HEART QUIZ
- Is your love growing and becoming more patient and kind? More brighter, daring, and more visible?
- Or is it becoming choosy, more calculating, and less available?
This is a very important issue, for our Christianity is only as real as our love is.
A measurable decrease in your ability to love is evidence that a ‘stronghold of cold love’ is developing within you. A stronghold is a well-fortified place; it is a fortress; a building or a position that is strongly defended.
It is a mindset.
What is a mindset?
It is a person’s way of thinking and their opinions. The established set of attitudes held by someone, ugali, asal, gawi, nakasanayan A fixed mental attitude or disposition that predetermines a person’s responses to and interpretations of situations.
An inclination or a habit.
Matt 24:10-12 NKJV
And then many will be offended, will betray one another, and will hate one another. 11 Then many false prophets will rise up and deceive many. 12 And because lawlessness will abound, the love of many will grow cold.
A major area of spiritual attack that has come against the church is in the sphere of church relationships, because Satan knows that a church divided against itself cannot stand.
This is the influence of the spirit of this age, this spirit is represented in the Laodicean church – the lukewarm church (Rev 3:14), it is the last church in the book of Revelation, this is our generation!
Laodicea means ‘the right of the people’, it is ‘the lovers of themselves people’
Today, this cold love is becoming increasingly more common everywhere.
Love is a passion for ‘oneness’, so if there is no spiritual unity, there is something not right in the heart – then there can be no lasting victory.
Cold love shuts down the power of prayer and disables the flow of healing and outreach – this is mainly caused by not forgiving an offense done to you.
In fact, where there is persistent and hardened unforgiveness in a person or a church, the torturers have unhindered access.
Matt 18:34
And his master was angry, and delivered him to the torturers until he should pay all that was due to him.
Your unforgiveness tortures you!
The Bible warns us that even a little root of bitterness can spring up and defile many – bitterness means unfulfilled revenge.
Heb 12:15
See to it that no one misses the grace of God and that no bitter root grows up to cause trouble and defile many.
It is inevitable that in a world of increasing harshness and cruelty, you will at some time be hurt and be offended.
Luke 17:1
Then He said to the disciples, “It is impossible that no offenses should come, but woe to him through whom they do come!”
One of the characteristics of an immature person is that he is easily offended, and he keeps the offense.
If you fail to react with love and forgiveness, if you retain in your spirit the debt the offender owes you, that offense will rob your heart of your capacity to love – that’s like being tortured.
Then you will become a member of the majority of the end-time Christians whose love is “growing cold!”
Bitterness is a symptom of the stronghold of cold love, you must deal with this by repenting and forgiving the one who hurt you. This painful experience was allowed by God to teach you how to love your enemies – so if you don’t forgive, you have failed the test.
Guess what – it will happen again!
Buti na lang it’s just a test, it’s not yet the final exam, we actually need to thank the Lord for the opportunity to grow in love!
There are two sins in the Bible that can never be forgiven:
1st is blasphemy against the Holy Spirit, and
2nd is unforgiveness.
Matt 12:31
And so I tell you, every sin and blasphemy will be forgiven men, but the blasphemy against the Spirit will not be forgiven.
Matt 6:14-15
For if you forgive men when they sin against you, your heavenly Father will also forgive you. 15 But if you do not forgive men their sins, your Father will not forgive your sins.
If you blaspheme the Holy Spirit, or if you don’t release forgiveness, you will never be forgiven – then where will you end up?
If you have been hurt, God has given you the answer for your pain – He gives us a way out: forgiveness and love!
As you begin to walk in God’s love and forgiveness, you are actually pulling down the stronghold of bitterness and cold love.
Because of this experience, you will eventually have more love than you ever did – praise God and thank Him.
But it has to be clear: there is no such a thing as love without commitment – the measure of your love is found in the depth of your commitment. Once a person withdraws from being committed, though they may not realize it, their love is growing cold.
They still go to church, read their Bible, tithe, and worship like the others, but inside they have become distant and aloof from other people. As long as we are alive, there will always be stumbling blocks – people don’t stumble on boulders but over stones, the little things.
To stumble means to stop walking and fall – only a worm is free from the worry of stumbling.
Have you stumbled over someone’s weakness lately?
Have you gotten back up and continued loving as you did before?
Or are you now a worm?
To preserve the quality of love in your heart, you must forgive those who have caused you to stumble – even if they don’t confess or ask for your forgiveness.
Every time you refuse to forgive or fail to overlook a weakness in another, your heart not only hardens towards them, it hardens towards God.
People may deserve the negative feelings or opinions you have, but if you allow it to become an attitude, an aspect of your heart will cool toward God.
1 John 4:20-21
If anyone says, “I love God,” yet hates his brother, he is a liar. For anyone who does not love his brother, whom he has seen, cannot love God, whom he has not seen. 21 And he has given us this command: Whoever loves God must also love his brother.
You may not like what someone has done, but you don’t have the option to stop loving them – love is your only option – it’s a command from God!
By “love” I mean a compassion that is empowered by faith and prayer to see God’s best come forth in the one I love.
When I have love for someone, I have pre-determined (mind set) that I am going to stand with them, regardless of what they are going through. We all want people to be committed to us even though they know we are not perfect – we want them to love us just the same di ba? Do you want that?
Sad thing is, many people stumble over little faults and human weaknesses – then the enemy will pump it up so it will become a big issue!
It’s not a simple problem now, it’s a big issue involving so many others, kasi nagkakampi-kampi na!
Soon the church is divided – that would be a great victory for the devil.
But if truth be told, all this stumbling and bitterness is just a smokescreen which masks a persons lack of love.
Mark 12:30-31
30 And you shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, with all your soul, with all your mind, and with all your strength.’ This is the first commandment. 31 And the second, like it, is this: ‘You shall love your neighbor as yourself.’ There is no other commandment greater than these.”
The more you unconditionally love God, the more you will unconditionally love others. The Kingdom of God is most perfectly revealed in our relationships to one another, we are being perfected into a one solid unit.
If Christ accepts us while we are imperfect, we must also accept one another.
The people who will possess and manifest the Kingdom of God in its reality, are people who overcome the obstacles of each other’s faults, and they help each other become what God has called them to be: the living Body of Christ.
Remember: the goal of pulling down the stronghold of cold love is to see the Kingdom of God manifested in the world…that’s the process!
Only the mature can do that!
You will be challenged, but if you persist, you discover the Love of God, and you will become a body filled with God Himself!