Dear Friend,
Before I begin my letter this month, I wish you the warmest greetings this Christmas season. I’m sure your calendar is filled with parties, errands, and holiday plans right now, and it’s easy to feel like you can’t check everything off your to-do list. But you can always find comfort in this thought: You only have to live one day at a time, and what you do today will prepare you for tomorrow. Even though this time of year is notoriously busy, take it one day at a time and have a very Merry Christmas!
I also want to encourage you this Christmas season to be aware that the One you call Lord and Savior is also the Prince of Peace. As you navigate this holiday season, you may find yourself standing in line, waiting to pay for wrapping paper or a Christmas present when you notice the person in front of you can’t find their credit card and is causing a delay. Or maybe you notice someone get frustrated and speak rudely to the clerk serving them. Or perhaps the store clerk will be rude to you or doesn’t move as quickly as you’d like him to.
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When those little annoyances happen, just remember who lives inside you — the Spirit of the One who is Counselor, Mighty God, Everlasting Father, Emmanuel, Prince of Peace, Great I Am, First and Last, and the Greater One. He is residing within you, so you are equipped with everything you need to be kind, gentle, loving, and forgiving in any situation that may arise.
In this month’s letter, I want to focus on the characteristics of God’s unchanging, unending, ever-present love. The Bible talks a lot about God’s love, something many have grown up hearing all about. But when life gets busy, we can sometimes forget just how great His love is for us, and what it gives us the ability to do in our daily lives!
The Lord’s unconditional love for us is so amazing. It was out of this great love that He sent His only Son Jesus to the earth and laid down His life on the Cross to pay for our sins. Not only this, but He sent the Holy Spirit to live within us. That is a powerful love! As we continue to study God’s love, the curtain will be drawn further and further apart, opening up to us this amazing revelation of His love personally.
Jesus went so far as to die for us, to take our punishments, and to take our sins! He even went a step further and gave us the Holy Spirit — our personal Counselor, Comforter, Helper, and Guide — to live inside us!
Paul details the magnitude of this love in First Corinthians 6:19, which says:
Do you not know that your body is the temple of the Holy Spirit who is in you, whom you have from God, and you are not your own? For you were bought with a price; therefore glorify God in your body and in your spirit, which are God’s.
If you are born again — meaning you believe in your heart and have confessed with your mouth that Jesus is your Lord and Savior — you have within you the Holy Spirit, who is just like Jesus.
The Bible tells us that at the moment of salvation, the Holy Spirit enters your spirit, bringing with Him the very love of God.
…The love of God has been poured out in our hearts by the Holy Spirit who was given to us.
— Romans 5:5
How amazing is that?! When you accepted Jesus into your heart and the Holy Spirit came to dwell within you, He put God’s eternal, unchanging love in your heart. And when you open your heart and acknowledge Him, you can receive even more of this great love of God.
Even if we don’t say, think, or do the right thing, instead of leaving or abandoning us, God’s unconditional love is always there! It doesn’t change. It doesn’t move. It’s constantly there for us to open our hearts and freely receive that magnificent love and forgiveness over and over again!
The Lover Inside Us
Romans 8:38 and 39 says:
For I am persuaded that neither death nor life, nor angels nor principalities nor powers, nor things present nor things to come, nor height nor depth, nor any other created thing, shall be able to separate us from the love of God which is in Christ Jesus our Lord.
When you became born again, the indwelling power and presence of the Holy Spirit came to live within you. The Bible teaches that He is greater than anything or anyone in this world. It even refers to Him as the Greater One inside us in First John 4:4, which states:
You are of God, little children, and have overcome them, because He who is in you is greater than he who is in the world.
As born-again believers, we can look to the Holy Spirit for guidance and rest assured that He will help us live as overcomers. There is absolutely no circumstance or situation that is too big or difficult for His mighty power to change.
The power of the Holy Spirit can be expressed in many ways. One of the most valuable benefits of having the Holy Spirit living within you is the ability to love others with the precious love of Christ. By acknowledging His presence and respecting His role as the Greater One on the inside, you can tap into the power of the Holy Spirit every single day. And as you begin to allow the Holy Spirit to work in your life and operate in the love of God, you will see the fruit of it in every aspect of your life.
The love of God is on a magnitude that nothing in or of this world could come even close to recreating. The world doesn’t have this kind of love because it is a direct result of the Holy Spirit’s inward working in your heart. As it says in Romans 5:5, “Now hope does not disappoint, because the love of God has been poured out in our hearts by the Holy Spirit who was given to us.” The characteristics of God’s great love have been planted in your heart through the Lover inside you, and as you give place to it, this love can impact everyone you come into contact with.
The love of God is so powerful that once it has been imparted to us through the Holy Spirit, it has the power to change our lives including our attitudes, actions, behaviors, and our words. It even transforms the way we think about others and causes us to pursue peace in our relationships!
