THE LOVE WALK.

Have you ever heard of the word 'Cephalophore'. Ok lets go back to those ancient and medieval times when preaching the gospel or going against the institutionalized churches had the grim penalty of a beheading. History has it that some of these ancient mystics (some of them women) would stand up pick up their heads and walk away and give themselves a proper burial. Kind of reminds you of the Headless Horseman of Sleepy Hollow, right?  Apostle Paul is famed to be one of them. His decapitated head was said to have said the name of Jesus Christ up to thirty times before it fell silent, never to preach about that name on earth again.

These are men and women who operated on a mystic level that was unbelievable. Some of them willingly gave themselves to be burnt  and flayed as if it was some kind of fun game. Hebrews 11 spoke of these class of people,

''and others were tortured, not accepting deliverance; that they might obtain a better resurrection:And others had trial of cruel mockings and scourgings, yea, moreover of bonds and imprisonment:
They were stoned, they were sawn asunder, were tempted, were slain with the sword: they wandered about in sheepskins and goatskins; being destitute, afflicted, tormented,  (Of whom the world was not worthy:) they wandered in deserts, and in mountains, and in dens and caves of the earth''

What guts!, what courage! They demystified death, stared satan eyeball to eyeball and laughed in his face. These men knew something that we don't know, they saw the unseen. Some where super rich men and women in their time who had the audacity to give out all their wealth for the sake of the high calling. This would be the height of foolishness in our acquisition driven modern day christianity.

Their lives make our new generation christianity look and sound like a ward full of neonates.
I often wonder how we would classify such men if we ever met them, some of us would probably call them 'occultic, wierdos, spirikoko, overdo'. Our generation frowns and scandalizes  anything it doesn't understand.

I believe every christian, for whatever reason, wants to operate in an incredible dimension of spirituality. Some for the mere sake of it, some for the genuine reason of wanting to help others. I for one want to operate in the height of the anointing and whatever gift God manifests through my life and for sometime that was all that consumed my mind. Until I remembered the scripture...' I will show you a more excellent path' 1 Corinthians 12:31

I read 1 Corinthians 13:1- 13 again and it shattered my word view and my world view. IT IS POSSIBLE TO FUNCTION IN THE HEIGHT OF KNOWLEDGE OF MYSTERIES, POWER, SELF SACRIFICE and still be rated as a useless nobody in heaven. Bottom line Love is the center of gravity of Christianity.

Except you are exposed to raw power and its capacity to make things better through the miraculous you will never appreciate this scripture. Except you have bled yourself in service to humanity you will never understand how cataclysmically life changing this scripture is. It makes a mockery of the things that captivates us, knowledge of mysteries, incredible display of power.

LOVE is the greatest because it is not just the nature of God , God is Love!
And yet how we give it perfunctory attention...my goodness! Love is who we should be.
Love should be our gauge of who is the greatest in the kingdom and not grandiloquence, not miracles, not position.
A leader's love life should fascinate us and have us in jaw dropping awe not his knowledge.
The world should know us by how much we love each other and not by the size of church members, how well planned our activities are, our church building or the size of our church banner!
Love is not a topic that a few should specialize in, it is the nature and lifestyle of true believers. Everyone should be a love expert and a love guru.

MY PERSONAL WALK.
Personally I have been forced to train myself to reject hate even if its coming from the pulpit and from the pope himself. I will not partake in any feast that Jesus Christ did not call me to.
Unforgiveness, hatred, malice, slander in any form is a feast of demons and believers whose ultimate aim is to see His face in eternity should not partake of it.

When I saw all these in the scriptures I told my husband I would give it further attention. I didn't study it up to a week before my tests and exams started rolling in. Note: Whenever you make up your mind to walk in the light of any revealed truth you will be tested on it. You can't escape it . Just like school tests come to check out our knowledge and then ultimately promote us, spiritual knowledge is also tested .
Its not about what we know, or preach or who people believe we are, its about what we actually do from the depths of our hearts where God can only see.
I flunked my first test sadly, I realised I had been in denial. You see just because you don't give your anger and offence mental attention doesn't mean it's not there. So the Holy Spirit stripped my anger if its sanctimonious garment and as soon as I confronted it and the object of my  annoyance I discovered that healing was instant.

Next test was worse and hurt more. It hurt so much I cried and threw a serious tantrum. I had the weapon to severe my relationship with the individual but my hubby reminded me of my decision to walk in love. As soon as the words left his mouth I remembered who I am and that I am a love creature.
First, I struggled a bit about ending further plans to assist the person but in the end the God kind of love prevailed.

Secondly, I would usually stew for some days just to let everyone know how angry I was and how grievous the offence was,I realized how completely unnecessary that is.
Thirdly, I didn't repeat the matter again. (Proverbs 17:9). I simply lost appetite to make gist of the details or make a scandal out of it.

Lesson to be learnt

1.Make your love walk accountable. There should be someone near you who should always call you to order and remind you of your decision. It has to be someone who isnt afraid to tell you the truth. Don't make yourself the Eze onye agwanam 1 of Ndi Uka.

2. God's love restores. This doesn't mean giving the offender further ability to hurt you rather the forgiveness should rid your heart of the hurt.

3. Thirdly don't dwell on the matter. Don't make it a national topic. Dont let what was done to you divert the course of your life and ministry.

4. Think about how you love to be loved. Dish it out that way.

To be continued!