Patricia King - Greater Love
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Summary
Patricia King shares a powerful vision where God measures His people's spiritual maturity, promotion, and increase solely by the depth of their love—for Him, for one another, and for the lost—declaring that greater miracles, works, and glory will only flow through greater love. Drawing from key Scriptures like Matthew 22:36-40, 1 Corinthians 13, and Revelation 2, she emphasizes that love is the fulfillment of the law, the true mark of discipleship, and life's highest goal, far surpassing gifts or achievements. In this season leading into the new Hebrew year, she calls believers to return to "first love"—receiving God's unconditional love afresh—so it can overflow to others, promising transformation and divine favor as we pursue greater love.
Greater Love
Thank you. It’s wonderful to be back here, and you know we have such a beautiful family. I want to thank you all for the encouragement and the blessings that you have sent our way. It’s just been a beautiful month, and whatever challenges you face, know that God is your answer, and He will work everything together for good.
Even in situations where you don’t understand how things turn out, you might think, “Wait a minute, this wasn’t how I thought it was going to work out. This isn’t the way I thought it was going to go.” God will turn that around for good; He will bring pure gold out of it for you. But the key is to keep your eyes on the things that are eternal and maintain your expectation towards Him that it is going to be good.
If you allow your mind to slip into negativity, it’s simply not a healthy place to live. If you want negativity in your life, that’s how you get it: by letting your mind dwell there. We want our minds to be set on heavenly things, and thus enjoy all the heavenly blessings that He has for us.
A Season of Fulfillment Ahead
I know some of you have been through some really hard seasons lately, but God is with you. I sense that this last season of disappointment and perhaps unfulfilled dreams is going to turn around for you in this next season, and it will be a season of fulfillment. I declare that, and you can hold onto that word. Amen.
This morning, I want to share about greater love. I had a vision this last week, on July 16th. Every year, as a ministry, we prepare for the New Year on the Hebrew calendar. Coming up this September, at Rosh Hashanah, we will be entering into the year 5782 on the Jewish calendar, and then, on the Gregorian calendar, we will be moving into January 2022.
We always look to the Lord at this time of year so that we can position ourselves according to His will and purposes. He always prophetically reveals things to us. As we position ourselves according to what He is saying, we soar through and have the most beautiful times with the Lord.
Vision of the Measuring Rod
Last week, I actually saw a vision of a measuring rod falling out of heaven and into the earth. I heard the voice of the Lord speaking to an angel, saying, “Measure the love of my people—the height, the depth, the width, and the breadth of the love they are demonstrating towards Me, towards each other, and towards the lost.”
He said, “Love is My measurement for spiritual maturity. How mature are My people? Love is My measurement for promotion and increase. Who shall I promote? Who shall I increase?” I could sense the urgency of the Lord as He was bringing this forth to my heart. He is calling His people; He is calling us to choose love and to make love our greatest motivation for all that we do and all that we say. It is to be our greatest goal in life to learn to love, according to 1 Corinthians 14. I’ll review that with you later.
The School of Greater Love
When we were celebrating last month 40 years of ministry, Stacey Campbell was staying at our home. Afterwards, she said, “Patricia, I see the Lord giving you a new school that you are to teach. It’s called the School of Greater Love.” She said there are greater miracles coming, there are greater works coming, and there’s greater glory coming, but not without greater love—not without greater love. I have been meditating on that word all month.
When you receive prophetic words, make sure that you savor them, apply them, and pray into them because they are significant messages from the heart of God. They should direct you to His heart in even deeper ways. I was praying into it, and I sensed the Lord saying that He is going to put a halt on things until we come into the right foundation of love.
Oftentimes, we will pursue gifts, pursue anointing, pursue glory, or pursue revival. We want all of this so that we can feel good or enjoy the presence of God in a new dimension. But what He’s saying is that He will not bring anything now until we lay hold of and embrace His call to greater love. Greater works will come through greater love. There is a demand of the Spirit on us to embrace the love that He has so freely given us.
