THE ENEMY OF LOVE
(God IS love)
1 John 4:8
“He who does not love does not know God, for God is love.”
God does not merely have love—God IS Love.
Therefore, as we receive His love and allow His love to perfect us, something begins to change within us. We learn to love Him, to love others, and to see ourselves through the truth of who we are in Him.
Sarah van Vuuren wrote:
“If we do not receive His love, our identity will not be whole.
When our identity is whole, we will become vessels of honour,
to be used for His purposes and His glory—not our own.
We must step into His Fire of Love, as His love purifies and the Lord is a Refiner’s Fire. If we do not understand the fire of His love—His purification and the heat being turned up out of His love for us—or if we reject it, then we cannot be made perfect in His love.”
THE REFINER’S FIRE OF LOVE
God’s love does not simply comfort us; His love transforms us.
His love exposes what does not belong in us.
His love purifies.
His love corrects.
His love disciplines.
His love burns away the things that prevent us from becoming vessels of honor for His purposes.
Malachi 3:2
“But who can endure the day of His coming?
And who can stand when He appears?
For He is like a refiner’s fire
And like launderers’ soap.”
He is the One who is searching the Hearts of all men and women in this Hour, as He is the One who knows our hearts. And He is the One who walks among the 7 Lampstands; His Unveiling is upon us!
Sometimes people want the warmth of His love without the purification that comes with His fire. But, the Lord loves us too much to leave us unchanged!
His refining fire is not rejection—it is part of His work of transformation in our lives.
REAL LOVE DOES NOT INSIST ON ITS OWN WAY
1 Corinthians 13: 4-5
4 “Love suffers long and is kind; love does not envy; love does not parade itself, is not puffed up; 5 does not behave rudely, does not seek its own, is not provoked, thinks no evil;
There is a death to self that accompanies learning to walk in the love of Christ.
We must surrender the things that compete with His love: selfish ambition, pride, lust, the desires of the flesh, the fear of man, and the need to control our own lives.
And we must learn to surrender our fears to Him—the fear of the future, fear of the unknown, fear of rejection, fear of man, and the anxieties that try to rule our hearts.
Why?
Because 1 John 4:18 says:
“There is no fear in love; but perfect love casts out fear, because fear involves torment.
But he who fears has not been made perfect in love.”
Fear is an enemy of walking freely in love.
When fear rules our hearts, it affects how we see God, ourselves, other people, and even our circumstances. Yet, once His perfect love fills us, fear begins to lose its grip.
WHEN WOUNDS MAKE IT DIFFICULT TO RECEIVE LOVE
Sometimes there can be deep wounds within the heart that make receiving or giving love difficult.
Rejection, abandonment, betrayal, trauma, broken trust, painful relationships, or even experiences from our past can create places within us where we become afraid of vulnerability.
We may desperately desire love while simultaneously being afraid to receive it.
We may build walls around our hearts, like the walls of Jericho, to protect ourselves from being hurt again.
Those walls may once have felt necessary for survival, but later they can make healthy intimacy difficult or even impossible.
This affects both our relationship with people and our relationship with the Lord.
If people struggle to trust, we may struggle to surrender.
If we fear rejection, we may keep people at a distance.
If vulnerability has previously resulted in pain, we may associate intimacy with danger.
If love has previously been conditional, controlling, manipulative, or unpredictable, we may even struggle to understand what safe, healthy love looks like.
Sometimes, we can unknowingly project those experiences onto God.
We may know intellectually that God loves us, while struggling deeply to receive His love in our being.
This is why the Lord desires to bring healing into the wounded places within people.
Psalm 147:3 “He heals the brokenhearted and binds up their wounds.”
Jesus does not expose our wounds to condemn us.
He desires to bring His truth and love into those places so that what once controlled us no longer must define how we relate to Him or to others.
As His love reaches those wounded places, and you allow Him, the walls can begin to come down!
We can learn to trust again.
We can learn about healthy vulnerability.
We can learn to give and receive affection.
We can learn intimacy.
We can learn that love does not have to mean fear.
And, most importantly- we can learn to abide in His love:
Love and Joy Perfected:
John 15:9
9 “As the Father loved Me, I also have loved you; abide in My love.”
Healing therefore becomes part of learning how to receive His love and then pour that love into others.
We cannot continually pour from places within us that we refuse to allow God to touch.
Let Him into the wounded places.
