A precious memory came up on my Facebook the other day that ushered me into an encounter with God’s love that took my breath away. It was a video clip of when my youngest daughter and two other friends did a 3 a.m. worship set in West Palm, Florida. My daughter was singing, “Oh, How He Loves Us.”
The moment I clicked on the short video clip, the love and presence of the Lord filled my room. It was like being transported back to that precious and deep moment during this night watch. As His love and presence washed over me, I realized that how He loves us is not merely a memory of a single moment, but it is a constant and never-ending reality that we can enter into at ANY given moment.
Immediately, I had an overwhelming sense that more than anything else in this hour, the Lord wants His people to know the depth, height, width and length of His love for us. That is why He came, why He died and why we are the focus of His adoration. As His people begin to understand how much He loves us—not merely in moments, but every moment of every day—we will become so undone by this experiential truth that we will begin to exude His true nature to a world that is longing to be loved, right where they are.
Being “Overflow-Oriented” Rather Than Task-Oriented
Sometimes, as the people of God, we can get so task-oriented that we forget what this life is really about. We were created to “walk with God”—to walk hand-in-hand in deep intimacy with our Beloved.
“I am my beloved’s and my beloved is mine; he browses among the lilies.” (Song of Solomon 6:3)
I want to be “overflow-oriented” rather than task-oriented. When you are in love (truly and completely in love), you don’t have to be asked to do something for the one you love or asked to talk about the one you love; it just pours out from the overflow of being overwhelmed by love. (Photo via Pixabay)
Living in True Oneness – Transformed by His Love
I have had the honor of walking with a global family for the past twenty years, and we have experienced some of the deepest moments with God and one another as we’ve gathered together in different nations to worship Him and to pour out our love to Him.
Since 2020, we have only been able to meet through ZOOM calls; yet something powerful and life-changing has happened in our physical separation. Our spirits and souls have connected on a level that is so deep and so intimate, we are left undone by the love which we are experiencing. His love has been demonstrated in such tangible and healing ways that we are watching people groups and nations become healed. The love of God is changing us and transforming us each day.
We are not just saying the words “I love you” to one another, but we are being brought into a holy hunger, an unquenchable longing, and a desire that spans past pains. This love that has come upon us is causing us to forgive the unforgivable grievances of history and of sin. Painful divisions and cultural separations are being mended and fences are being torn down.
It is not merely unity that we are experiencing but true ONENESS. We did not do anything to cause this to happen (beyond showing up) and yet, it is happening in ways that are causing us to break through every past barrier to give ourselves fully to Him and to one another. We are weeping with those who weep and rejoicing with those who rejoice.
This is how nations, people groups and families are forever changed! It is the revelation and experience of how much He loves us. It transforms us and it revives us.
Revival Has Begun!
I believe the revival has begun and it is a love revival that will mark every person with the words, “Oh, how He loves us.” It will heal, it will restore, it will bring reconciliation and it will make us ONE. The hurting ones and confused ones, who have yet to come to know and experience His love, will be drawn to the love that exudes from His people like a moth to a flame. It will answer the prayer of Jesus when He prayed for Believers in John 17:20-23:
“My prayer is not for them alone. I pray also for those who will believe in Me through their message, that all of them may be one, Father, just as You are in Me and I am in You. May they also be in Us so that the world may believe that You have sent Me. I have given them the glory that You gave Me, that they may be one as We are one—I in them and You in Me—so that they may be brought to complete unity. Then the world will know that You sent Me and have loved them even as You have loved Me.” (Photo via Unsplash)
Complete unity! This is oneness with God and His people…then the world will know how much He loves them. God is lovesick for us and we are about to become so lovesick for Him that nothing will stop us from running through the streets and telling anyone who will listen, how much He loves us.
Searching for the One We Love
I sense that we have been in a time such as in the Song of Solomon, when the Shulamite was in her bed at night and she began longing so deeply for the one she loved that she rose and began to run through the city streets, seeking the one she loved. When she found him, she held him and did not let him go.
We are those who are running through the streets, searching for the One we love. Our longing is being heightened to the point that we will cast off all restraints. We are about to find Him and hold Him (and never let Him go). Those in the streets will watch and long for this love.
Restraints are falling off because we are getting love sick! The pain of the past two years is producing a tenderness and a longing that cannot be filled with anything but His love.
We are becoming one Bride, running together to find the One our hearts love. The divisions are falling away, the restraints are falling away, and the separation is getting more and more narrow so that soon we will stand as one Bride, holding our Beloved…and never letting Him go.
Oh, how He loves us!
Kathi Pelton
Inscribe Ministries
Email: jkpelton@sbcglobal.net
Website: www.inscribeministries.com
Jeffrey and Kathi Pelton live in Fredericksburg, Virginia. Jeffrey is a writer, teacher and book editor. Kathi is an author and prophetic voice to the Church. They walk with nations and individuals to see God’s original intent fulfilled. Their ministry, Inscribe Ministries, was founded upon the verse from Habakkuk 2:2 that says, “Then the LORD answered me and said: ‘Write the vision and make it plain on tablets, that he may run who reads it.'”
Source: https://elijahlist.com