God Wants You to Have a Revelation of His Love and Goodness! - A RIGHT NOW Word for the Church!

Over the last couple days, the Holy Spirit has been pouring out wisdom and revelation about what is going on right now with the situation in America (and subsequently, the world). About how God IS still going to move and why He has let it play out the way it has and how it is all fulfilling Scripture. If you haven’t read parts 1 and 2 of the word He had me release on this, you’ll probably want to read them first before you read this one.

In the first part of the word, the Holy Spirit revealed that the Lord has let things be drawn out and has taken us the “long way,” so He could expose what’s in people’s hearts. Particularly, in regard to them being stuck in the natural and believing what they see over what He says. And also, how they have forgotten His sovereignty and have put Him into a box where He can only move in certain ways that they can understand and expect.

But over the course of the last 24 hours, He started bringing forth another aspect that He is exposing in the hearts of His children.

A lack of understanding of the extent and magnitude of His love and goodness.

They may read about it, talk about it and even sing about it, but in the hearts of many of God’s children, they don’t truly understand just how loving and good He really is (which again is a result of centuries of man-based, religious doctrine).

A pastor who preached here in Tulsa last night spoke about religion and how when people read the stories of the Pharisees and Sadducees in the Bible, they never identify with them themselves. They never see themselves as the religious one. And how we can’t see what is actually in ourselves unless someone shows it to us.

Well, that is EXACTLY what God is doing right now.

There is a misconception in a large percentage of the Body of Christ that “religion” means a very particular thing - “those people” who are stuck in old traditions and stuffy ceremonies, who have no real love or relationship with the Lord. And while that is true to a certain extent, the religious spirit is SO much more than that and that’s how it’s managed to sneak itself in to the hearts of so many believers without them even realizing it. It is literally what this pastor preached about - we can’t see it until God shows it to us.

One of the core “beliefs” or manifestations of the religious spirit is making things about ourselves. Making it about us doing things right for God or earning His blessings or deserving them. And again… I cannot stress this enough… this goes WAY beyond the surface level of just saying, “Oh I know, my salvation is free, it cannot be earned.” It is a DEEP heart issue and we can say those words, but deep down, still believe it’s about us (which then comes out in our actions and expectations, because “as a man thinks in his heart, so is he” - Prov. 23:7).

And right now, we are seeing a manifestation of how this plays out in our real world.

Over the past couple days, I have encountered several people online and also in person, talking about the idea of God bringing about revival by “letting us suffer.” Basically, that because we didn’t all get it together as the Body of Christ and see what HE was doing in the election and get on board with it, that He was going to now let us suffer the consequences of that. And that somehow, was going to lead to the revival.

But, the very belief that God would work in that way exposes a lack of understanding of His goodness and His true heart. And implies at its very basis, that God would only do something for our good IF we got it right (and therefore earned it).

God sent His one and only Son to die for our sins when we were all completely lost in our sin. He made the ultimate sacrifice for us, when He didn’t even know if we’d believe or accept it. And Jesus never gave up on us even though He encountered constant unbelief, violence and hatred.

That’s because His agape love goes ABOVE and BEYOND our behavior and whether or not we “deserve” it. That’s the whole point.

When Jesus was walking the earth, He brought people to Him by helping them, not punishing them (which is exactly why the religious leaders hated Him so much!). He didn’t make them “get it right” first or punish them into believing in Him. He healed them, He delivered them, He set them free. And as a result, they believed in Him and followed Him.

LOVE is what leads to repentance.

“Or do you despise the riches of His goodness, forbearance, and longsuffering, not knowing that the goodness of God leads you to repentance?” -Romans 2:4

His goodness, not punishment. What is supposed to drive us to our knees in repentance is how good He is even though we don’t deserve it!

But sadly, there is a great misconception about this in the Lord’s own Body. Which again, is why He is exposing that right now. He wants His children to know His true heart. Not the one that man (and the religious spirit working through him) has taught them.

Those people who believe that God would bring about a revival by punishing them are unknowingly bound by a religious spirit and don’t fully know the true extent of the Lord’s love for them. But, He’s exposing that now so repentance and change can come. And THAT is what sparks the revival! His undeserved goodness!

