Join the Ministers' Wives Fellowship Discussion Group
If you are a minister's wife or a woman in ministry, you can join this email discussion group. Share ideas, recipes, prayer needs, words of encouragement for needs that only other women in ministry would understand.

This is a restricted private list so you must have the list password in order to join. You may obtain that password from your conference MWF director. Use the following link to go to the Join Page.

JOIN MWF DISCUSSION GROUP

THE LOVE CYCLE

By Nan Carpenter

When asked to name the two “love books” of the Bible, most people immediately think of the Song of Solomon in the Old Testament and I John in the New Testament. This is rightfully so because the Song of Solomon does indeed describe the beautiful love relationship between the bride (The Christian) and the bridegroom (Jesus). John in his first epistle uses the word “love” repeatedly to describe the relationship between the believer and Christ as well as the believer and other Christians. However, in reality the entire Bible is a “love Book”. The Bible is a love-letter from God the Father to us, his children, and the Christian experience is an experience of love that could be called “The Love Cycle”!

In Romans 5:5, the apostle Paul declares “And hope maketh not ashamed; because the love of God is shed abroad in our hearts by the Holy Ghost which is given unto us”. The term “shed abroad” literally means “to permeate through and through”. So Paul is telling us that when we are saved, the Holy Spirit permeates us through and through with the love of God.

God imparts to us His love that then begins to work in us through the “Love Cycle”. God’s love first teaches us to love ourselves; secondly, to love our brother; thirdly, to love our neighbor; and fourthly, to love sinners.

First, God’s love teaches us to love ourselves. Though this may sound rather egotistical, the fact is that many people have no idea who they are in God and how God feels about them. They do not know that they are the objects of His love and have been created with a special destiny in life. They suffer from very low self-esteem. Therefore, they do not love themselves and consequently, have a problem loving others. It is impossible to love others properly until we first learn to love ourselves properly. God’s love teaches us how to do this!

Secondly, God’s love begins to move outward through the cycle and teaches us to love our brother in Christ. Jesus tells us in John 13 that “by this shall all men know that ye are my disciples, that ye love one another”. John reminds us of this again in his first epistle when he says, “how can you love God whom ye have not seen if you cannot love your brother whom you have seen”? Every fraternity has its special method of greeting and identifying one another. This spiritual fraternity called the ‘Church” is identified not by our clothes, our hair, our jewelry, our praying, our fasting, or any other religious act or conviction. We are identified as Christians by the way we manifest the love of God to one another. God’s love teaches us how to do this! 

Thirdly, the love cycle continues to flow outward from us and we learn to love our neighbor. Jesus teaches us in the parable of the Good Samaritan that our neighbor is not identified by where a person may live in proximity to us. Our neighbor is anyone who is in need and we have the opportunity to help him. This is the principle of the Good Samaritan who went out of his way to help a man in need whom he did not know but had the opportunity to help. Jesus said when we feed others, visit others, clothe others, give a cup of water to others, it is the same as doing it to him. God’s love teaches us to do this!

Fourthly, the love cycle flows out of us to sinners. Jesus teaches us to love the lost as he loves the lost. We begin to see them as he sees them and we now can love the sinner while hating his sin. We see the lost man or woman not as they are but as they have the potential to become. We see them as Jesus saw us and we love them unconditionally as he loved us. God’s love teaches us to do this!

Wonder of wonders, when we love sinners unconditionally as Jesus loves them, they then see Jesus living in us, are brought under a spirit of conviction and are saved. The “Love Cycle” then begins all over again in them as the “love of God permeates them through and through”! What a story! What a God! What a love!