COMPLETE LOVE

Recently, on a flight between London and LA, I heard a voice speaking to me above the sound of the plane – “It’s everywhere, it’s everywhere”. 

During the following night, I woke and the Lord began to reveal something new to me about the tremendous power of His love.  I felt He was showing that the Greeks divided the understanding of love into two – agape and eros.  It seemed He wanted me to understand that He does not separate or divide His love at all, it is always the same containing numerous elements that are Himself.  “God IS Love” in every place, in every way, EVERYWHERE!  He is the complete answer.  In the Hebrew language Ahava, the one word for love, has the root meaning to give and contains a completeness.

Ephesians 5:25 “Husbands love your wives just as Christ loved the church and gave Himself up for her…”  Here we have the sense of giving.  It is interesting that the instruction to the wives is to respect and honour their husbands – not something that necessarily comes naturally but requires giving to them.  The instruction to the husbands requires humility and sacrifice, again something that might not be the usual response.  This requires a whole lot of giving!

God’s is a complete love.  The agape and eros are not separated in a marriage.  Jesus Christ did not lay down  His life for a denomination or a building, but laid down His life for His bride “to make her holy, cleansing her by the washing with water through the word, and to present her to Himself as a redeemed church, without stain or wrinkle or any other blemish, but holy and blameless.” Ephesians 5:25 & 26).

Christ died for freedom and cleansing from sin, pain, brokenness (stains, wrinkles and blemishes) and to establish a kingdom which is sovereignly governed by Love Himself.  Sin divides but love unites.  When God blessed Mary to carry His baby son, the Christ child was not formed by eros or agape but by Love Himself exercising the fullness of Himself as Creator of all.  The culmination of marriage as God ordained it is an act of creation.  Jesus Christ claiming His Bride has to be a profound creative act, as Paul says “a profound mystery”.

The church (congregation of believers) Jesus died for are being led into an ever deepening expression of His love, and this will have greater creative effect.  I saw that currently terror and the ungodly is able to expand in its strength because the church has become watered down and weak.  The antidote is that the people of God begin to function again in His complete love, not divided and watered down expressions of love that enable them to remain in the comfort zone.  The kind of love Paul describes in 1 Cor. 13 is a “most excellent way” and this “Love never fails”.  We are reminded that “the greatest of these is love”.

I believe the Lord is asking His church to put childish ways behind her.  He will not return for a child bride but for a mature and prepared one.  He gave me glimpses of the power of His complete love, sufficient that I would seek more of it in prayer and action, by His Spirit.

I feel that this amazing love of God bursts in on us, like a fantastic sunset or a beautiful scene in nature.  It takes us by surprise and captures us as all His creative wonders do.  He is truly EVERYWHERE and in everything.  I am seeing that His speaking “It’s everywhere” is probably one of the most astonishing prophetic experiences I have ever had, and yet it was quite short and simple.  It is not hard to open up in obedience to allow Him to surprise and astonish us with His love, and to take a gigantic step forward in the establishing of His Kingdom.