I want to begin by asking a question: How do you view yourself and others through the lenses of love??? As you know we are living in troublous times. Tensions are rising high, conflicts between families, friends, and co-workers are on the rise, hatred and murder is running rampant as we are seeing betrayal in trust. These things Jesus prophesied would happen before His Return. “Then shall they deliver you up to be afflicted, and shall kill you: and you shall be hated of all nations for My Name’s sake. And then shall many be offended, and shall betray one another. And many false prophets shall rise, and shall deceive many. And because iniquity shall abound, the love of many shall wax cold” (Matthew 24:9-12) What can we do to protect our hearts from growing cold when we know that God commands us to love Him with all of heart, mind, sou, and strength??? We need to be asking these types of questions because of what we are seeing concerning this prophecy that is becoming a reality. I know the last thing you and I desire is to see our love for God and for our fellowman to grow cold. When love grows cold, the individual begins to only think about me, myself, and I. The heart no longer desires to serve but rather, to survive to take care of its own needs without seeing the need for others. Then when others trespass in their view of thinking or are accused of something, offense will begin to take its course to establish hate and betrayal. Grievance can lead to offense, offense to betrayal, betrayal to hate, hate to murder. Its vital that you and I grow in the love of God, especially in these troublous times. As you know in our Born-Again experience the Love of God was shed abroad in our hearts by the Holy Ghost (Romans 5:5). We actually received an impartation of the Love of God. Now it is our responsibility to grow in love until we walk in love without measure. In order for us to walk in the overflow of God’s love, you and I must connect to the Source of Love that desires to express His love to you and through you. Jesus prayed: “I in them, and You in Me, that they may be made perfect in ONE; and that the world may know that You have sent Me, and have loved them, as You have loved Me” (John 17:23) “And I have declared to them Your Name, and will declare it: that the love wherewith You loved Me may be in them, and I in them” (John 17:26) Jesus desires that we know, see, and understand that God loves us the same way that the Father loves Jesus. Not only to understand that God loves us but also that we love Jesus in the same way the Father loves Jesus. In order to fulfill this prayer in our lives, we must allow the Holy Spirit to do His work in our hearts that you and I may go deep into the Love of God. Apostle Paul prayed: “For this cause I bow my knees to the Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, of whom the whole family in Heaven and Earth is named, that He would grant you, according to the riches of His Glory, to be strengthened with might by His Spirit in the inner-man; That Christ may dwell in your hearts by faith; that you, being rooted and grounded in love, may be able to comprehend with all saints what is the breadth, and length, and depth, and height; And to know the love of Christ, which passes knowledge, that you might be filled with all the fullness of God” (Ephesians 3:14-19) These prayers are powerful, and we should be praying these same prayers if we are going to see ourselves grow in the Love of God. “Therefore, I say to you, what things soever you desire, when you pray, believe that you receive them, and you shall have them” (Mark 11:24) Many Christians ask God for worldly possessions over possessing the Love of God. We should be asking God to give us Grace to love Him at the level He desires us to and to love ourselves and others in the same way. God is love and if He is love, He is expecting those who believe in His Son to become sons & daughters of Love. Again, what does your love level for God, you, and others look like??? I’m sharing all of these things to warn God’s people to protect their hearts from waxing cold because of the adversity that we are witnessing in the nations. We need to understand in what season we are in and what has been prophesied in Scripture concerning these days. Again, knowing and understanding the times will help us navigate through the pressure that we may remain connected to the Source of love to be faithful and committed to the Lord Jesus Christ. What is needed today is healthy relationships. Healthy relationships are established through openness, honesty, and in integrity. We all know that we have an enemy who is doing his best to kill, steal, and destroy. Satan’s ultimate goal is to see God’s people offended with God; not only to be offended at God but also to be offended with one another. He knows that the longer the offense is at work, the better chance he will be able establish hate in the heart. Satan is out to kill healthy relationships in God and man. Knowing and understanding that we all have an enemy that desires to sow a wedge between two parties, should alarm us to guard our hearts for any intrusion of the enemy. Through the years I have experienced the loss of friendships, quarrels between my spouse and I, and seen many other relationships sink into the abyss of offense when in fact there was somewhat a healthy relationship, so I thought. I understand completely in how hurtful it is when a relationship is torn down on the basis of offense; it is just sickening to know that the enemy was at work to destroy what God was establishing. Some of these relationships were my fault as well as the other party. In some of these cases, I believe they could have been averted to save the relationship if my love level was more mature. Instead of going to the person to have an open honest conversation to open the way for forgiveness and healing, I would rather throw the situation under the rug and hope it would all work out. Anybody been there??? In this hour God is establishing healthy relationships in the Body of Christ. This is not to say that there will be no issues. Remember, it most likely not the person who is causing the offense as oppose the sin nature within the person. This is why Paul said to: “With all lowliness and meekness, with long- suffering, forbearing one another in LOVE; endeavoring to keep the unity of the Spirit in the bond of peace” (Ephesians 4:2-3) We teach here that in every relationship that we should know each other’s strengths and weaknesses. In knowing each other this way will identify that we need to be graceful even as Jesus is Graceful towards us. No one is innocent of weakness, but as Christians we have been given the responsibility to love the same way Jesus loves us. We all understand that grievances and offense will come knocking on our door from time to time. The question will be: What will you do when it does??? In these moments I believe it is a great opportunity to see where your love is in how you deal with the situation and in how long you allow offense in the heart. Love forgives, Love covers a multitude of sin, Love is patient, Love looks on the things of others more than itself. Is this you??? is this where your love level is??? Let’s decide by making up our minds that we are going to remain under the Fountain of Love that we may guard our hearts from growing cold in the Love of God. Let’s not allow the enemy to use our weakness to destroy but rather, to see where we are in the level of love. Let’s Keep Covenant Relations In Tack