As long as we are still stuck in any belief that God’s goodness, blessing, provision and protection have anything to do with us “being good,” then we’re not in truth. And He can’t and won’t leave us there because He wants to set us free. But again, in order to do that, He has to show us what is deep in our hearts.

The spirit of pride works in conjunction with the religious spirit because basically, when we are making things about us and our behaviors or our deservedness, then we are saying it’s not about God and His goodness. Which is pride. So, the antidote to that is total HUMILITY!

I’ve said it over and over again in other words… the Church has to be completely and totally submitted in FULL surrender and humility right now and moving forward. And that includes being humble when it comes to His goodness!

I know that might sound like a strange statement… but it’s true, deep down… we don’t want to think about receiving God’s love and goodness when we know we’ve done absolutely nothing to deserve it.

Let me share a couple examples from my own life to illustrate the point.

A couple of years ago, when I was thick in my “wilderness season” with the Lord, I had a conversation with Him late one night in a Walmart parking lot. He started speaking to me about His love for me and I could not believe what I was hearing.

He showed me a “spectrum” in my mind and said one end represented when I was born and the other end when I died and that His love for me at the one end was exactly the same as His love for me on the other end. Of course, meaning nothing I had done or could do anywhere along the way would influence it or change it.

My mind was reeling. How could that be possible? I didn’t even know Him for the first part of my life, since I wasn’t saved until I was 27. And even since then, my relationship had changed with Him SO much over the years. How could it have been the same the whole time? And continue to be the same for the rest of my life?

Then, He took it up another notch. He changed the scenario and said now the one end of the spectrum represented me doing nothing else “for” Him the rest of my life and the other end represented me doing everything I could possibly do “for” Him and you guessed it… He said His love for me was the same at the one end as at the other.

Now, sirens and lights were really going off in my mind! How could that be true? How could He love me the same if I did nothing for Him as if I did everything for Him? Didn’t He want me to serve Him and accomplish stuff for His Kingdom?

Of course He does. But, what He was trying to get through my thick skull that night was that His love for us and what He’s purposed us to do in life are two totally separate things. Literally, picture them as two parallel lines running side by side. They go together, but they are separate.

His love is completely outside of our actions. That’s what makes it unconditional.

And if you’re anything like I was, it’s probably twisting your brain up in knots right now. Because that is NOT how we operate as man. Everything about our version of love is conditional. Even when we say it’s not. Deep down, we still have expectations of how someone will behave within the context of us loving them or them loving us.

But, God exists outside of all of our restrictions, rules and expectations. Which again, is the whole point and what He is trying to bring a revelation of right now.

Religion says “God wants you to suffer for Him and being miserable makes Him happy.” Except, that again, goes against everything we know about God from the Scriptures (side note - I’m not talking about going through persecution for Him… that’s a totally different thing).

Jesus literally came so we could have life and have it abundantly. In Luke 11:11-13, Jesus talks about how earthly fathers are good to their children and expresses how much more our Heavenly Father wants to bless His children. And again… if God was all about us suffering to “please” Him, then He never had to even send Jesus and could’ve just left us the way we were because we were doing a pretty good job of suffering on our own.

Again, I know from personal experience.

At another point in my “wilderness season” with the Lord, I found myself sitting in the car one day on the verge of a total emotional breakdown, wondering what in the world I wasn’t “getting.” I had been “suffering” for Him for weeks…months… and I couldn’t figure out what else He “wanted” from me to get me out of this place where I felt stuck. I basically was sitting there, moping and telling Him as much, when the Holy Spirit suddenly boomed in my spirit…

“YOUR way is suffering! MY way is blessing!”

Again, I was shocked and sat there silent for a minute. What did He just say? Immediately, He began to remove the scales from my eyes and I could finally see clearly. All this time, I had been believing (in my heart) that God wanted me to suffer. So, I not only willingly agreed with the hardship, but I thought I was somehow being “honorable” for Him by doing so.

Until He broke it down pretty simply, like He always does…

Being poor doesn’t bring Me glory, being prosperous does.
Being sick doesn’t bring Me glory, being healed does.
Being miserable doesn’t bring Me glory, being joyful and free does.

Well, when you put it that way, Lord! It is simple when you think of it that way. We are supposed to be set apart and stand out from the world. Because that is what brings Him glory! The stories that we all read and base our faith on are stories of God healing broken bodies, ridding people of disease, blessing barren women, giving provision and wisdom, delivering people from demonic strongholds. So, how could we ever believe that He would want us to suffer “for” Him?

