THE KEY TO LOVE
THE KEY TO LOVE
Preached by: Pastor Carolyn Sissom
Sunday, February 8, 2025; February 13, 2011
As a minister of the Gospel, if I could impart to you the “key” to love and you were able to always have access to and know the secret of the Grace of that great mystery, my joy would be full. The key is through the Trinity: Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. God is our true beloved. When we are in relationship with our “First love”, we will love our other loves more. Our earthly relationships will be healthy and pain-free.
Those greater than me have written volumes about this great mystery. You have heard my testimony that many years ago, that the Lord gave me a vision of the night of a book. On the cover, was “Faith is a Fact, Hope is a Certainty, and Love is a Reality.” In the vision, the book was written by me.
I conclude from that vision that along the journey of life I have then felt experienced, participated in and been a partaker of Christ’s Divine Love free from the struggle of earthly love. “God is Love”.
John 3:16; 20:21: …God so loved the world that he gave his only begotten Son, that whosoever believes in him should not perish, but have everlasting life…as my Father has sent me, so send I you.
Paul was a great lover. He was passionately in love with Jesus Christ, and the ministry of His Kingdom. I also have shared with you the testimony of before leaving Baton Rouge, the Lord spoke to me and told me, "You have fallen out-of-love with your ministry”. I don’t believe anyone would ever doubt that the Apostle Paul was deeply in love with his ministry until his work on earth was finished.
The Apostle gave us many illustrations of Divine Love and how we can love His Presence and die to the pain of soulical love. We will love His Presence more than His presents. In His Presence is life forevermore and all the fullness of His Love.
There are many who love God for what He has done for them. This is a good reason. We all started there. Jesus is our merciful Savior. He is Priest. But if we stop there, we bog down and stagnate at that starting point. If we build doctrinal and sectarian walls around those foundational truths, we will cut off God’s movings in our lives. There are many church leaders today who are frustrated. Many have reached their 60’s and feel they have not fulfilled the destiny and vision given to them. They have stopped growing. His love is unfathomable and as we continue on the path of life dwelling in His Love, we discover more, more and more of His Great Love.
God is a Giver and God is love.
1 Jn. 4: 8, 16-18: He that does not love does not know God, for God is love…And we have known and believed the love that God has to us. God is love; and he that dwells in love dwells in God and God in him. Herein is our love made perfect, that we may have boldness in the Day of Judgment; because as he is, so are we in this world. There is no fear in love; but perfect love casts out fear, because fear has torment. He that fears is not made perfect in love. We love him because he first loved us.
Those who know Jesus only as Priest are takers and not givers. If all of your needs, thoughts and desires are still all about you, then you have missed the key to love.
1 Co. 13: 1-3: If I speak in the tongues of men and of angels, but have not love, I am only a noisy gong or a clanging cymbal. 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, have not love, I am nothing. Thought I bestow all my goods to feed the poor and though I give my body to burned, and have not love, it will not profit me.”
Anything we do in the ministry that is not motivated by the Love of God and love for one another will burn as wood, hay, and stubble. Many have within them ministry but are still frustrated with an expectation that the ministry is for their self-gratification and self-exaltation. We will certainly be held accountable for supporting our ministers, but the ministry must not seek its own.
These words written by the Apostle are not just beautiful poetry, but the very Blood of Christ and the cost of public ministry.
1 Co. 13:4: Love suffers long and is kind. Love does not envy or boil over with jealousy. Love is not boastful or vainglorious. Love does not display itself haughtily.
These standards are for each one of us individually, not for those we love or for those to whom we are ministering. As ministers, it is expected we will be ministering to those who are immature. We do not judge others by this standard. We minister objectively, taking nothing personal without any expectation of being loved in return. That does not mean that we lay down and allow people to walk all over us. This is a condition of love and acceptance toward those who are immature. Our maturity is measured by how we handle the immaturity of others. If we become offended at the inappropriate behavior of people, then we are automatically disqualified to be able to minister to them. We do not hold a two-year old child as accountable for wrongs as we would a teenager. We do not hold a teenager as accountable for wrongs as we would someone in their twenties, etc. This is a divine quality of Grace.
