If there is one word to define you best, what would it be?
I used to ask people and myself that question – the question that might even be one of the most popular questions asked during a job interview!
I found that my answer had changed a few times throughout my life, and I have learned that my one word might not be the same one that others have for me. That has led me to ask the Lord what His one word for me is. It also made me wonder what about Him – what is His one word?
All my life I have known Him as the sovereign One. He is God. He can do anything, He is all-powerful, He is strong and mighty, and He does not require anyone’s permission for anything. With so much pain in the world, it is no wonder why we are desiring His power above all.
One of my favourite faith generals is Kathryn Kuhlman whom the Lord used mightily in signs, miracles, and wonders. She used to have revival meetings where thousands were healed miraculously, and I would gush in awe, wishing I was like her. I have a book where she shares her experience of working with the Holy Spirit, the book is titled The Greatest Power in the World. I remember reading the book a few chapters on only to sense the Lord asking me to stop reading it. He wanted me to know Him directly.
That was a few years ago. The Holy Spirit has been asking me to focus and study the cross. “Preach My cross,” the Lord said. As I began to do so, more and more I started to see His love, His passionate love for mankind.
The faith of the Lord
The Lord calls the cross His faith. He believed that He was the Lamb of God who was to die to take away the sins of the world. He believed that as the only sinless man and God in the flesh, He could take our place, sinners, and so atoned for our sins through His blood (death); because the wage of sin is death and the only way for sin to be remitted, blood of a guiltless must be shed. He believed that His blood would mean we are righteous, those who believe in Him and agree with His faith.
Not only that, He believed that by taking all of our sins and carrying them on His body, we would be made whole, because there is no more sin in us. That was why in return, His body was crushed, filled with pain and suffering (the results of sins), because all our sins were on His body. He believed that His broken body (His stripe) is our wholeness. It was the divine exchange.
That is the Lord’s faith. The Bible says that faith without works is dead. That is why the Lord had His body crushed and He gave His life (he had to die as the result because having carried our sins, he had become sin).
His faith is a hundred percent by love.
There is no way anyone could do what the Lord did if it was not because of such great love. He went through all that till the end, because He did not want us to ever go through that. That is love.
That is why love is so powerful. Love is the real authority. Only when you sacrifice with a pure heart for the betterment of others, do you have authority over them – and authority to do them well, not to lord over them and abuse them. This is how things work in His kingdom. Hence the Lord told His twelve disciples, “He who is great among you, let him serve.”
Love prevails
And so I see it now. His one word is love.
As I began to really see it, a strange gentle desire arose within me. A desire to want to know Him as love, more than knowing Him in His power or His majesty, as the King or as the Judge – knowing that it will mean being kind to the unkind, giving during famine, and blessing when it hurts. I know this is His desire for me, to know Him as love, and it is His desire for all of His children. Love is the key that unlocks everything.
The Lord talks about this in Paul’s letter to the Corinthians. The Corinthians were embracing their new faith in Christ, coming out from their pagan beliefs that were filled with idolatry. There was a lot of bickering and striving among them that Paul called them carnal (fleshly), babies in Christ. Yet Paul taught them a great length about spiritual gifts.
As Christian, we all have been given spiritual gifts by the Lord (1 Corinthians 12):
4 Now there are diversities of gifts, but the same Spirit.
5 And there are differences of administrations, but the same Lord.
6 And there are diversities of operations, but it is the same God which worketh all in all.
7 But the manifestation of the Spirit is given to every man to profit withal.
8 For to one is given by the Spirit the word of wisdom; to another the word of knowledge by the same Spirit;
9 To another faith by the same Spirit; to another the gifts of healing by the same Spirit;
10 To another the working of miracles; to another prophecy; to another discerning of spirits; to another divers kinds of tongues; to another the interpretation of tongues:
11 But all these worketh that one and the selfsame Spirit, dividing to every man severally as he will.
12 For as the body is one, and hath many members, and all the members of that one body, being many, are one body: so also is Christ.
These spiritual gifts are part of our inheritance being in Christ, being God’s children. These gifts are given to us for the perfecting of the saints (that is us), for the work of the ministry, for the building up of the church of Christ so that we will not be swayed from our faith in Christ, as we grow up into Him in all things. The gifts are to help each other so that all of us will become who God predestined us to be.
What is interesting is that Paul likens us that have different gifts to different parts of the body. He goes on to say these parts do not fight among each other, but rather they work together for a common purpose. The Corinthians were fighting and comparing with each other about who had the best gift and who was the most important. They missed the point. They missed God’s heart – which is in the next chapter:
13 Though I speak with the tongues of men and of angels, and have not charity, I am become as sounding brass, or a tinkling 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, and have not charity, I am nothing.
3 And though I bestow all my goods to feed the poor, and though I give my body to be burned, and have not charity, it profiteth me nothing.
4 Charity suffereth long, and is kind; charity envieth not; charity vaunteth not itself, is not puffed up,
5 Doth not behave itself unseemly, seeketh not her own, is not easily provoked, thinketh no evil;
6 Rejoiceth not in iniquity, but rejoiceth in the truth;
7 Beareth all things, believeth all things, hopeth all things, endureth all things.
8 Charity never faileth: but whether there be prophecies, they shall fail; whether there be tongues, they shall cease; whether there be knowledge, it shall vanish away.
9 For we know in part, and we prophesy in part.
10 But when that which is perfect is come, then that which is in part shall be done away.
11 When I was a child, I spake as a child, I understood as a child, I thought as a child: but when I became a man, I put away childish things.
12 For now we see through a glass, darkly; but then face to face: now I know in part; but then shall I know even as also I am known.
13 And now abideth faith, hope, charity, these three; but the greatest of these is charity.
Above the greatest spiritual gift that works miracles, love is more supreme. A believer might not know his gift, but as long as he operates in love for others, whatever he prays for, whether healing or breakthrough or creative miracle, it will happen. Because love is the real authority. That is why of all the spiritual gifts, Paul says that prophecy is the one we should covet the most because true prophecy builds others up, and you can only build them up if you have love in your heart.
What does all this mean to you?
Knowing the Lord’s heart and His essence ought to encourage you and assure you of His love for you. Everything He does for you is out of His great love for you. He wants only good for you. He is for you and will fight for you.
This is the One who did not have to die for you, but He did. He did because He loves you and He knew by doing so He would be your highest authority in Your life: His word for you has the final say, not the doctor’s report, not the company who retrenched you, not the person who left you. And His word for you is always, “Fear not, I will help you, I will uphold you with my right hand of righteousness for I have loved you with everlasting love. If I am for you, who can be against you? Your latter days shall be greater than your early days. Grace reigns in your life because you are righteous.”
Take heart, beloved, Love always prevails.
