Gloria Copeland - Love, the secret to your success

Love The Secret to Your Success

Love. You hear a lot about it. But, the truth is, few people really know what love is.

For most, it's an emotional phantom that appearsthen vanisheswithout warning. Illusive. Undefinable . Forever sought but rarely found.

Even believers seem to be confused about it at times. But they don't need to be. The Word of God reveals clearly what love truly is.

Look at 2 John 6. "And what this love consists in is this, that we live and walk in accordance with and guided by His commandmentsHis orders, ordinances, precepts, teaching. This is the commandment, as you have heard from the beginning, that you continue to walk in love guided by it and following it" (The Amplified Bible).

Quite simply, God says love is keeping His commandments. That brings love out of the indefinite into something explicit. But God has done even more than define love for you. He's given you instructions so that you can know how to love as He loves. By giving you His Word. God has given you His love manual in black and white! All you have to do is follow it, and you'll be walking in love.

If you've made Jesus Christ the Lord of your life, you've already taken the first step of obedience. The love of God has been born within you. But, unless you take action, that love will remain hidden within you. Love works in much the same way as the force of faith. Faith is born into you when you are begotten of God, but until you begin to act on God's Word, that powerful force lies dormant. The same thing is true concerning the love of God. You can have the love of God abiding within you and still be unable to allow this love to work through you and reach other people. Like faith, love becomes active through knowledge of the Word.

That's why the Apostle Paul wrote to the church at Philippi saying, "And this I pray, that your love may abound yet more and more in knowledge and in all judgment" (Philippians 1:9).

The love of God is released in your life by acting on the knowledge of God's Word. Without revelation knowledge followed by action, love lies undeveloped and selfishness continues to reign supreme in youeven though you are a new creature.

"But whoso keepeth his word, in him verily is the love of God perfected: hereby know we that we are in him. He that saith he abideth in him ought himself also so to walk, even as he walked" (1 John 2:5-6).

As you act on God's Word, the love of God will he perfected in you. That's when love will begin to flow from you to others.

There is nothingabsolutely nothingthat is more important than learning to love. In fact, how accurately you perfect the love walk will determine how much of the perfect will of God you accomplish. That's because every other spiritual force derives its action from love. For example, the Bible teaches us that faith works by love. And answered prayer is almost an impossibility when a believer steps outside of love and refuses to forgive or is in strife with his brother.

In the beginning of the love chapter, 1 Corinthians 13, the Word says that tongues are just noise if there is no love. If a person has the gift of prophecy, understands all knowledge, and has enough faith to move mountains, without love he is nothing. If he gives all that he has to the poor and even sacrifices his life, without the love of God he gains nothing.

Without love, your giving will not work. Tongues and prophecy will not work. Faith fails and knowledge is unfruitful. All the truths that you have learned from God's Word work by love. They will profit you little unless you live the love of God.

First Corinthians 13:4-8 paints a perfect picture of how love behaves.

Love endures long and is patient and kind; love never is envious nor boils over with jealousy; is not boastful or vainglorious, does not display itself haughtily. It is not conceited arrogant and inflated with pride; it is not rude (unmannerly), and does not act unbecomingly. Love [God's love in us] does not insist on its own rights or its own way, for it is not self-seeking; it is not touchy or fretful or resentful; it takes no account of the evil done to itpays no attention to a suffered wrong. It does not rejoice at injustice and unrighteousness, but rejoices when right and truth prevail. Love bears up under anything and everything that comes, is ever ready to believe the best of every person, its hopes are fadeless under all circumstances and it endures everything [without weakening]. Loves never failsnever fades out or becomes obsolete or comes to an end (The Amplified Bible).

That may sound like a tough set of requirementsbut you can meet them. You are a love creature. God has recreated your spirit in the image of love. And He has sent His love Spirit to live in you and teach you how to love as He loves. You can live the love life!

Become love conscious by confessing and acting on God's Word concerning this love. As you meditate these scriptures, see yourself living the love life.

You are the one who has to make the decision to perfect the love of God in your life. No one else can do it for you. So, make the decision in faith and commit yourself to obey God's Word about love.

Let me warn you. There will be times when you would rather do anything than allow love to rule. (It will seem as though it is taking off a pound of flesh!) There will be times when it would be much easier to go ahead and get mad, to seek your own and retaliate.

Love is directly opposed to the senses. The senses have been trained to put themselves and their desires above anything else. They've been trained to selfishly seek their own way. But love, the Word says, does not seek its own rights or its own way. And to walk in love, you must demand that your senses (flesh) he subject to the Word.

Without a definite decision, you will not continue in the love of God. So commit yourself to agapeGod's lovenow. And when temptation comes, you will remember this decision and obey love.

Once you've made the decision, the most powerful thing that you can do in perfecting the love walk is to continually confess that you are the love of God. Base your confession on 1

Corinthians 13:4-8. This God kind of love will begin to influence all that you say and do. If someone says something unkind to you, love will say, "That is okay. I am not touchy. fretful or resentful. I take no account of that." And you go free!

Learn to believe in love. It is the most powerful force in the universe. Walk in love by faith in the Word. Walking in love is walking in the Spirit. It is walking as Jesus walked.

Love never fails. Nothing works without it, and there can be no failure with it. When you live by love, you cannot fail.

It takes faith to believe that love's way will not fail. The natural mind cannot understand that because the natural man and his world are ruled by selfishness. He believes if you don't look out for number one (himself), nobody else will. And, in a sense, he is right. Nobody else can look out for him. His selfishness shuts the door to the love of God, and he winds up on his own.

But when you practice love by faith and refuse to seek your own, you put the Father into action on your behalf. He will allow no man to do you wrong (1 Chronicles 16:22). As long as you stay in love, God the Father seeks your own. He sees to it that love never fails. Walking in love is to your great advantage!

Agape love is a new kind of power. It makes you the master of every situation. As long as you walk in love, you cannot be hurt and you cannot fail. No weapon that is formed against you will prosper. No one even has the power to hurt your feelings, because you are not ruled by feelings but by God's love. You are loving as He loves.

E. W. Kenyon accurately tagged this agape love "a new kind of selfishness." You no longer seek your own success, yet your success is guaranteed!