1 Co. 13:5: Love does not behave itself unseemly, does not seek her own, is not easily provoked, and thinks no evil.
This means temper tantrums, rudeness, sassiness, pouting, retaliation, gossip, spite, meddling, controlling, etc. If Satan can find your weakness to provoke you, he will be sure there is someone around you to push your buttons all day long. If you are one who tries to find another’s weak spot and provoke them, you can expect the Lord will send you to the woodshed, but worst of all, you will miss being in that Divine realm of the Lord’s Divine Love. Until you repent, it will cost you the anointing and blessing of His Holy Presence. The one you wish to provoke (hurt) will earn the crown and receive a promotion while the offended one sits in pain separated from His Presence. A person who continues in the sin of provocation and trouble making will also experience the emotional pain of the Lord’s correction.
Yes, the Lord has given us the gift of Discernment of spirits and we are able to discern evil. While love learns spiritual discernment, it maintains its faith in others. Far better to be deceived in a doubtful case and suffer hurt, than as a skeptic to hurt another who should have been believed. Love should always believe the best and hope for the best. As ministers when dealing with those who are immature and/or sinners, we simply deposit the love of Christ and not take it person. We do not take offense if we do not see fruit right away. We are not the Holy Spirit’s policemen.
1 Co. 13:6: “Love does not rejoice at injustice but rejoices in the truth.”
Only the Holy Spirit of Truth can set us free from the bondage of pain. Many live in delusion and do not want to hear truth. Love and truth unite to rejoice in its triumph over wrong.
I was surprised after the inauguration at the anger and passion of some in the Body of Christ around deportation. We the church have prayed many years for strong government to close our borders, push back the drug carters as well as the easy access of terrorists to cross our borders. The worst being sex trafficking and fentanyl. This is an attack on the unity of the Body of Christ. We are to be of one mind, the mind of Christ, preferring one another in love. This is not political but the Kingdom government of Christ.
1 Co. 13:7: Love bears all things, believes all things, hopes all things, and endures all things. Love never fails. Hope is a certainty for those who are living in Divine Love. We hope expecting the ultimate triumph of truth. In that hope, we persevere steadfast in all things. Endurance is patience in action.
The Lord knows we will never be overcomers until we dispense this life of Jesus into others. If the church is to unlock the door to a life filled with the Holy Spirit, Divine Love, and His dominion, then we must relate to Him who has the Key of David as both Priest and King.
We are to be those who have power with God and man; prevailers and overcomers! These know God as a Priest and King and walk in the love, strength and joy of their Lord.
“But where there are prophecies, they shall fail; where there are tongues, they shall cease; where there is knowledge, it shall vanish away.”
Contrary to what some denominations have taught, this does not mean that the Holy Spirit gifts of prophecy, tongues and Word of Knowledge will cease. It is simply a contrast with unending love. These gifts are transitory for building up the body of Christ. The gifts are to continue until perfection comes. In the Lord’s immediate Presence, we will all know as we are known. When the Glory falls our church assembly, I think all of you know as you are known. I then switch gears to operate in the gifts of the Holy Spirit to minister to the people.
Without a prophetic vision, the Lord’s people will perish (Pr. 29:18). The higher you go, the farther you can see. Let us arise from the dust of carnality and lusting after things that which will not profit us. Let us stop crying out to God to satisfy the pain of our soul and ask Him to fill us with His Divine Love that we may experience on earth His joy unspeakable and full of Glory.
Phil 3:20: …our conversation is in heaven, from whence we look. Let us go up higher to the top of the mountain and fly with eagles instead of acting like a turkey.
