Today’s New Covenant nugget is from Galatians 5:6
When you’re joined to the Anointed One, circumcision and religious obligations can benefit you nothing. All that matters now is living in the faith that works and expresses itself through love.
I have heard some powerful teachings on how that faith, and the other gifts of the Holy Spirit work by love… most of the teachings were centered on how we as believers need to be ‘love motivated’ in our faith as well as in operating in other ministry gifts of the Spirit. We are not to be ambition driven, or be motivated by the flesh, but by ‘agape’ love. This is a wonderful revelation!
Let’s explore further what Paul was saying to the church in Galatia…
Because faith, as well as everything else in the kingdom of God works by love, we need to receive His love for ourselves before we can operate in it. Jesus said, “love God with all of your heart, all of your soul and all of your mind, and your neighbor as you love yourself.”
Jesus was teaching the Jews that the Law could be summed up in these commandments, “love God with all of your heart, all of your soul and all of your mind, and your neighbor as you love yourself.”… so, Jesus was teaching the Jews the Law under the Old Covenant. Like every other Law, it was designed by God to show people their sin and their inability to earn righteousness. (Galatians 3:19 - Why, then, was the Law given? It was given alongside the promise to show people their sins.)
It is impossible, in the natural, to love God with all of your heart, all of your soul and all of your mind, and your neighbor as you love yourself. Jesus fulfilled that Law, and now, because we are in Him, in Christ every believer loves God with all of their hearts, all of your souls and all of your minds, and their neighbors as they love themselves. (it is a positional love, not necessarily a practiced love.) It is then ‘practiced’ supernaturally by grace, through faith by Christ’s ability in us once we have received His agape love by faith.
In short, in Christ, we have been given ‘agape’ love as well as the ability to operate in it. You may say, “I don’t ‘feel’ like I am loving God, myself, or others on that level”. Well firstly, love is not a feeling; like everything else from the Lord, we receive agape love by grace through faith, and then we operate in our faith gift by the power of that agape love.
You receive love the same way that you received Jesus as your Lord and Savior; by grace, through faith… by believing in your heart and confessing with your mouth… “Jesus I receive You as Lord and Savior by grace, through faith… Jesus, I receive your ‘agape’ love right now, by grace through faith, Jesus, I receive the ability to work my faith through the love you have given me, by grace, through faith!”
First comes the receiving, then the operation. First receive agape love for yourself, then you will be able to love God with all of your heart, soul and mind, and then you will be able to love your neighbor as yourself… and then you will be able to operate your faith through the love that you have received.
Here is the revelation… if you try to love God with all of your heart, all of your soul and all of your mind, and your neighbor as you love yourself, and if you try to work your faith and the other gifts through love by attempting to ‘will to do it’, then you will fail and get frustrated. In the New Covenant of grace, we do not do anything by willpower or by personal ability… we first RECEIVE, by grace, through faith, and then we operate and function with what we have received by grace through faith! Again, FIRST comes the RECEIVING what you have been freely given, THEN comes the OPERATION by His ability and supernatural power with what you have received!
Receive His love, then work your faith by that love, and then, expect BIG things!
In His amazing love, Nick
