Who is your neighbor? Anyone in your vicinity. Jesus said: “Love your neighbor as yourself.” But if you don’t have God’s love, your love is like worldly love. If you do love, you live. Love equals living. If you don’t love, you will die. There is no division in love. God said to love Him and to obey Him. When we do that the love of God is in us. Love is the cross.
Love does not move by emotion. Love is not an emotion. Love is self-control. Love has compassion on those moving on emotion, but love does not rely on emotion. We have the Holy Spirit, the healing balm. We are totally capable of loving our neighbor. It is the Holy Spirit that allows us to love unconditionally and without selfish desires. When we walk in the Spirit, we walk in love.
God says we need to learn to love people even outside the family of Christ that He has given us. Sometimes even among ourselves, we have problems with loving. Sometimes we see our brother hurting, but we don’t stop to love on them. Even the Good Samaritan was more loving than His own people during Jesus’ time. The Levite and the priest just ignored their neighbor in need.
Obedience shows that you love God, not smiles, not flattering, not emotions. Everybody loves themselves, but they don’t love their neighbor as themselves. Then we see it is all about us. If you love yourself more than God, you are not seeing that it is all about them. Loving God first allows us to love others.
Religious people hang around a belief, but the remnant are always hanging on the cross. Love is not just being nice. Love is not just saying, “That a boy! Keep going. You are going to make it!” Love is not a pat on the back. Love looks like something. Love looks like the cross. Love denies self. This is why we preach the cross because without the cross we will never love like Christ or look like Christ.
False love is selfish. Real love is denying yourself for the sake of others.
The Bible says, “Owe man nothing but to love them.” How can you submit to the earthly ordinances and not submit yourself to His Word? Put on His cross, and you will be able to love. We will always give provision for the flesh if we don’t. I don’t want to hang around believers but around disciples of Jesus because these are the ones fulfilling the law of God at all times. Only when we pick up our cross are we able to be what He has died for us to be.
When you start to do what you are supposed to do, you become their enemy. You are picking up your cross but the others are not. Then here comes division. How can you love God and not pick up your cross? This is why Jesus preached about it. He came to bring division from real love (God love) and false love (the love of the World).
Ignorance is bliss? But once you read the Word you are not ignorant anymore. You know exactly what to do. But if you decide to do what is right, even when they are trying to find fault in you, that won’t be able to touch you. The Word says that love covers a multitude of sins. Love does not pay back evil for evil. It is impossible. If we start losing our peace and being tossed to and fro, it is because we are not picking up our cross for the sake of love. We can’t hold onto it. It is impossible to be picking up your cross at the same time you are picking up an offense.
God will always defend love. Love denies. It denies lies. It denies the right to be right. It denies the flaws in others. It denies the flesh. It denies self-will. It denies gathering evidence on someone else to prove its case.
Feeding the poor on the street is not love. It is kindness. It is mercy. Real love is the turning of the cheek. There are a lot of works of justice that are out of love. You can do mission trips every month and have no profit in your life according to 1 Corinthians 13.
Love does not get jealous of somebody that is getting the benefits of the cross when you are not willing to pick up your own. We get provoked so easily. That is not love. If you love, offense does not stick. People were trying to catch Jesus all the time. They got angry at Him because He never got out of the road of love. Love rejoices in the Truth. If you resist Truth, you don’t have love. If you welcome Truth, love is in you. Love is Truth. Jesus said: “Do you love me? How will I know? When you obey My Word and lay down your will and life.”
Anything that talks about Jesus does not mean that it is the Gospel. The Gospel without the cross and without repentance is not the Gospel. It is only a belief system.
Many people gather around a belief that they agree on, but there is no power when we avoid the cross. The cross is authentic. When you repent is it not because you know you need to? It is a matter of going to the cross and doing what you were not doing or obeying. Then the power of the cross and the blood allows you and empowers you to obey.
You always win in love. God always defends love. It may look like you failed, but if you abide in love, it does not matter the outcome: You are a winner. We have to love through it all! Love your enemies. Bless them that curse you. This will win all the time. You feel like you are losing, but believe me: You are winning.
Love dies for its brother. Jesus did that for us. The first born among many brethren! Just obey the Word. There is no way to pick up our cross in our own strength. Love does not put itself above others.
Everybody wants the honor that comes from God, but that only comes from the cross. It is not easy, but it is worth it. You want favor? Go to the cross. You want blessings? Pick up your cross. You want to defeat Satan? Pick up your cross.
Who are your mother, your brother, and father? Those who do the will of the God. If they are of us, they must be with us. If they are not with us, they must not be of us. You can see a natural division happening in the Body or church. It is between carnality and the Spirit.
I want to live the 70 x 70 love. Oh, your brother hurt you? How many times should you love them? 70 x 70. How many times should you forgive your brother? 70 x 70. How many times should you give another chance? 70 x 70. People who make excuses about not forgiving are denying the cross. People giving up on people are giving up on the cross.