The Greatest Commandment
Now, in Matthew 22:36–40, there was a teacher of the law who tried to trip Jesus up. He said in verse 36, “Teacher,”—because he was calling Jesus Rabbi—“What is the great commandment in the law?” Jesus said to him, “You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, with all your soul, and with all your mind. This is the first and great commandment, and the second is like it: You shall love your neighbor as yourself. On these two commandments hang all the law and the prophets.”
I love how the Passion Translation conveys the last verse in verse 40: “Contained within these commandments to love, you will find all the meaning of the law and the prophets.” When you understand love, when you know love, the law and the prophecies concerning the Messiah and concerning who Jesus is are fulfilled in that love. It’s all fulfilled.
What Jesus is saying is, “You don’t have to spend all your time learning how to fulfill all the laws you were committed to in the Old Testament because I’m telling you that they’re all wrapped up in one commandment: to love the Lord your God with all your heart, with all your mind, and with all your strength, but also to love one another—to love each other.” When we understand that, we can run towards the things of God and towards fulfilling His plan by simply knowing His love.
Love Fulfills the Law
In the Law of the Old Testament, there were Ten Commandments. The first four commandments were about loving God, and the next six were about loving others. We see what Jesus was trying to tell these leaders of the law: “You are pretty focused on fulfilling all this law—on observing these Ten Commandments and all the other laws—but really, it’s all about love. Every single law is for love’s sake; it will teach you to love. It’s all about love; it’s all about modeling love.” He was telling them to get their focus right. It’s not about all your correct theology; it’s about how well you love.
In the New Testament, we see another law in Romans 8:2-8, which states, “For the law of the Spirit of life in Christ Jesus has set you free from the law of sin and death.” The old Testament law and all the Old Testament ordinances that believers had to fulfill were impossible. In fact, Moses didn’t even get down from the mountain before the nation had transgressed. The laws were broken before he could even bring them to the people. There is absolute proof that in our own strength and effort, we cannot fulfill the law. It simply determines sin and death for us. The law actually reveals sin; it shows what brings death.
Verse 3 says, “For what the law could not do, weak as it was through the flesh, God did, sending His own Son in the likeness of sinful flesh and as an offering for sin, He condemned sin in the flesh.” Jesus, I mean, He is amazing! He is a living word. He came and condemned sin in the flesh, fulfilling all the commandments and prophecies concerning the Messiah. He is the fulfillment of it all. When you have Him, you have fulfillment. When you have Him, you have love that is coursing through your veins—the DNA of God’s love inside of you. When you have Christ, you have His life.
It says, “So that the requirement of the law might be fulfilled in us, who do not walk according to the flesh but according to the Spirit.” This letter, written by Paul, was to the Roman church. It is written for believers. He explains that when you focus on who you are, when you understand who you are in Christ, and when you embrace the fullness of what Christ has done within you—not trying to do things externally but letting the life of Christ flow from you—when you focus on the Spirit rather than the flesh, you will see fulfillment come to you.
The scripture continues, “So that the requirement of the law might be fulfilled in us, who do not walk according to the flesh but according to the Spirit.” When you walk according to the Spirit, you fulfill the law. The scripture does not say that when you don’t walk in the flesh you will be fulfilling the Spirit; it doesn’t work that way. You can try all you want not to be in the flesh, but that doesn’t mean you are in the Spirit. However, if you walk in the Spirit, you will not fulfill the lust of the flesh, for those who are in accord with the flesh set their minds on the things of the flesh.
We want to be careful where we have our thoughts, what we’re believing. But those who are in accord with the Spirit set their minds on the things of the Spirit. For the mind set on the flesh is death, but the mind set on the Spirit is life and peace. Because the mind set on the flesh is hostile towards God. It does not submit to the law of God, nor is it even able to do so. Those who are in the flesh cannot please God.
Love Measures Maturity
Your spiritual maturity is measured by your love—not your gifts, not the anointing, not how well you sing, not how well you pray, and not the songs you’ve written for worship. Your maturity is not measured by any of those things; it is measured by your love.
