LAW OF LOVE
LAW OF LOVE
Sunday, February 15, 2026
Pastor Carolyn Sissom
This past week, our friend and co-laborer, Robert Naguin, had a second stroke that put him on life support. The doctors have not given the family any hope of his recovery. He is being evaluated as an organ donor and is being kept alive on life support. He and Sonya West are engaged. She has been faithful to minister to Robert and the family during this very difficult time. Please pray for the family and for Sonya as they continue to walk this out.
On February 9, 2025, I wrote the following: “As a minister of the Gospel, if I could impart to others the “key” to love and they 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. He loved us so much He gave us His Only Son to deliver us from sin and give us eternal life. 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.
The world has no knowledge of the fellowship with the Divine Love of the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. Nothing in the natural mind of man can perceive the depths of this privilege. What the world determines as fellowship cannot be equated to this holy communion.
The tests of being children of God and living in Christ are faith, hope and love.
Jerome (3/27/347-9/30/420) one of the Desert Fathers, tells us that during St. John’s last years “little children, love one another” was the one exhortation which, after he had become too old to preach, he never ceased to give. “It is the Lord’s command, he said, and if this is done, it is enough.”
1 John 4:7-10: Beloved let us love one another; for love is of God; and every one that loves is born of God; and knows God. He that does not love does not know God, for God is love. In this was manifested the love of God toward us because God sent his only begotten Son into the world, that we might live through him. Herein is love, not that we loved God, but that he loved us, and sent his Son to be the propitiation for our sins.
These three verses define the Divine Gift of Love.” (End of quote from 2/9/2025).
I always look forward to preaching the Love Message on Valentine Day. This year was no different. But the Lord spoke to me at Tuesday Bible Study during worship to preach on “Issues.” I began to categorize where I could add that into our ministry schedule because I was preaching on love this Sunday coming.
While I was preaching out of Ezekiel, Chapter 2, I trapped myself in the Word of God. Ezekiel was told to preach only what the LORD told him to preach. I got a strong witness of the Holy Spirit that I was to preach on “Issues.”
As I considered this, people’s issues are stumbling blocks which keep them from walking in love whether in their marriages, their families, their relationships, their churches, or their communities.
We the Church must walk in the maturity of God’s love overcoming the angry countenance the world wears. The war of issues in Church must end. I am not speaking of Eastgate, but the Facebook Church, the Internet Church, the Prophetic Church, and the Denominational Church.
The provoking of Christians on issues for the purpose of stirring strife or to find a weak spot to get a reaction for sport of debate is a sin.
1 Tim. 6:3-5: If any man teaches otherwise, and consent not to wholesome words, even the words of our Lord Jesus Christ, and to the doctrine which is according to godliness; he is conceited and understands nothing. He has an unhealthy interest in controversies and quarrels about words that result in envy, strife, malicious talk, evil suspicions, and constant friction between men of corrupt mind, who have been robbed of the truth and who think that godliness is a means to financial gain (NIV).
1 Co. 12: 25-26: That there should be no schism in the body; but that the members should have the same care one for another. And whether one member suffer, all the members suffer with it; or one member be honored all the members rejoice with it.
We are also to have the wisdom not to yield to our pride of wanting to be right, make a name for ourselves, have the last word, or straighten people out. Wisdom springs the trap, jumps over the mud hole, and doesn’t bite the bait to get sucked into foolish controversies.
1 Pe. 2:15: For so is the will of God, that with well doing you may put to silence the ignorance of foolish men.
It is to our credit not to get sucked into vain ideologies. There are people who will post all sorts of foolish things trying to create division. One such issue is about women pastors. There is also the rapture, debating prophecies, debating the ministry of apostles and prophets; church growth; deeper life; discipleship; dominion; marriage-divorce; Holy Spirit; Race; Spiritual Warfare; Theocracy, etc. The list goes on and on, establishing territories and not the least, doctrines of devils. The root of it is pride.
None of these issues constitute the Issue of God.
Prov. 19:21: There are many devices in a man’s heart; nevertheless, it is the counsel of the LORD, that shall stand. Prov. 19:21.
There are situations wherein we are 100 percent right, yet still blamed. Our good is sometimes spoken of as evil. Our words are sometimes twisted to say what we never said. People project onto us their issues. We are misrepresented and maligned, persecuted for righteousness’s sake.
Like the Master, we must not complain or sin with our mouths.
A dead man need not defend himself. Pride is defensive and insecure.
Every preacher in his/her immaturity has a point to prove, and usually will die on that mountain or destroy someone else on the mountain. Some casualties in the Kingdom are due to ignorance and arrogance of the sword of “issues”; not the sword of the Spirit of God. The good news for preachers is God forgives.
Moses and Paul were two great preachers. Both had to mature and lay aside the issues of men. They were both killers and killed for their “issues.”
There are at least 200 doctrinal issues that preachers, denominations, and congregations disagree on which are the “issues of men.” They are majoring on minors. Men prefer to preach from the tree of the knowledge of good and evil rather than from the Tree of Life. Revelations becomes a stumbling block of pride.
What God overlooked in the days of our immaturity; He now deals with.