God’s love can also cause us to let go of selfish attitudes. John 15:13 says, “Greater love has no one than this, than to lay down one’s life for his friends.” While we may never physically lay down our life for another, we can be selfless in our interactions with friends, family members, acquaintances, or those we come into contact with during the course of our daily lives.
When God’s love is living within you, it causes you to let go of the selfish nature of your flesh and be considerate of those around you. Whenever you become tempted to act ugly or unkind toward another person, you can remember that the Greater One living within you is there to help you overcome the weaknesses of your flesh. If you find yourself wanting to be unkind or even react to someone being unkind to you, draw from the power deep within your spirit and release the supernatural love of God instead!
We are all tempted by our flesh to react with bitterness, selfishness, or unforgiveness. But as we truly grasp the enormity of what Jesus did when He suffered and died to pay for our sins, it motivates us to shove the desires of our flesh aside and love as He loves and forgive as He forgives.
If you have confessed with your mouth that Jesus is Lord and believe in your heart that God raised Him from the dead, then you are forgiven and loved, meaning you are full of the love of God and can show that very same love and forgiveness to those around you.
It isn’t always easy to walk in love toward others, but that’s why we have the Holy Spirit — the Lover — and the Word of God to guide us! Life can throw some sensitive and complicated situations our way, making expressing God’s love correctly difficult at times. But by holding onto what God says in His Word and calling upon the Holy Spirit within us, we can deal with even the hardest situations in a way that displays the same love Jesus showed us when He died on the Cross.
A High-Level Kind of Love
Even when we were far removed from God and living in sin, His great love forgave us. And now that we have been born again and have His love alive in our hearts, He calls on us to love and forgive others just as He did — even our enemies.
Without the Holy Spirit’s help and guidance, this would not be possible, but because of His unfailing living in us, we can tap into the love deep within us to love others as He loves us. The Bible tells us that:
“You have heard that it was said, ‘You shall love your neighbor and hate your enemy.’ But I say to you, love your enemies, bless those who curse you, do good to those who hate you, and pray for those who spitefully use you and persecute you, that you may be sons of your Father in heaven; for He makes His sun rise on the evil and on the good, and sends rain on the just and on the unjust.”
— Matthew 5:43-46
God wants us to love those who are good, those who are bad, those who are just, and those who are unjust (see Matthew 5:43-45). The Bible has a lot to say about why we should love others the way God loves us, and it reveals that because the Holy Spirit is living inside us, it equips us to love like He loves. This includes our enemies, those who persecute us, those who despitefully use us, and those who hurt or do wrong by us. We are called to love them. God commands us to love everyone no matter what. This is the kind of high-level love Jesus taught and continues to teach us to this very day.
What Kind of Fruit Are You Producing?
The Holy Spirit’s presence in the life of a believer is evident through the fruit of the Spirit they’re producing. You’re probably familiar with the fruit of the Spirit as detailed in Galatians 5:22 and 23. It says:
But the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, longsuffering, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, self-control….
This fruit is instilled in your heart atthe moment of salvation, and as you learn to release this precious fruit, you will become equipped to overcome any circumstance this life can throw at you!
The fruitfulness of the Christian life isn’t just for personal benefit, but it also shows the character of the heart of God, drawing others nearer to Christ.
The Holy Spirit — the Greater One — living inside you produces beautiful fruit, all of which are valuable in their own ways. But as you’ve been reading about, one of the most wonderful attributes of the Holy Spirit is the love of God. Again Romans 5:5 says, “Now hope does not disappoint, because the love of God has been poured out in our hearts by the Holy Spirit who was given to us.”
As you know, when you became born again, the Holy Spirit began pouring the love of God into your heart — but not the natural, emotion-driven love — the highest quality of love to ever exist! The God kind of love is a high-level kind of love, and it will enable you to do some amazing things that your flesh could never do on its own.
The love of God inside you allows you to love your enemies, bless those who curse you, do good to those who hate you, and pray for your persecutors (see Matthew 5:32-46). These actions are things that just aren’t possible with natural, human love because God’s love far surpasses what human love can accomplish. His love is supernatural and resides in you by the presence of the Holy Spirit!
Forgiveness is another attribute of the Holy Spirit’s presence in our lives. Although we have all experienced hurt and pain from another in the past, we can forgive and release those who hurt us by the power of God living inside us. It is because God forgave us that we can forgive others. All we need to do is access God’s supernatural love placed in our hearts when we were born again!
Sometimes forgiving someone can seem difficult or even impossible but God’s love activated by the Holy Spirit can release forgiveness to anyone, regardless of the pain that person may have caused.
