Want to know something that will change the course and trajectory of your life–and for the better? It’s your love walk, and your love walk grows when you study the ways of God and ask Him (especially in a focused way!) to change you. And since we’re definitely seeking God in a concentrated, focused way during this season of fasting, I want to encourage you in your love walk today!

What do I mean by the term “love walk”?

“Love walk” simply means your ability, and your ingrained tendency, to behave kindly and with love toward other people:

• To speak kindly, gently, and with love and mercy;
• To reach out to the hurting and broken with healing words, prayers, and acts of compassion; and
• To care about what God cares about, to the degree that He cares about it–at least as much as humanly possible!

If we are going to become like Jesus, we have to love what He loves and hate what He hates.

Hebrews 1:8-9 tells us exactly what Jesus loves and hates, too:

“But to the Son He says: ‘Your throne, O God, is forever and ever; a scepter of righteousness is the scepter of Your kingdom. You have loved righteousness and hated lawlessness; therefore God, Your God, has anointed You with the oil of gladness more than Your companions’” (Hebrews 1:8-9 NKJV).

Jesus loves righteousness and hates lawlessness. And “righteousness” is anything that is just like God; “lawlessness” is anything that does NOT conform to the will of God, as clearly written in the Bible.

Jesus loves what is holy and hates anything evil. And if we are going to walk in love toward others, we have to also love what is righteous and hate what is evil, as defined by God’s Word:

“To the law and to the testimony! If they do not speak according to this word, it is because there is no light in them” (Isaiah 8:20 NKJV).

When you learn to love righteousness and hate lawlessness, then you start thinking like a Kingdom person.

Kingdom people look at the world from the perspective of wanting to make the world around us look just like Heaven. This is the ultimate in Kingdom ambassadorship, and it’s exactly what Jesus taught us to pray in Matthew 6:

“In this manner, therefore, pray: Our Father in heaven, hallowed be Your name. Your kingdom come. Your will be done on earth as it is in heaven” (Matthew 6:9-10 NKJV).

And when we know that God loves people, as it says so clearly in 1 John 3:1:

“Behold what manner of love the Father has bestowed on us, that we should be called children of God! Therefore the world does not know us, because it did not know Him” (1 John 3:1 NKJV).

And that we also must love one another in order to be like Him, as we read in 1 John 4:7-11:

“Beloved, let us love one another, for love is of God; and everyone who loves is born of God and knows God. He who does not love does not know God, for God is love.

In this the love of God was manifested toward us, that God has sent His only begotten Son into the world, that we might live through Him. In this is love, not that we loved God, but that He loved us and sent His Son to be the propitiation for our sins. Beloved, if God so loved us, we also ought to love one another” (1 John 4:7-11 NKJV).

So if we are going to be like God, we have to walk in love toward other people. And if we do not walk in love toward other people, then we do not love God.

Your ability and decision to demonstrate love toward others must always be rooted in righteousness.

In other words, we can’t do things that other people say are loving when those things are actually sin. For example, you can’t have sex outside of marriage and expect it to be okay, even when your significant other tells you, “If you love me, you’ll do it.”

No; sin is sin is sin, and having someone use “but this is what love looks like” language with you, when God’s Word says something is sin, doesn’t change that. And helping someone sin is certainly not loving; it drives them away from God, not closer to Him.

Also, we can’t affirm someone else’s sin, even when they say that doing so equals love.

For example, if someone is living a lifestyle that God’s Word forbids, they often say that “love” equals affirmation of their sin, and that “hate” equals disagreeing with their sin. Neither of those statements are factual; both are meant to manipulate you and excuse their sin, and any Christian person cannot affirm sin if you want to avoid sin yourself. Affirming it is agreeing with it, and you cannot affirm or agree with sin.

But as long as you’re clear on knowing that you have to stay within the boundaries of righteousness, and clear on knowing that true LOVE means treating people like God treats them, then you can begin walking in love. And walking in love will change you forever.

Your love walk will grow over time, and it will keep changing you the more it grows.

Before I gave my life to Jesus around age 21, I was an extremely hateful person. My favorite activities included talking trash and being mean, and you would not have wanted to be around me.

There was definitely no love in my heart for people in general–only for my best friends, which doesn’t count as a love walk at all. “Walking in love” requires you to have a heart position of love for ALL people, not just for the ones you like the most.

But after I gave my life to Jesus and started reading the Word and listening to solid Christian teaching and discipleship, I began to realize that my lack of love toward other people in general was a problem. It was sin. And I started asking God to change me.

For years, I prayed–and still pray–“Lord, teach me to love!” And although, at first, I didn’t sense any real change, looking back I can see that the Lord started changing me one thing at a time:

• He convicted me about being mean and making fun of people, and I stopped doing that. I started speaking words of life instead. Whereas I used to tear people down, He made me an encourager! (That is a miracle; only God could do that!)
• When I didn’t go out of my way in the past to help hurting people, He gave me the desire to be like the Good Samaritan, who helped the wounded one and bound up his wounds. After all, Jesus is the One Who heals the brokenhearted and binds up their wounds–and aren’t we supposed to be like Him? Of course we are; that’s the whole point!
• And although, in the past, I didn’t care about missions, He suddenly gripped my heart with compassion for the plight of those less fortunate, and suddenly I began pouring out everything I’ve got–not only spiritually, but also physically and financially–to rescue and lift up and clothe and feed and shelter people in need.

