Come Up Higher - God is Love

As the seasons come and go, we thank our glorious Father in heaven for all He has done, is doing and will do. But most of all, we thank Him for who He is. God is who He is. His desire for us is beyond human comprehension. He continually pursues in love and invites us into His abode. To hear His intimate whispers of love. Where we can know and experience His pure delight towards us. Feel His peace deep within and the warmth of His embrace. To know of His patience, as He waits for all who will come to Him to come. Where the kindness of God rules and reigns. To know and trust in His eternal faithfulness. Where the hope of His return is confident and true. To feel His gentle touch of healing and empowerment. Safe and free knowing there is no evil or selfish desires in God. Where we can see from a heavenly perspective the goodness of God. So the word for this new season is - Come Up Higher. As you listen be blessed, empowered and transformed in Jesus name.

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Transcript

00:00 Intro music and voice over.

Welcome to jesus loves the world podcast. For more information and free resources visit our website jesuslovestheworld.info Be blessed empowered and transformed in Jesus’ name! 

00:21 Speaker

As the seasons come and go, we thank our glorious Father in heaven for all He has done, is doing and will do. But most of all, we thank Him for who He is.

God is who He is. His desire for us is beyond human comprehension. He continually pursues in love and invites us into His abode. To hear His intimate whispers of love. Where we can know and experience His pure delight towards us. Feel His peace deep within and the warmth of His embrace. To know of His patience, as He waits for all who will come to Him to come. Where the kindness of God rules and reigns. To know and trust in His eternal faithfulness. Where the hope of His return is confident and true. To feel His gentle touch of healing and empowerment. Safe and free knowing there is no evil or selfish desires in God. Where we can see from a heavenly perspective the goodness of God. 

So the word for this new season is - Come Up Higher.  

Throughout God’s love story the Bible, He reveals the great depth of His love and desire for us. From the beginning moment of creation, to the ultimate climax of eternity, every word and action of God reveals His fervent love. A love that is unconditional and relational, peaceful and abiding, selfless and life giving, unsurpassed and unstoppable. 

Over the coming weeks we will go deeper into the heart of God. Where He will take us higher to enable us to see into the seen and unseen, with a heavenly perception. So before we begin let us take a moment to surrender and receive. Father we surrender our thoughts and emotions, our physical body and this life into your hands. As we journey with you may we receive a greater revelation of you. In Jesus precious name, by your Spirit, to the glory of you Father, amen. 

Let us begin this series titled, Come Up Higher with, God is Love.

There are many aspects of God’s love that take us deeper into His heart. There is His unconditional relational love that is evident throughout His love story the Bible. 

Right back in the beginning God - the Father, the Son and the Holy Spirit - in a perfect unconditional love relationship of equality and respect, created. In oneness of essence, thought and character, God made humanity in His own image. An image of unconditional relational love, where creator and His creation are in perfect harmony of only good.

Yet humanity chose to be relational with not only good, but with both good and evil. As a result the first man and woman became consumed by shame and ran and hid from God.  

So God in His unconditional relational love, followed the first man and woman to their place of shame. He went into their darkness and intimately and personally covered their shame. So that if they chose to be with Him, they would be comfortable in His presence. Where together God and each individual could walk hand in hand, through this life to eternity. 

As generations came and went, humanity continued to attempt to control and manipulate both the physical and spiritual realm, all for self gain. Yet God’s desire for each individual and people group never changes. 

Throughout the ages there were those who chose to give their allegiance to the God who created and desired to be with Him. One such man was Moses.

God and Moses would have regular sweet communion with each other. In one exchange God told Moses that He go hand in hand with Moses and give him rest. A rest that is free of shame and condemnation. Safe and secure in God and His love. 

In response Moses asked God, ‘Please show me Your glory.’ In tenderness God replies. 

So let us picked up the dialogue recorded in Exodus 33:21-23. So it shall be, while My glory passes by, that I will put you in the cleft of the rock, and will cover you with My hand while I pass by. Then I will take away My hand, and you shall see My back; but My face shall not be seen.”

Just as God said it would be, He descended in a cloud and stood with Moses in the cleft of the rock. God passed before Moses and revealed His glory to him, intimately and personally. As God passed by He covered Moses with His own hand. He did this so that Moses could see God’s glory and not be consumed with shame and condemnation. Together they could have sweet communion, intimately and personally. God revealed His glory and made a way for Moses to be comfortable in God’s presence. Where Moses would not be consumed by the guilt and shame of this life. 

This is such a beautiful and tender moment between God and Moses. Together bound in a covenant of love for all eternity.

God is love - an unconditional and relational love.

Again many generations came and went. Within them were those who journeyed through this life, hand in hand with their creator. Yet this world remained damaged by evil. The guilt and shame continued to burn deep into the hearts and minds of humanity.

So God in his great love, in a moment in human history became human in Jesus. Jesus came to defeat the destructive, controlling, negative forces of humanity’s selfish desires and evil. To completely take away humanity’s guilt and shame.

When Jesus walked the earth as a man, He spoke light and life into the hearts and minds of humanity. Jesus revealed the mysteries of the kingdom of God in all that He said and did. In an intimate and personal moment with those who chose to follow Him, Jesus spoke of God’s peaceful and abiding love. 

