An encounter with genuine love

It’s hard to tone down your fervency and passion for God when it truly has become genuine. “It’s not something you can fabricate. It has to come from a true encounter with his heart to know genuine love. It takes love to know love.”

There is counterfeit love out there that disguises itself to make you think it is real. How can love be counterfeit? It looks like objects or impure affection given to you to accomplish the intent of the heart of the giver of it. Don’t be fooled by counterfeit love. The enemy, Satan, can counterfeit love very well. The core of the counterfeit is made up of lies because true genuine love from the Father is unconditional. He would give you love even if you never intended to give it back to Him. True genuine love from the Father sees the person He created you to be not the person you are living as at the moment. “A person with “genuine love thinking” no longer thinks of themselves, their motives and goals first. They put other’s wellbeing first. They put other’s hearts first.”

Learning to steward this gift of love can be easy if you have a love relationship with the Father and you have your identity in Him. Every opportunity or person may not be our assignment, but it is our assignment to love everyone. If you’ve come to this place where loving others is easy then you probably went through learning to love yourself also. It’s about seeing yourself the way He sees you and treating yourself the way He would treat you. The Father would never condemn you, hate you, physically harm you or make fun of you. So neither should we do it to ourselves or others, nor allow others to do it to us.

The Father’s voice needs to be the loudest voice we hear and is the voice that matters most. It is a daily process of surrendering your will and desires to Him. It is more than just laying down your life and picking up Christ’s cross. That should be the first foundation of our life and worship. Then from there we become aware of the genuine love of the Father, and that replaces all the counterfeit love and becomes the foundation and action we do all things by. “True genuine love thinking only comes when you yourself have had a baptism of love.” You’ve been submerged, drenched and soaked in His love that it consumes you. Then it consumes your heart for others.

This type of encounter of love will finally cause the scales to fall from your eyes and break down any walls that might have been around your heart. It comes without warning and can crash through anything. It’s not a wave of love that comes and goes. “It’s a violent flood that is in fierce pursuit of filling every empty area of your heart until it overtakes you.” Once it overtakes you, you overlook faults and shortcomings of others. You see them how the Father sees them. You want for them what the Father wants for them. You can’t contain your new found love that you just have to share it. You won’t feel the need any longer to make a big deal about things that might once have put you into a fit of anger. You won’t demand your way or make a scene to like you deserve special treatment even though you know you are special. You will see the good in people instead of the bad. You will not use manipulation or authority to get your way or accomplish your self made plans. When this love takes root and becomes part of who you are, you no longer will get offended. It’s not your heart anymore, you are operating from His heart.

The temptation to be offended, to manipulate, to slander and to hurt may come but love will sweep it right on by. People won’t know how to handle your new found love at first. It may baffle them and boggle their natural orphan minds. But the more love you give the more you are showing them who the Father really is. It still amazes me that I can get up and look in the mirror and smile knowing I’m perfect in His eyes. I know He has great affection for me. He’s told me so. He sees me as beautiful inside and out and now I do too. His love gives you a sureness and confidence that the world could not give you. You can’t muster up enough confidence and sureness to match what He gives you. It is a supernatural way of living. I would be lying if I said that some days it didn’t feel weird living in this new heart of mine. Because moments come and I look back at how He gave me love and wisdom to handle a situation or gave me a word of knowledge for someone and I knew that it wasn’t me with my natural response. It was a supernatural response.

It is becoming easier and easier to think and live supernaturally. Or as we say at Bridgeway Church in Greenville, SC to live “naturally supernatural”. Because I am a house for His heart and a channel for His love. He trusts me with stewarding His love to others. If we don’t do it then who will? When you encounter genuine love of the Father it will change your thinking and change the way you love yourself and others. And I’m not talking about people who you choose to love. It will be the most unlikely “unloveable” people in the natural world. That is when you know that you are living from the Father’s heart of love. Let’s make it our goal to love like the Father and do it well.

Dee White

Dee White has been walking with the Lord for over 20 years and has found a way to use her God given gifts, personal experiences and passions to minister to others. She has walked the road of depression, anxiety and suffered with fibromyalgia and chronic fatigue syndrome. The Lord has completely transformed her and she has been delivered and healed from all of them. As an artist and disciple of Jesus she finds great comfort in writing and loves to share her heart and the heart of the Father through devotions, storytelling or her art. She is passionate about seeing others set free and living a victorious life in Christ.

She has resided in South Carolina for 10 years and attends Bridgeway Church in Greenville, SC with her husband and two children.