus walked in such a supernatural kind of love. He knew the mission before him. The only way for humanity to be brought back to close relationship to God was for Him to willing lay down His life as a sacrifice and take on all the sin and burdens of all humanity. Love was the only way for this to happen. Love was the birthplace of redemption. This had to be a pure love without any hidden agenda or intentions. Regardless of people’s decisions he would choose to love.

And Jesus was not afraid to speak out the truth as He walked in love. Many times, he called out the religious leaders. “What sorrow awaits you teachers of religious law and you Pharisees. Hypocrites! For you are so careful to clean the outside of the cup and the dish, but inside you are filthy-full of greed and self-indulgence! You blind Pharisee! First wash the inside of the cup and the dish, and then the outside will become clean, too!” Matthew 23:25-26 NLT. “What sorrow awaits you teachers of the religious law and you Pharisees. Hypocrites! For you cross land and sea to make one convert, and then turn that person into twice the child of hell you yourselves are” Matthew 23:15.

Love is not just a romantic, soft word. As we learn to walk in love, it takes work to have healthy relationships. Love should propel us to speak out truth. However, the foundation always is out of love (Ephesians 4:15, Colossians 4:2-6). Even in a healthy family dynamic with children there is discipline. A father or mother disciplines their children; because they love them. “For the Lord corrects those he loves, just as a father corrects a child in whom he delights” Proverbs 3:12. “As you endure this divine discipline, remember that God is treating you as his own children. Who ever heard of a child who is never disciplined by its father? If God doesn’t discipline you as he does all his children, it means that you are illegitimate and are not really his children at all. Since we respected our earthly fathers who disciplined us, shouldn’t we submit even more to the discipline of the Father of our spirits, and live forever?…God’s discipline is always good for us, so that we may share in his holiness. No discipline is enjoyable while it is happening-it’s painful! But afterward there will be a peaceful harvest of right living for those who are trained in this way” Hebrews 12:7-11 NLT. In the same way, in relationships when you love someone you are willing to have difficult conversations to work through hardship and disagreements. The foundation of love actually gives space to grow together and walk in grace toward each other.

Jesus has always been my example in walking in love. I am constantly challenged by His teachings. “Now by this we know that we know Him, if we keep His commandments. He who says, “I know Him,” and does not keep His commandments, is a liar, and the truth is not in him. But whoever keeps His word, truly the love of God is perfected in him. By this we know that we are in Him. He who says he abides in Him ought himself to walk just as He walked” 1 John 1:3-6. In reading this passage, I asked myself what the commandments of God are. The students of Jesus also asked Him, “Teacher, which is the most important commandment in the law of Moses? Jesus replied, “You must love the Lord your God with all your heart, all your soul, and all your mind. This is the first and greatest commandment. A second is equally important: ‘Love your neighbor as yourself.’ The entire law and all the demands of the prophets are based on those two commandments” Matthew 22:36-40.

If you go on reading 1 John in 2:7 the verse reads, “Dear friends, I am not writing a new commandment for you; rather it is an old one you have had from the very beginning. This old commandment-to love one another- is the same message you heard before. Yet it is also new. Jesus lived in the truth of this commandment, and you also are living in it” 1 John 2:7-8. In 1 John 2:24 he continues, “So you must remain faithful to what you have been taught from the beginning. If you do, you will remain in fellowship with the Son and with the Father.” Again, I asked myself what is this message that we had heard from the beginning. When we continue reading in 1 John 3, he elaborates in 1 John 3:11, “…this is the message that you heard from the beginning, that we should love one another.” At the end of 1 John 3, the verse again says love is the commandment. “And this is his commandment: We must believe in the name of his Son, Jesus Christ, and love one another, just as he commanded us” 1 John 3:23. When we learn to abide in love and overflow from that foundation we are “made complete with all the fullness of life and power that comes from God” Ephesians 3:19 NLT.

This theme of love is woven throughout 1 John. We know God’s love, because he laid down his life for us and from that place, we are able to love others. In chapter 4:7-8-18, “Dear friends, let us continue to love one another, for love comes from God. Anyone who loves is a child of God and knows God. But anyone who does not love does not know God, for God is love. Dear friends, since God loved us that much, we surely ought to love each other. No one has ever seen God. But if we love each other, God lives in us, and his love is brought to full expression in us. And God has given his Spirit as proof that we live in him and he in us…All who declare that Jesus is the Son of God have God living in them, and they live in God. We know how much God loves us, and we have put our trust in his love. God is love, and all who live in love live in God and God lives in them. And as we live in God, our love grows more perfect. So, we will not be afraid on the day of judgement, but we can face him with confidence because we live like Jesus here in this world. Such love has no fear, because perfect love expels all fear. If we are afraid, it is for fear of punishment, and this shows that we have not fully experienced his perfect love. We love each other because he first loved us.”