My love walk started at zero.

I was truly a mean person before God saved me. I hated everyone except about 1-2 people; no lie. My love walk started at zero …

but it has grown until it consumes me.

Just the other day, I was meditating on the love that must be inside Jesus’ heart to make Him hang on the cross for us.

The love of Jesus for the Father and for us, and the love of the Father for us, drove Jesus to the cross and compelled Him to hang there. He didn’t have to do that; He could have let all of us die. But instead, He chose to give up His very life to die on the cross because of love for you and me, so that you and I could be saved.

Thank You, precious Lord Jesus. Thank You.

When I think about that, I realize that that level of love cost Him everything–and, after the resurrection, has gained Him everything too.

And when you and I really walk in love, we will get to the place where our love for others threatens to tear us apart too.

When I think about the needs of my readers, or of my friends, or of our contingent of missionaries, or the populations we serve through our 20+ partner churches, my heart breaks. It not only breaks; it shatters into a million pieces. I spend most of my time trying to alleviate the suffering of all of these people:

• Whether comforting you through the written word or by video;
• Or praying for you–which I do without ceasing, day and night;
• Or by pouring out all I’ve got, and all this ministry has, financially, so that we can together heal the sick, raise the dead, cleanse the lepers, feed the hungry, clothe the naked, cast out demons, comfort the broken, give beauty for ashes, the oil of joy instead of mourning, and the garment of praise for the spirit of heaviness.

It is for love that we do these things. And this love for you and for others–which is, first and foremost, a love for God which MUST NEEDS overflow into a love for His people–consumes me.

It tears me up. It devastates me. It breaks me, every single day. But I know that I need to love even more, and I want God to help me get there.

Do you want God to grow you in your love walk?

If you truly love God, you have to learn to love like Him. So here’s how to begin that journey, or how to move farther on that journey:

• Ask the Lord to teach you to love.
• Ask Him to make LOVE your default habit, rather than allowing any other type of response to be your gut reaction to any situation.
• Notice in His Word how Jesus demonstrated His love to those around Him.
• Go out and do the same.

Do this in every situation. Do it without fail. And, when you do fail, apologize to the person that you failed to love. Then ask God to fill you with His Own heart of love for others.

Love flows like this:

• First, God loves you.
• You have to receive His love: to acknowledge that He loves you, and to be willing to let yourself be loved.
• You have to let that love cook inside you and change your heart.
• You begin to love God back because of His great love for you. It’s His love inside you, but it starts flowing back to Him.
• You begin to love yourself in a holy way, the way God does, seeing yourself as someone worth loving. You won’t ever be able to love others unless you do this step first, because all human beings need love. And if you feel unloved, then you’ll continually be working for love to try to get love (even though you’re ALREADY loved by God), and you’ll turn to unholy means with other people in order to try to find the love and fulfillment that you need.
• Then, that love you feel for God begins to overflow toward the others around you in overwhelming measure.

The list above is overly simplistic, as God truly does begin to work in all areas at once. But, the stages are listed in approximately the way that each “love tank” gets filled up to overflowing.

And your love walk will grow and grow.

At first, coming out of a lifestyle of not loving others, you will find yourself just beginning to change in small ways, and perhaps loving others in small ways. But love is a fireball that cannot be contained. And after the flames begin getting higher and higher, those flames of love eventually become an inferno inside of you. And the love blazes so hot that it takes over your whole life …

… which is exactly where you want to be.

LOVE, rooted and grounded in God’s Word, and in the righteousness and justice defined by God’s Word, will consume you and change your life.

It will change the way you think, the way you talk, the way you spend your time, the way you serve others (or don’t serve), the way you spend your money, the way you demonstrate compassion toward others (or fail to demonstrate compassion), and so much more.

LOVE is why the apostle Paul said, in 2 Corinthians 12:15a, “And I will very gladly spend and be spent for your souls ….” LOVE is what compelled Jesus to submit to the Roman whip, to allow the crown of thorns to penetrate His head, to hang on the cross when He could have extracted Himself faster than we can blink.

And that same love must be what compels us and drives us every single day, if we are to be Kingdom people … and if we are to walk as ambassadors of Christ. If we are going to know Him, we must become like Him.

And walking in love–a love that grows and consumes you more each day–is one of the very biggest ways that we must become like Him.

Do you want to walk in love? If so, pray this with me today:

“Dear Heavenly Father, I come before You in Jesus’ name.

Holy Father, I confess that I have not loved like You love. I have not loved myself like You love me; I have not loved You like You deserve to be loved; and I have not loved others with the all-consuming fire of Your Own love. And I confess these things as sin.

Please forgive me, Father God. Please fill me with Your Holy Spirit where that was. Change my heart and make me like You.

Father God, please teach me to love. Help me to receive Your love deeply into my heart and acknowledge it and cherish it. Help me to love myself in a holy way, the way You love me. Help me to love You back with the very same love You bestowed upon me. And help me to love others the way You do, and the way You want me to.

Teach me to love, Lord. Help me be like You. Change my heart forever, and let Your love consume my life in every aspect.

Thank You, Father God. In Jesus’ name I pray, amen.”

Friend, do you want your love walk to grow until it consumes you? If so, leave a comment below!