Love's Rewards

If we’re going to walk in health, we’re going to have to walk close to God. We will have to do what He said in Mark 11:24–25 and walk in love. Mark 11:24 says, “Therefore I say unto you, What things soever ye desire, when ye pray, believe that ye receive them, and ye shall have them.” This verse brought me off the bed of sickness.

Mark 11:25 begins, “And when ye stand praying, forgive, if ye have ought against any.” We are instructed to love our enemies. To do this, we will have to bless those who curse us and do good to those who don’t do good to us. We are not walking in love and forgiveness unless we do.

Any number of times, I’ve been like anybody else. I’ve been tempted not to forgive, but I refuse to let the least bit of animosity, the least bit of ill will, the least bit of wrong feeling get in me. In fact, when people have talked about me, I prayed for them. So many times, people don’t know what they’re doing. Even Jesus said of the very ones who crucified Him, “Forgive them. They know not what they do.”

By the time I was in the second grade, I was mad at the world. I felt like I’d been cheated in life. Our home was divided. My oldest brother, Dub, had to live with some kinfolks, and I lived with others. We both grew up with chips on our shoulders.

If some of our kinfolks did Dub wrong, he’d whip them. I couldn’t start anything because I had a heart condition. If they did me wrong, I’d say to myself, I’ll never speak to them again. I’d give them the silent treatment.

But then I got born again and the love of God was shed abroad in my heart (Rom. 5:5). It wasn’t too many weeks after I was healed at age 17 that one of my kinfolks did me an injustice. When this happened, I said to myself, I’ll give them the old silent treatment.

The next day after I said that, I was walking downtown and saw this person coming toward me. The thought crossed my mind to look into a store window and turn my back on them. Another thought flashed through my mind to cross the street so I wouldn’t have to meet them.

But then something rose up inside me. The Bible says, “The love of Christ constraineth us” (2 Cor. 5:14). That love was in my spirit. I didn’t have to let it dominate me. I could have let my natural human reasoning and flesh dominate me. But thank God, I let that love rise up in me.

Instead of turning against those folks, I went to meet them. I reached out my hand and told them that I loved them. I said with tears, “I’m praying for you, and I want you to know that if it would help you any, I would get down on my knees right here and kiss your feet.” When I said that, they started crying out, “Forgive me. Forgive me. I’ve done you an injustice.”

Love never fails. To fellowship with God, to walk with God, to walk in God’s realm, to walk in the Spirit, we must walk in divine love, for God is love (1 John 4:8, 16). To walk in love means to walk in the Spirit, because love is a fruit of the Spirit.

God wants us to grow. We can grow in love because love is a fruit and fruit grows. And by showing the right spirit and loving people, we’ll reap rich rewards.

(Editor’s note: This article was adapted from Kenneth E. Hagin’s minibook How to Walk in Love.)

To learn more about walking in love, click on this link to the article by Kenneth E. Hagin titled “What Have You Done With His Love?”