Acts 17:30: In the past, God overlooked such ignorance, but now he commands all people everywhere to repent. (N.K.J.V.)
When a man’s thirst for God becomes his single passion, he is ready to face the issue, to cast the crowns of his own achievements at the feet of the LORD. For 40 long years, Moses was broken and humiliated, made fit to lead his congregation into the same experience.
Paul was taken from the feet of Gamaliel and put on a donkey with a pocket full of warrants. Saul of Tarsus met his match on the road to Damascus. Blind and covered with dust, this preacher still had the nerve to ask an omnipotent God what he could do. That’s not the issue, Paul… Jesus doesn’t need you help! Head for the Straight Street. There you will be made to see the righteousness which is by faith. The deserts of Arabia (Gal. 1:17) will provide your growth in grace and you will write it down for every other preacher to read.
Super-apostle, least of the apostles, the worst of sinners, nothing… that is Paul’s growth in grace, the predetermined path for every preacher with an issue.
When men do not have a relationship with the One who is the Truth, they resort to preaching “issues.” The Facebook Church and the Internet Church must stop hassling each other in these lower realms. Like the young prodigal (Lk. 15:18-20), we must ascend and return to the simplicity of preaching Christ. The apostle sternly warned every believer about the futility of religious debate.
1 Tim 6:4-5: He is conceited and understands nothing. He has an unhealthy interest in controversies and quarrels about words that result in envy, strife, malicious talk, evil suspicions, and constant friction between men of corrupt mind, who have been robbed of the truth and who think that godliness sis a means to financial gain. (vs 21) Which some professing have erred concerning the faith.
2 Tim. 3:9: Don’t have anything to do with foolish and stupid arguments, because you know they produce quarrels.
Paul repeatedly admonished Timothy and Titus about the dead-end street of arguing over the issues of men. When men proclaim truth without love (Eph. 4:15), they each right things with the wrong spirit. One can preach sonship without having the Spirit of the Son.
Prov. 4:23: Keep thy heart with all diligence; for out of it are the issues of life.
Prov. 4:23: Above all else, guard your heart, for it is the well-spring of life.
Jesus Christ is the issue of life from the bosom of the Father.
Heb. 1:3: Who being the brightness of His glory, and the express image of His person, and upholding all things by the Word of His power, when He had by Himself purged our sins, sat down on the right hand of the Majesty on high.
Jesus is the Word (John 1:1-4). His church is the army of words within His treasure chest (Mt. 12:35). There, in the secret place of the Most High (Ps. 91), we and all that we committed to Him are safe. He is our Advocate, the One in whom we trust and the One on whom we call.
Co. 3:1-3: Since you have been raised with Christ, set your hearts on things above, where Christ is seated at the right hand of God. Set your minds on things above, not on earthly things. For you died, and your life is now hidden with Christ in God.
No words can adequately describe the worth of the Treasure who came from the bosom of the Father. Jesus, the unspeakable Gift (2 Co. 9:15), is the essence of wealth, the legal covenantal heir of all things in Heaven, in earth and under the earth. The wealth of the universe is in Him and through Him. He is the inestimable Bounty from the lap of god. Our heavenly Boaz is a Man of means. He is the Treasure and the Pearl, and His people are the treasure within his chambers. (Mal.3:17; Matt. 13:44-46).
2 Co. 4:7: But we have this treasure in earthen vessels, that the excellency of the power may be of God, and not of us.
The Church world has been distracted by the issues of men and preoccupied with its own procedures and programs. Human wisdom has created and birthed a menagerie of witty inventions. Men have prioritized their gods while ignoring the burden of the LORD. Without the salt and light of the Church, the secular world has gone mad in its ignorance of what really matters. The blind have led the blind. Non-issues have become front page news.
Only a man or woman who has received the oil and wine of God’s forgiving grace, only a free man, can set a man free. Will you receive the ministry of the Comforter as he lights your way down the darkened path of human need? Will you lay down your life with joy (Heb. 12:2)? The death and hell in us is being swallowed up so we can release His creation. We must be worshipers before we can inter-seed the earth with his life. There is a seed-corn company of sons who are not afraid to descend (Eph. 4: 9-10).
Jesus Christ came out of the bosom of the Father to express the love of God because the law of love is giving (John 3:16). Out of the heart are the issues of life, and the Issue is a priestly One.
The issues of men are temporal. The issue of God is eternal.
Out of the heart are the issues of life. Jesus came out of the bosom of the Father as the ministering Priest. In relationship to the Father in heaven, he is the Worshiper, the Son of God. In relationship to all men in the earth, He is the intercessor, the Inter-Seeder, the Son of Man. He is the Tree of life and the River of Life.
Now Jesus’ Church comes forth in Harvest and resurrection, His multiplied seed! The hour has come for the Son of Man to be glorified and the nations to be gathered in.
Carolyn Sissom, Pastor
Eastgate Ministries Church, 10115 West Hidden Lakes Lane, Richmond, TX.
www.eastgatemnistries.com
Scripture from K.J.V. and N.K.J.V. – I entered into the labors of The Issues of Life by Kelly Varner. Comments and conclusions are my own and not meant to reflect the views of those who I entered into their labors.