Teachings of John Robert Stevens

Some Things About Love

If you want to be part of a church, open your mouth and praise God; open your pocketbook and give until it hurts you. Involve yourself in work and labor for someone else, because love has to be expressed. Be concerned, get involved, express it. Fulfillment is always in action, never in your feelings and attitudes alone. Go do something. Do you love certain ones? Good, go pick a flower and give it to them. Buy a taped message and give it to them. When they ask why you are doing this, tell them it is because you love them. They may be amazed. They have a problem then, because the minute you act on love the other person has a problem.

There is always a problem when a boy comes up to a girl with a bouquet of flowers and a box of candy. She says, “What’s that for?”

“Oh, I just wanted to do it for you.”

It starts her thinking. Now she has to weigh it: “I wonder what his motivation is? Does he really love me?” It bothers her. It disturbs her. Why? Because an action that expresses love brings the other person to the place where he has to do something about it.

Do you want to be loved? Go up to someone in the church and tell him you love him as you walk by. It will bother him. He must decide how to respond, what to do. If he accepts your love, then he must accept your need for him. He may wish you had not said anything, because your coming by and expressing your love to him may cause him to lose some sleep. He will have to pray and wait before the Lord on your behalf because you love him. He will pray for you if he accepts your love and your need to be loved.

It is a good thing to face love. You may feel that you fall short. We all fall a little short. But love can be perfected. It is a quality that can be developed. Don’t you think that you can learn to act on love? Don’t you think that you can learn how to be needed and to need others? You can learn to love them and to believe in the love God has given you. Know it, and believe in it.

You are not an unbeliever; you are a believer. You are His child, and it is possible for you to open your heart to the Lord and His love, looking for those who need to be loved. You can beam God’s love to them. Not on a psychic level, but by the love of God that is in you, start loving and ministering to them. Love is the amazing quality in Body ministry that is very important. Many of you still live too exclusively from one another. You will have to let your walls down.

It is very difficult for some people to give and receive love because they have hang-ups from the time they were children. Have you ever watched a little boy come up to a little girl he likes? He knocks her down. A little girl next door came home one day, her hair tousled and her dress dirty. She said that a little boy at school loved her. She was asked how she knew he loved her. She answered, “He chased me all morning.”

It is difficult to learn how to love. Come to think of it, some of the older people are like children, chasing and hitting each other. That is not the way we are supposed to do it. We are to accept love, believe that we are loved, and believe in the love that God has put within us.

Let yourself be needed, and do not be afraid to need someone else. Do not withdraw from recognizing your need of the Body. Believe in the love that is given to you. Have faith in it, just as you have faith in the love you give to others. Express your love; act on it.

Responding to this message can lift a church up tremendously. We can actually assure the level of the services rising to a much higher plane and higher level. We are prepared to be a people moving in more love than ever before. We are becoming more a family that needs to feel the closeness. Each church needs to be a close-knit family. A family loves one another, needs one another, and strengthens one another. For one person to have a need is for the whole church to rally together to see that need met in some way. Every member needs to find that the Body loves and accepts him.

Sometimes, when there is a need, rather than meeting it in ourselves, we will pray for people and show them we love them, but it may be very important for them to struggle out of the problem themselves. It takes love for a mother not to tie her son’s shoes when he is learning to do it by himself. The little boy is working away at it and is liable to be late for school, but she only encourages him.

“Oh, you can do it, son.” Soon he is in tears, but she says, “No, just try it over again.” She lets him do it. When he begs that she do it for him and does not want to do it for himself, she comes to him and says, “Johnny, I love you. I’ll fix your breakfast for you.” She lets him struggle. It takes faith and love to keep praying for a brother and strengthening him, and to watch him learn to walk with God. This is a great family. We need each other very much, and sometimes the greatest thing we can do is faithfully stand by, in love. I do this with people in the church; that is the reason they are so healthy.

Sometimes there is a calculated neglect that love gives. It makes men out of boys and women out of girls. Then there are other times when love rushes in to help because they need something very much. God gives us wisdom so the Body can love each other and faithfully build one another up in the Lord.

Love is the key. When you see a person’s need, what is provoked in you? Do you judge him? Are you critical of him, or do you reach out and minister to him? Love covers a multitude of sins. I Peter 4:8b. Love helps us to redeem a brother or sister out of the pit they fall into. It will do more than restore them; love will strengthen them to go on and walk with God in the victory they did not have in their hearts before. We are not going to be legalistic. We shall not see people’s needs that we may judge them. We shall love them so much that we will lift them up and by the grace of God, see them stand, to come into the perfect will of the Lord and walk in that victory.

Love one another. Do not even look at yourself without love—I am not talking about self-love—but love what God has brought forth in you. You are begotten of God! He loves you.