I bought a piece of art- pictured below- at a coffee shop in the heart of WV one day by an artist named Seth. You can look him up by searching theartofseth. This picture shows a tree whose roots are going down into a giant heart. The picture shows fruit of the tree is love- many little hearts. I have another picture from college a friend named Sarah Levine painted me. This picture is similar. A giant tree is by a stream of water. This tree also has its roots going down into a giant heart. On the back she wrote, unleash healing. I honestly believe this is how we are met to function as followers of Jesus. We must be rooted and grounded in His love and overflow from that place.

Every time, I start to feel overwhelmed I melt into the arms of Jesus. “He offers a resting place for me in His luxurious love. His tracks take me to an oasis of peace near a quiet brook of bliss. That’s where he restores and revives my life” Psalms 23:2-3 TPT. “Are you weary, carrying a heavy burden? Come to me. I will refresh your life, for I am your oasis. Simply join your life with mine. Learn my ways and you’ll discover I am gentle and humble…You will find refreshment and rest in me…” Matthew 11:28-29 TPT. The whole call of coming to Jesus is to join our lives with His and surrender every part of us to Him. I think of it like a romantic relationship. You are giving your heart to that person and they do the same. I think this is why our relationship with God is compared many times to that of a bride and groom (Ephesians 5:31, 1 Corinthians 6:17). We can be confident in God’s love for us. “I live in confidence that there is nothing in the universe with the power to separate us from God’s love” Romans 8:38 TPT. NOTHING can separate us from His love!

I believe to have fruit that remains we have to operate from a foundation of love. We need to see the person in front of us through the eyes of love and through the Spirit of God not according to the flesh (2 Corinthians 5:16-17). Without love people can preach prophecy, walk in a gift of faith to move mountains, sacrifice their bodies as martyrs, and gain nothing. “If I had the gift of prophecy, and if I understood all of God’s secret plans and possessed all knowledge, and if I had faith that I could move mountains, but didn’t love others, I would be nothing. If I gave everything I have to the poor and even sacrificed my body, I could boast about it; but if I didn’t love others, I would have gained nothing” 1 Corinthians 13:2-3. We need to ask God to help us see people through His eyes of love. Jesus traveled through towns and villages teaching and “announcing the Good News of the Kingdom. And he healed every kind of disease and illness. When he saw the crowds, he had compassion on them for they were confused and helpless, like sheep without a shepherd. He said to his disciples, “The harvest is great, but the workers are few. So, pray to the Lord who is in charge of the harvest; ask him to send more workers into his fields” Matthew 9:35-38. Jesus had compassion on the people when he saw them as sheep without a shepherd. Paul even urges people to be like spiritual fathers not just teachers (1 Corinthians 4:15-17). The foundation of a healthy relationship of a father and child is love. Jesus walked in radical love.

“So now I am giving you a new commandment: Love each other. Just as I have loved you, you should love one another. Your love for one another will prove that you are my disciples” John 13:34-35. “I have loved you even as the Father has loved me. Remain in my love. When you obey my commandments, you remain in my love, just as I obey the Father’s commandments and remain in his love…This is my commandment: Love each other in the same way I have loved you” John 15:9-12, NLT. I love the passion translation, “I love each of you with the same love that the Father loves me. You must continually let my love nourish your hearts…My purpose for telling you these things is so that the joy I experience will fill your hearts with overflowing gladness!” John 15:9,11 TPT. When we learn to abide and rest in the love of Jesus we are filled with joy. Every time I have started to be burned out in ministry is when I come out of abiding in love and into striving and people pleasing. I always need to stay firm in my identity in who I am as a daughter of the Most High God fully loved by Him. I spend time with him from a place of knowing Him and listening to His voice I move. Nothing will ever change how he sees and loves me. When I am firm and secure in my relationship with Him, then I am able to see myself the way He sees me. I see myself through the lens of love. His love empowers me to walk out the call of God on my life. From this place of identity- knowing Him, abiding in His love and being empowered- I go out and the result is overflowing with love. My roots and identity are in love, so the fruit of my life is love. This love flows to others just as a naturally process of the seed-bearing fruit after its own kind. When love becomes the source and root of our lives, love becomes the fruit that remains.