Jesus did it all for us. He never gave up on us, but now we need to get the benefit of the cross as we do what He did. Take up your cross, daily. Daily! Lose your life for the sake of your neighbor. If you do this, pick up your cross, you will always see the manifestation of His resurrection. Keep putting on Christ. Give no provision for your flesh which is anti-Christ, anti-your brother! This is the Spirit of Cain when you think you love God and are actually hating your brother.
Your own righteousness will cause you to think that you are something or you are right, but you are still nothing. You are still denying the cross. You don’t want to die for the sake of others. Take communion with the cross. Eat His flesh. Drink His blood. Day by day.
Without the cross, what do you get? A reprobate mind. The power of the cross means nothing to others, but to us who believe it is the power unto salvation. We need to surrender everything. You can get an “amen” when you mention the blessings but not when you mention the cross! Woe unto me if I don’t preach the cross. Woe unto me if I preach only belief and leave all the other parts of the Gospel out. The cross makes us partners with His sufferings.
The fellowship of His suffering will make us uncomfortable still to the resurrection of the dead, but we have to pick up the cross. We need to weep when we see our brothers not picking up their cross. They became enemies of the cross. If you don’t pick up your cross, you can’t have His because they are one.
His commandment is that we love one another and lay down our lives for them. Show your life not by what you give but by what you give up. “Not my will but Your will be done”…This is His will for us: Love! But there is no true love without you hanging yourself on the cross! When you have your cross, you fulfill 1 Corinthians 13 to its fullness.
Persecution identifies that you are with Him. Keep on loving. Keep on picking up the cross. If we do righteously, we are righteous. Do the right thing by taking up your cross. You will see the benefits of it here on earth. There is no depression in death because you are dead. There is no anxiety in death because you are dead. There is no worry in death because you are dead. If people break covenant with you, they are breaking covenant with the cross. They are taking back their life. Jesus said, “Lose this life and gain His life.” The cross is where you lose to win and die to gain.
Don’t leave your cross at home. Go back and pick it up! Pride does not stay on the cross. Whoever does not love your brother is a murderer. We ought to lay down our lives for our brother. If we are laying down our lives for one another, every day, there is no offense, there is no division, and there is no strife. There is no argument because there is no flesh ruling you on the cross.
The Gospel is really good news, but not good news for your flesh. You have to crucify it. We are not to love in word but in deed and in the Truth.
If our hearts condemn us, God is greater than our hearts. Keep His commandments: Love your brother! Pick up your cross! Do these two things that please God: Believe on His name and love one another! Because He gave us these commandments!
Anti-Christ is anti-Word. When we don’t want to obey His Word, we are anti-Word. If we don’t love our brother, we are anti-our brother! The cross perfects love. On a good day or on a bad day, how much do you love your brother? When they deserve it or not, how do you love them? That is what He is asking you. Do you love me? Take up your cross. Do you love me? Deny yourself.
Let us love one another because love is of God, and everyone that loves is born of God! If you love not, you know not God. Deny yourself: That is love! When you are feeling left out, you deny yourself for the sake of them! If God so loved us, we ought to love one another! If we love one another, God dwells in us! And because of that, the love of God is being seen in Spirit and in Truth.
When you pick up your cross, God dwells in you. When you lay down your life, God dwells in you. When you deny yourself, God dwells in you. That kind of love is the true love of God dwelling in us all. He that dwells in love dwells in Him and Him in them. Let us love each other just as Christ loves the Church. He that loves their brother loves God as well.
There is no glory without the cross. Do you realize that Jesus was telling everyone to pick up their cross even before He even did it Himself but He was doing it in His heart constantly even until full manifestation. He was already doing it as He was still living. He was saying if you want to follow me to where I am going, you need to do what I am doing. He was prophesying over Himself constantly. This is why and how we know the Word of God is so powerful. We preach the cross. So we will pick it up.
This is why Jesus said, “There is no greater love than this: to lay down your life for your brother.” So this is real love: the cross. And the cross fulfills all the law. Anything we do around the cross is just belief. But being a partaker of the cross is being a partaker of His divine nature. This is living in freedom. This is the fullness of life. This is peace, and this is the communion with God and man, not religion. This communion is one union between us and Him. It is a true covenant.
So let us not just love in word (lip service) or in thought, but love in Truth. This is the only Gospel unto salvation: that we obey Him. To obey Him is to love Him, and to love Him is to partake with Him by giving Him our lives for His divine exchange. The Good News is this: Grace empowers us to become the sons of God. Every seed must fall to the ground and die to reproduce life. Will you be one of His lambs led to the slaughter? Or will you fight for your old man until you die and never end up living in the glory that He died for us to have? Will you be my neighbor?
Luke 10:25-37; Mark 12:28-34; Romans 13; 1 Peter 4:1-10; 1 Corinthians 13; John 12: 24; Luke 9:22-25; Matthew 16:24-26; Philippians 3:7-14; John 15:8-20; 1 John 3; 1 John 4
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