Let Him heal what was broken.
Let Him expose the lies created through rejection and pain.
Let Him teach your heart that it is safe to receive His perfect love.
Because intimacy with God changes the way we experience intimacy with others.
LOVE, IDENTITY & AUTHORITY
Our true identity is discovered in Christ.
When we become rooted and grounded in His love, we no longer must build our identity upon people’s approval, our spiritual gifts, our ministries, our achievements, our titles, or what others think about us.
We begin to know:
Who He is.
Who we are in Him.
Whose we are.
It is from this place we can walk in the authority He gives us, as we then seek first the Kingdom of God and His Righteousness — not from pride, self-importance, the need to prove ourselves, the approval and validation from others, but as humble vessels surrendered to Him.
GIFTS ARE NOT THE SAME AS INTIMACY
This is one of the most sobering warnings Jesus gives us.
Spiritual gifts are not automatically evidence of a relationship with Him or intimacy with Him or even to be known by Him.
Jesus warned us in Matthew 7:22-23:
22 Many will say to Me in that day, ‘Lord, Lord, have we not prophesied in Your name,
cast out demons in Your name, and done many wonders in Your name?’
23 And then I will declare to them, ‘I never knew you; depart from Me you who practice lawlessness!’
Those words should cause every believer to examine their heart.
The greatest goal is not: “Lord, use me.”
The deepest cry should first be:
“Lord, I want to KNOW You —
and I want to be known by You.”
The foolish virgins also carried lamps.
They were waiting for the Bridegroom.
Yet when the moment came, they did not have enough oil and the door was shut, and the Bridegroom said in Matthew 25:12:
“Assuredly, I say to you, I do not know you.”
Again, we see the importance of knowing Him personally.
WITHOUT LOVE, THE GIFTS MEAN NOTHING
Paul makes this very clear in 1 Corinthians 13:1–3.
The Greatest Gift
13 Though I speak with the tongues of men and of angels, but have not love,
I have become sounding brass or a clanging cymbal. 2 And though I have the gift of prophecy,
and understand all mysteries and all knowledge, and though I have all faith, so that I could remove mountains, but have not love, I am nothing.
3 And though I bestow all my goods to feed the poor, and though I give my body to be burned, but have not love, it profits me nothing.
We may speak beautifully.
We may prophesy.
We may understand all mysteries.
We may have all the knowledge.
We may possess tremendous faith.
We may sacrifice greatly.
But without love— we are nothing.
Spiritual gifts can never replace intimacy.
Ministry can never replace intimacy.
Knowledge can never replace intimacy.
Signs and wonders can never replace intimacy.
Religious activity can never replace intimacy.
Many, in this very day, prophecy from their flesh or from a spirit of divination, performing false signs, miracles and wonders that Jesus warned His Disciples, and us about, and most likely through the counterfeit spirit of the enemy.
Worshipping another Jesus and following a changed, perverted & compromised gospel.
HIS LOVE, GOD must be our foundation.
IF WE LOVE HIM, WE WILL OBEY HIM
Jesus said in John 14:15
“If you love Me, keep My commandments.”
True love for Christ produces surrender.
True Love for Him produces the Fear of the Lord, as it’s the beginning of wisdom.
Not perfection through our own strength, but a heart that desires to obey the One it loves.
When we receive His love, allow Him to heal and refine us, die to self, walk in humility and reverence before Him, and discover our identity in Christ, we become vessels through whom His love can flow and vessels of honor to do His perfect work through.
Then our authority, our gifts and our ministry are not about ourselves.
It is all about HIM.
Because without His love, even something that appears spiritual becomes an imitation of the real thing.
FAITH. HOPE. LOVE.
1 Cor. 13:13 “And now abide faith, hope, love, these three; but the greatest of these is love.”
Faith, Hope and the gifts of the Spirit are precious, but the Word tells us:
THE GREATEST OF THESE IS LOVE.
God is Love.
His fire is Love.
His correction comes from Love.
His healing flows from Love.
Our identity must become rooted in His Love.
Our obedience must flow from Love.
Our relationships should increasingly reflect His Love.
And our ministry must flow from Love.
Because ultimately, it was never about our gifts, our titles, our ministries, our abilities, or ourselves.
It is about HIM.
Abide in faith.
Abide in hope.
But above all, ABIDE IN HIS LOVE.
1 John 4:8 “He who does not love does not know God, for God is love.”