If we preach a man-centered vision that only emphasizes a God who meets the need of humanity, we will miss the God-centered vision that everything is in Him, through Him and unto Him. He is Lord! He has risen from the dead and he is Lord!
Jesus told us that love is the first and highest commandment. We are to love God with all of our Heart, Mind and Soul. The second commandment is to love your neighbor as yourself. Then he gave us a new commandment, a new standard by which to judge and measure love. We are to love in the same way He has loved us.
John 15:12:This is my commandment, that you love one another, as I have loved you.
As humans our knowledge of love is only fragmentary, and our reasoning faulty. We see as through a glass darkly of a distorted image of divine reality.
At His coming we shall see and know love face to face. When he comes three things will remain, Faith, Hope and Love. And the greatest of these is love. Love is the root of the other two. Love believes all things. (Faith) Love hopes all things (Hope).
It is implied that we do and should love ourselves. There is a self-love which is corrupt, but there is a self-love which is natural. We must love ourselves.
We must honor and esteem all men because they are humans. We must do good to all even those who wrong us. The pendulum of the Bible hangs on the law of love.
Galatians 5:13: You my brothers were called to be free. But do not use your freedom to indulge the sinful nature; rather, serve one another in love. The entire law is summed up in a single command: Love your neighbor as yourself. If you keep on biting and devouring each other, watch out or you will be destroyed by each other.
Mutual strife among Christians if persisted in will cause Christian churches to be ruined by their own hands. If Christians make the church “barracuda run,” what can be expected but that the God of Love should deny his grace to them, and the Spirit of Love should depart from them and an evil Sprit should prevail.
Such love is impossible separate from the Vine. God empowers us by the Holy Ghost. With God all things are possible. We are to keep trying, not weary in well doing, knowing that every time we put love in to action; we are revealing that we belong to Christ and so are changing our world.
The world has no excuse for its sin of hostility toward God. True righteousness has been manifested in Christ. Men have experienced and seen the Love of God through the life of one man. Mankind has seen love, but they still do not believe. We also must testify – Raise the standard. We must tell them we love because he first loved us.
Jesus is one with God and one with us and one in himself in the unity of his person. As Mediator, Christ is the “power of God and the wisdom of God”. Through Christ the infinitely glorious wisdom of God shines forth. Unbelief alone can hold us back from this great salvation.
This is the hidden mystery, great without controversy, the admiration and wonder of all believers to all eternity.
Jesus Christ is alive. He lives forever and ever. He has the keys of hell and death. He is made Lord and Ruler. God has set him as king on his holy hill of Zion. All things are put in subjection under his feet. He has been given all power in heaven and on earth. He has been given power over all flesh to give eternal life to those God has given him. He rules his elect in the power of God. He fills his enemies with fear, terror, and horror. Christ will gather all the enemies of the cross together: the beast, false prophet, dragon, Gog, Magog, and all nations; ---He will cast them into the lake that burns with fire and brimstone.
Christ is gloriously exalted above angels, whether good or evil. He is at the right hand of God in the highest position possible. He is in full possession of a Kingdom over the whole creation. He has received a name that is above every name. He is glorious on his throne.
Christ is glorious in His name, a name above every name, that of Lord of lords and King of kings. Christ is glorious in his scepter: A scepter of
righteousness is the scepter of his Kingdom. His chariots are twenty thousand, even thousands of angels. Among them he rides on the heavens and sends out the voice of his strength, attended with ten thousand even thousands of his holy ones.
All creatures in heaven and on earth are in subjection to him. He rules his Kingdom with sweet effectiveness and with serene power. He rules in righteousness, holiness, and grace in and to his elect.
His great grace and love do not fail to His elect. What are the conditions?
Carolyn Sissom, Pastor
Eastgate Ministries Church, 10115 West Hidden Lakes Lane, Richmond, TX
Scripture from K.J.V. and N.K.J.V. – If I have quoted others in this message, I have long ago forgotten who, please forgive me.