That’s the cunning schemes of the enemy and the religious spirit.

Over the last year or so, I have noticed a lack of love in some of the major prophetic voices that have been on the public scene. It’s not even that the words they were delivering weren’t accurate, many of them were. But, they were being delivered in a tone that was lacking in love.

And as I’ve said in pretty much every word I’ve ever shared, God is both truth AND love. So, you can’t possibly share one without the other, or you’re not truly sharing God’s heart. Because that’s who He is.

Of course, He wants us to repent and come out of the world, idolatry, deception and the flesh. And like I’ve said, we have to make the choice to do so.

But, He wants us to do so because of His love and goodness. Not because we’re afraid He’s going to strike us down with lightning if we don’t.

To again, quote the wonderful simplicity of the Holy Spirit…

“God wants us to love Him so we fear Him. Not fear Him so we love Him.”

It’s His love that will drive us to repentance. Because when we are in a true loving relationship with Him, we don’t want to do anything that would grieve His spirit! It would be just like a spouse who doesn’t want their mate to cheat on them, not because they’re afraid they’ll get in trouble if they do so. But, because they love them and would never want to do anything that would upset them!

The love comes first. The love is what drives the action.

God is love. That is the very essence of who He is. And He wants us to know just how much He loves us.

I actually prayed for this exact thing last summer and boy, did He deliver (like they say… be careful what you pray for!). I had asked the Lord to give me a “revelation” of His love because I understood intellectually what He had been telling me and teaching me about His love being unconditional and completely not-dependent on my behavior, but I told Him I had never really experienced that kind of love in the natural. So, He was going to have to give me a supernatural revelation of it. And boy, did He ever.

Long story short… after reading a couple discouraging texts and Facebook posts (in regard to the whole covid debacle), I had ended up on the floor of the bathroom, praying and crying over my lost friends and family. I just desperately wanted them all to know the truth of who He is and be set free from the world. It had quickly grown from just my lost friends and family to basically everyone in the world who didn’t know Him and the more I thought about it and prayed about it, the harder I began to sob.

I told Him I didn’t know how He was able to do it… walk around with this feeling all the time and feel so strongly for the very people that were hating on Him and persecuting Him. And in the middle of my sobbing and rambling, the Holy Spirit interrupted me and said “This… this right here that you are experiencing is my agape love.”

Of course, that just made me sob even harder. But, what He gave me a revelation of that day is just how MUCH He loves us. ALL of us. It was SO heavy, I could barely breathe. But, heavy in the best kind of way.

The weight of His love for us is truly unimaginable!

And it is for every one of us. Not just the “good” ones or the ones getting it “right.”

“For God so loved the world that he gave his one and only Son, that whoever believes in him shall not perish but have eternal life.” -John 3:16

It’s never been about us getting it right. Or measuring up. That’s the whole reason He sent Jesus - we can’t do it. We don’t deserve it. That IS the good news of the Gospel.

But, we do have to believe it.
And we do have to receive it.

And as His children, He wants us to walk in the fullness and the freedom of His love.

So, if He sees that we have gotten caught up in the deception of man and religion and the schemes of the enemy, He will bring us out of it. But again, the way He does that is to show us what we’ve been believing so we can repent and be delivered from it.

And all this ties back in with what’s going on right now in America and what I shared in the two words He gave me this past week.

God IS still going to move and do a miracle. He IS still doing what He said He was going to do. But, He let it play out this way to expose hearts. Not only to expose unbelief, doubt, restricting God and relying on what you see in the natural. But also, to expose a misunderstanding or misconception about His goodness.

God is bringing about a revival through His goodness. Through His undeserved goodness to act on our behalf, to fight on our behalf and to make a way for us when we don’t deserve it. When we don’t get it right. To show us that it is all about Him and not about us.

It is going to show us not only His power and sovereignty on a whole new level. But also, His goodness on a whole new level.

Because it is His goodness that leads to repentance. It is His love that leads to revival. Because once you have a true revelation of His love… it will wreck you. In the most beautiful way possible.

And that is what is going to save His Church.

That is what is going to save the world.