Using a word picture, Jesus opens up our hearts and minds to the peaceful and abiding love of God, revealing how He desires to make our hearts, His dwelling place. 

Let us read John 15:1-10 and this is Jesus speaking. 

“I am the true vine, and My Father is the vinedresser. Every branch in Me that does not bear fruit He takes away; and every branch that bears fruit He prunes, that it may bear more fruit. You are already clean because of the word which I have spoken to you. Abide in Me, and I in you. As the branch cannot bear fruit of itself, unless it abides in the vine, neither can you, unless you abide in Me.

“I am the vine, you are the branches. He who abides in Me, and I in him, bears much fruit; for without Me you can do nothing. If anyone does not abide in Me, he is cast out as a branch and is withered; and they gather them and throw them into the fire, and they are burned. If you abide in Me, and My words abide in you, you will ask what you desire, and it shall be done for you. By this My Father is glorified, that you bear much fruit; so you will be My disciples.

“As the Father loved Me, I also have loved you; abide in My love. If you keep My commandments, you will abide in My love, just as I have kept My Father’s commandments and abide in His love.

This is a beautiful depiction of the oneness and intimacy God desires with us. In amongst the garden bed of this life, He is there. A flourishing vine that is cared for by God the Father. 

It is a vine like no other. A pure vine that has not been damaged by evil. The branches are strong and fruitful, for all the guilt and shame of humanity has been pruned away. That is totally removed and taken out. 

The vine is God the Son. Jesus said, I am the true vine. 

By being one with the vine, having received Jesus, the branches are growing, bursting forth from the main stem. For they are living in continual surrender of self will, to that of the Father’s will. 

As it is the Father’s desire that the branches carry much fruit, the fruit of the divine, the peaceful abiding love of God is continually poured out from heaven. The living waters of the divine, flow freely into the soil, up through the roots of the vine, through the main stem, to the surrendered branches. 

God chose to make the hearts of all who are willing, His dwelling place. A home of perfect love, a peaceful and abiding love, that never ends. 

God is love - a peaceful and abiding love.

Jesus is the one who demonstrated the selfless and life giving love of God within the Father, Son and Spirit when He, the Son of God became the Son of Man. Still fully divine, Jesus - God the Son - willingly experienced the full human condition. He laid down His human will and life, so that we could be truly free. Free of all guilt and shame, and be one with the divine. 

Just before Jesus was to selflessly lay down Him human life and suffer physically, mentally, emotionally and spiritually, He had a special time of sweet communion with His Father in heaven. This heartfelt tender prayer was for others. All those who would receive Him, throughout the ages. This prayer reveals much about the selfless, life giving love of God. 

John 17:20-26 “I do not pray for these alone, but also for those who will believe in Me through their word; that they all may be one, as You, Father, are in Me, and I in You; that they also may be one in Us, that the world may believe that You sent Me. And the glory which You gave Me I have given them, that they may be one just as We are one: I in them, and You in Me; that they may be made perfect in one, and that the world may know that You have sent Me, and have loved them as You have loved Me.

“Father, I desire that they also whom You gave Me may be with Me where I am, that they may behold My glory which You have given Me; for You loved Me before the foundation of the world. O righteous Father! The world has not known You, but I have known You; and these have known that You sent Me. And I have declared to them Your name, and will declare it, that the love with which You loved Me may be in them, and I in them.”

In the midst of knowing what He was about to suffer at the hands of humanity, Jesus reveals the selfless and life giving love of God. That all who receive Jesus’ sacrifice, will be with one with Him, one with God, for all eternity. 

Dwelling with Him in a new heaven and new earth. Where we can behold His glory and be free from death, evil, selfish desires, guilt and shame.  

God is love - a selfless and life giving love. 

God’s love is unsurpassed and unstoppable. For there is no greater love than God’s love.

Romans 8:33-39 Who shall bring a charge against God’s elect? It is God who justifies. Who is he who condemns? It is Christ who died, and furthermore is also risen, who is even at the right hand of God, who also makes intercession for us. Who shall separate us from the love of Christ? Shall tribulation, or distress, or persecution, or famine, or nakedness, or peril, or sword? As it is written: “For Your sake we are killed all day long; We are accounted as sheep for the slaughter.”

Yet in all these things we are more than conquerors through Him who loved us. For I am persuaded that neither death nor life, nor angels nor principalities nor powers, nor things present nor things to come, nor height nor depth, nor any other created thing, shall be able to separate us from the love of God which is in Christ Jesus our Lord.

So nothing is able to seperate us from God and His love. Not even death, our selfish desires or shame can seperate us. For it is God who justifies. He is the one who has done it all for us. To be able to receive and believe. Stand in His presence, and dwell with Him for all eternity, physically, mentally, emotionally, spiritually intimately and personally.       . 

God is love - an unsurpassed and unstoppable love.

So as we enter into this new season, God is inviting us to come up higher. To know and experience Him and His love more and more. A love that is unconditional and relational, peaceful and abiding, selfless and life giving, unsurpassed and unstoppable. For God is and always will be, love.

19:40 Outro music and voice over. 

For more information and free resources visit our website jesuslovestheworld.info Be blessed empowered and transformed in Jesus’ name!