Love and forgiveness are just a few examples of the fruit of the Spirit that you can exhibit through the Greater One living inside you, but releasing them is a choice for which we are all responsible. We can decide to live lives full of bitterness or allow the fruit of love to dominate every aspect of our lives.
When you choose to release the fruit of the Holy Spirit, it frees you to run and finish the race set before you in complete victory! His fruit is already stored within your spirit — it’s up to you to acknowledge His presence and produce it every day, showing the heart of the Father to everyone you cross paths with. By giving the Holy Spirit room to express Himself in you through the fruit of the Spirit, there is absolutely nothing in this life you can’t overcome!
The Love of God Never Fails
Walking in love all day, every day isn’t something we can accomplish on our own. One of the best places to learn about love is “the love chapter,” or First Corinthians 13. First Corinthians 13:4-8 reads:
Love suffers long and is kind; love does not envy; love does not parade itself, is not puffed up; does not behave rudely, does not seek its own, is not provoked, thinks no evil; does not rejoice in iniquity, but rejoices in the truth; bears all things, believes all things, hopes all things, endures all things.
Love never fails….
If you’re unsure what God’s love would do in a given situation, just return to His Word. It will show you what love looks like and how it operates. And the great news is that God’s love is already inside you! It is immediately available to operate through you and to empower you. All you need to do is acknowledge its power and release it by faith!
According to Galatians 5:22 and 23, the Bible says there is no law against the love of God. “But the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, longsuffering, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, and self-control. Against such there is no law.” In other words, nothing — especially that is in or of this world — can stand against this kind of love. It can never fail.
The Bible is full of examples of the great love God has for mankind. Because of the vastness of this love, we now have healing, deliverance, and forgiveness — and we can freely share these precious gifts with others through the great love that is shed abroad in our hearts (see Romans 5:5). As His beloved children, we are called to do likewise through forgiving and loving others.
We can learn so much from the display of God’s love demonstrated for all mankind. Anyone can say, “I love you,” but it is their actions that show beyond a shadow of a doubt that they love us. God displayed His perfect, unchanging, unconditional, undefinable love for us when he sent Jesus to die for us. He chose us. We can rest assured that we are so incredibly important to God because His actions revealed — and continue to reveal — the gravity of His love. The Bible says in Romans 5:8:
But God demonstrates His own love toward us, in that while we were still sinners, Christ died for us.
God came to the earth to rescue His people but they didn’t receive Him (see John 1:1). Instead, they rejected Him. He knew they would not be receptive to Jesus, yet He came and laid down His life for them anyway. That is the love of God being expressed through Jesus Christ.
John 1:4 and 5 says, “In Him was life, and the life was the light of men. And the light shines in the darkness, and the darkness did not comprehend it.” Read that again — there is no darkness so dark that God’s light can’t overcome!
The love of God can be likened to a garden tiller that pulls out all the weeds and makes the ground soft and ready to receive seed. Love can go into the ground of any heart and remove hate, criticism, jealousy, bitterness, unforgiveness, offense, or fear because it’s the most powerful thing on this earth. God’s love can triumph over anything standing in its way!
Friend, you can’t escape the love of God when you’re born again. His love is in you all the time. God’s presence will never leave you, and the Lord will continue to uphold you with His righteous right hand (see Isaiah 41:10). It is truly amazing how great of a love God displayed to us. Every morning we should wake up and say, “God, help me to know how much You love me, and help me love others with the love that You’ve placed inside me.” The supernatural impartation of the love of God happened the moment you made Jesus your Lord and Savior. When you became born again, the love of God came inside you to dwell in your heart. It’s not here for just a certain moment, week, month, or year. This supernatural love always resides within you! It’s available for you to draw from at any moment for the rest of your life.
The end of the year is drawing closer every day! I encourage you to be intentional about walking in love in your thoughts, words, and actions. Endeavor to make every interaction one that reflects the very love and heart of the Father. As you tap into the love of God that was placed inside you at the moment of your salvation, you will see your circumstances, relationships, and spirit change for the better.
I also want to personally invite you to watch my weekly program, TIME With Denise Renner. Each Wednesday at 12:00 p.m. CT, join me as I bring encouragement from the Word that will strengthen and uplift your spirit! You can watch TIME on my Facebook page, YouTube channel, or visit Renner.org for more information. I look forward to sharing the truth of the Gospel and fellowshipping with you!
Before I close my letter to you this month, I want to let you know that if you are going through a difficult season in life, need healing in your body, want to lift up a loved one, or simply need someone to be in agreement with you, our prayer team is waiting for your call! Prayer is such an important aspect of our lives as believers, and we want to let you know that we take each and every one of your prayer requests seriously. To connect with our prayer team today, call 1.844.473.6637 or send an email to prayer@deniserenner.org. We are believing for you to experience the fullness of God’s blessings in your life and hope to hear from you soon!
We are moving forward together,
Denise Renner