Courtesy of elijahlist.com
Day 14 of "40 Days for 40 Years" 26 Days to Go
The Summer of Love refers to the summer of 1967. It was a time of revolution where over 100,000 young people from around the world flocked to Haight-Ashbury, Berkeley, and other San Francisco Bay area cities to engage in the "hippie experience." The gatherings included an emphasis on "love" which was expressed in a variety of ways, one of them being sexual. They called it "free love."
The Beatles wrote a song in June of 1967 entitled, "All You Need Is Love." It was heard all around the world, emphasizing the countercultural ideals of love, freedom, and unity.
The summer became known for heavy use of drugs such as marijuana, hash, LSD and other hallucinogenic agents. It also opened the floodgates to eastern religious influences, homelessness, hunger, rebellion, and crime.
What is the fruit of such a movement?
Forty years later, we see the devastating fruit of this movement: deterioration of moral values, increased lawlessness, drug addiction in epidemic proportions, lack of reverence for the marriage covenant, increased sexual perversion, and an acceleration of venereal diseases. Instead of love, we find hate manifesting in outrageous proportions. Terrorists blow up buildings, young children are apprehended by rebels and forced to kill in illegal wars, children are exploited daily in the sex trade, drug cartels are increasing in exponential expansion, young people are slaughtering their peers in school invasions, and war and the threat of it is everywhere. This is hardly what one would call love.
Is there redemption? This year the Lord is calling for a redemptive move of the Summer of Love through His Church. One of the strategies He has given is, THE CALL, NASHVILLE, this July 7. Instead of 100,000 gathering in Haight-Ashbury, 100,000 youth are expected to gather in Nashville, to ask God to forgive us for the sin that has brought deterioration and pain to the nation. In love and faith, these youth will cry out for God's intervention.
I DECLARE WAR!!!
We all need to be crying out to God. We are in desperate need of a love revolution. Recently, I was praying and heard the words rise up in my spirit, "I DECLARE WAR...A LOVE WAR."
There is so much pain in the world, but we find this pain in the Church too. We regularly see love violated in the Body through bitterness, offense, betrayal, division, judgment, criticism, and slander. God is calling us to repentance so that true love will be manifest. When true love fills the earth it will be a much better place to live. It will be like Heaven on earth.
All you need is love
During the summer of '67, many "flower children" were sincere in their desire to experience more love and yet were trapped in deception because they went other ways than those offered to them in the Scriptures. The Beatles' "All You Need Is Love" was a profound statement, but the enemy perverted it and brought death instead of life.
Now is our time to redeem what was stolen. Let's take a stand for Love. Let's declare a Love War.
Let Love Be Your Greatest Aim
In order to declare a Love War, we need to commit to walking in love. It is one thing to declare it, but another thing to live it. Walking in love must be a lifetime commitment. In 1 Corinthians 14:1 (LB) it says, "Let love be your greatest aim."
You will never know how much love you have within you until your love is tested. How will your love be tested? Usually your love will be tested by those who hurt you or tempt you to take up offense in some way. When someone betrays you, speaks all manner of evil against you falsely, or fails you...this is when you have opportunity to flex those "love muscles." I like to remember the Cross at times like this.
All hurt Jesus. He was betrayed, denied, abandoned, slandered, beaten, misunderstood, and lied against, yet He offered complete love and forgiveness to all. WOW! I so want to be like that. When love tests come knocking at our door, it is our opportunity to identify with the fellowship of His suffering. This is the suffering of love.
When we pass love tests, we gain more authority, as love is the most powerful force in the universe. God is love and when we love each other, we are partaking of His divine nature.
Jesus said, if we love each other, the world will know we are His disciples. The greatest testimony of Christ's life in us is definitely our love walk. In 1 Corinthians 13:1-3 we are taught that even if we work miracles, know all mysteries, have the gift of prophecy, and are full of faith, if we do not have love:
We are a sounding brass and a clanging cymbal. (v.1)We are nothing. (v.2)
We have no profit. (v.3)
The following are some attributes of love and can act as a thermometer for us (based on 1 Corinthians 13:4-8):
-Patient.
-Kind and thoughtful.
-Never jealous or envious.
-Never brags or acts proud and arrogant.
-Is not selfish or self-seeking.
-Does not take offense and is not easily provoked.
-Forgives and forgets quickly (does not take into account a wrong suffered).
-Is saddened and grieved by unrighteousness.
-Rejoices in righteousness, truth, and justice.
-Bears all things.
-Believes and hopes for the best in others; believes for good outcomes.
-Endures and never gives up.
SCRIPTURE MEDITATION
In the following passages, you will find exhortations to love. Let's mediate on these things throughout the month of June and get ready for a Summer of Love in our homes, churches, communities, and nations.
Declare a Love War!
Week One: 1 Corinthians 13
Week Two: 1 John chapters 2-4
Week Three: Matthew 5:43-46; John 13:34,35
Week Four: Matthew 22:37-39; John 15:9-17
Patricia King
Extreme Prophetic
Email: patricia@extremeprophetic.com
No comments:
Post a Comment