LOVE AS THE OUTCOME OF TRANSFORMATION

What does being transformed look like?  The Lord has taken me through an interesting path over the last couple of months and I am starting to sense the outcome of being transformed.

He tells us in

Romans 12:2

And do not be conformed to this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your mind, that you may prove what is that good and acceptable and perfect will of God.

Transformation is a process and there is an outcome.

 

He also tells us that we shall love the Lord

Deuteronomy 6:5

You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, with all your soul, and with all your strength.

 

He emphasizes love again and again

1 Corinthians 13:13

 And now abide faith, hope, love, these three; but the greatest of these is love.

 

And then the Lord really tells us that love is number one in

Matthew 22:35

Then one of them, a lawyer, asked Him a question, testing Him, and saying, ³⁶ “Teacher, which is the great commandment in the law?”

³⁷ Jesus said to him, “‘You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, with all your soul, and with all your mind.’ ³⁸ This is the first and great commandment. ³⁹ And the second is like it: ‘You shall love your neighbour as yourself.’ ⁴⁰ On these two commandments hang all the Law and the Prophets.”

In my walk I am really experiencing an understanding of love for the Lord and love for all those around.

This love feels like I have been going up a stairway of transformation and come to the point of love which is at the top.

The Lord has been showing me this through scripture as well as experience

Romans 5:1

Therefore, having been justified by faith, we have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ, ² through whom also we have access by faith into this grace in which we stand, and rejoice in hope of the glory of God. ³ And not only that, but we also glory in tribulations, knowing that tribulation produces perseverance; ⁴ and perseverance, character; and character, hope. ⁵ Now hope does not disappoint, because the love of God has been poured out in our hearts by the Holy Spirit who was given to us.

We go through tribulations which produces perseverance, character and hope.  He uses this to transform us and at the end of this is love for Him because we understand He has done all things to bring us to a place where he can use us and we can stand in all of Him.  He does this because of His love for us but we also get to a place where regardless of the circumstances we are in we have a love for Him.

 

Again we see this transformation process in

2 Peter 1:5

But also for this very reason, giving all diligence, add to your faith virtue, to virtue knowledge, ⁶ to knowledge self-control, to self-control perseverance, to perseverance godliness, ⁷ to godliness brotherly kindness, and to brotherly kindness love. ⁸ For if these things are yours and abound, you will be neither barren nor unfruitful in the knowledge of our Lord Jesus Christ. ⁹ For he who lacks these things is short sighted, even to blindness, and has forgotten that he was cleansed from his old sins.

I can clearly see in my life where the Lord has taken me through this process step by step and I have spent time at each step understanding it.  There has been diligence, virtue, self-control, brotherly kindness and in the end this place of love.

I took my daughter out this morning for a breakfast and as I was sitting there enjoying the food and her company I looked around me and I was overcome with a love for all those in the café and also a love for all those that couldn’t enjoy a café at that time. It was a feeling of totally caring for each person and where they were at and a feeling of deep love for them. I would never have had this feeling in the past and I understood that this was the outcome of Romans 5 and 2 Peter transformation processes above.  Love was like an accumulation of all this transformation and an outcome that the Lord now wanted me to walk in.

 

Again he outlines in the transformation process in

Colossians 3:12

 Therefore, as the elect of God, holy and beloved, put on tender mercies, kindness, humility, meekness, longsuffering; ¹³ bearing with one another, and forgiving one another, if anyone has a complaint against another; even as Christ forgave you, so you also must do. ¹⁴ But above all these things put on love, which is the bond of perfection.

Love is the Bond of perfection.  We are perfected in trials and tribulation

1 Peter 5:10

But may the God of all grace, who called us to His eternal glory by Christ Jesus, after you have suffered a while, perfect, establish, strengthen, and settle you.

All these verses (Romans 5, 1 and 2 Peter, Colossians) tie together and lead to love being the outcome. That is why the Lord tells us to love as He knows it is the outcome of transformation and when we truly love the old man has died and the new man is here.

If you are in this process (if you are seeking the Lord you will be in the process) have a look at which stage are you at.  Don’t be discouraged by where you are at but understand he is leading you somewhere.

He wants us to be one with Him and like Him and to shine his love through ourselves.  What a place of power to be in.

 

He uses scripture again and again to show us this.  He has been driving this home to me in the last two weeks.

1 Corinthians 16:13

Watch, stand fast in the faith, be brave, be strong. ¹⁴ Let all that you do be done with love.

So love is in all we do but it isn’t something wimpy which we just subject ourselves to do.  We are to be in faith, brave and strong and to be about the Lords business for us in this time.  But in doing this we have such a peace in love.

1 Peter 1:22

Since you have purified your souls in obeying the truth through the Spirit in sincere love of the brethren, love one another fervently with a pure heart,

Let us be pure and righteous.

For myself love hasn’t been the top of my agenda with my past walk but I am in a place the Lord has led me to where I am really feeling love in my walk now.  It has taken years of transformation through sanctification.  When we have deep love I am sure we then can move on to more of what He has for us.

 

As I finish these are the words that the Lord gives me.

“Without love you can’t overcome anything because ultimately you come back to yourself.  Love is the output of dying to yourself son and living for others.  This is a place I can bless and I can build from because you allow me to flow though you and do all that I wish to do through you.  Because of my love for you I want to do all through you that I can, but I won’t overwrite your freewill, so I need love to reign in you.  So when you totally surrender to love then watch how I work in you and the world around you will be transformed.  Expect much and see much, this is the season that loves brings.”