In 1 Corinthians 13:1-3, it states, “Though I speak with the tongues of men and of angels, but do not have love, I have become a sounding brass or a clanging cymbal. And though I have the gift of prophecy and understand all mysteries and all knowledge; and though I have all faith so I could remove mountains, but do not have love, I am nothing. And though I bestow all my goods to feed the poor, and though I give my body to be burned, but do not have love, it profits me nothing.”
He is saying, “I actually have nothing without love. I am nothing. I am nothing!” We talk about having an identity in Christ, but it says: “I am nothing if I don’t have love.” It states that even though I might operate in spiritual gifts and have faith to move mountains or accurately prophesy, if I don’t have love operating as the motivating force for those gifts, it says, “Actually, I am nothing.” Furthermore, it states, “It profits nothing,” meaning there’s no reward for it—there’s no eternal establishment. There is nothing!
Even though I might be generous and give to the poor, take care of the suffering, or fight for the safety of aborted babies, if love is not the motivation, if it’s not saturated in love, it profits me nothing.
Known by Our Love
Jesus said that you are known as His follower by the love that you have. In John 13:34–35, He says, “I’m giving you a new commandment: that you love one another just as I have loved you.” In the same way that Jesus has loved you, you are to love others, which isn’t easy.
I don’t know about you, but I am not a perfect vessel. I am a flawed vessel, and I am all too aware of how flawed I am. When I think of God loving me, it isn’t because of my perfection—far from it! It’s because He is love, and He has steadfastly loved me without condition. There’s never been a moment when He hasn’t loved me, even in my worst moments of behavior.
He is saying that’s the kind of love He wants you to demonstrate towards each other. And by this, all people will know that you are His disciples—if you have love for one another. Unfortunately, the body of Christ is not known for its love. We backbite, slander, judge each other, and are not supportive often. We have a long way to go, but it’s not going to come through self-effort. It will come from receiving from the Lord the ability to love and making it our expectation because you can’t produce the love of God through your own efforts.
No matter how hard you try, you won’t succeed. But if you desire to love, He says, “I will give you the desires of your heart.” If you delight in Him and in the love of God, He will fulfill that longing within your heart because He is able to do all things well, and He put His love inside of you. We just have to let it leak out; we have to allow that river to flow. We also need to be patient with each other in the meantime.
God Is Love
In 1 John 4:7-21, it states, “Beloved, let us love one another, for love is from God, and everyone who loves has been born of God and knows God. The one who does not love does not know God, because God is love. Beloved, if God so loved us, we also ought to love one another.”
No one has ever seen God; if we love one another, God remains in us, and His love is perfected in us. We have come to know and have believed the love which God has for us. God is love, and the one who remains in love remains in God, and God remains in him. We love because He first loved us.
If someone says, “I love God,” yet hates his brother or sister, he is a liar. For the one who does not love his brother and sister whom he has seen cannot love God whom he has not seen, and this commandment we have from Him: that the one who loves God must also love his brother and sister.
It is very clear in scripture that we are mandated, if we know God, if God truly lives in us, one of the greatest signs that He lives in us is our love for Him and our love for each other.
Love as Life's Goal
Love is to be our life’s goal. In 1 Corinthians 14:1, the Living Bible states, “Let love be your highest goal.” But you should also desire the special abilities the Spirit gives, especially the ability to prophesy. Why? Because all those gifts are expressions of love.
So, say, “I want love to be my greatest aim,” but I also want to express love in a way that comes from the Spirit. I’m going to prophesy; I’m going to pray for you; I’m going to release miracles to you because I’m crazy in love with you, and I want to give you all that God has inside of me.
The Amplified Version states the same verse, “Pursue this love with eagerness; make it your goal, yet earnestly desire and cultivate the spiritual gifts.” In 1 John 4:19, we read, “We love because He first loved us.” What gives you the ability to love others is knowing the love that God has for you.
Before getting born again, I might have been one of the most selfish individuals in the universe. I can assure you that my actions before I was a believer were careless, and I hurt others around me without considering the consequences. I was following the dictates of my evil heart, but when I experienced Jesus and had that moment of liquid love flow into me, encountering the love of God changed everything.
It changed how I felt about life, my choices, and the people around me, because I had experienced love Himself.
Returning to First Love
In Revelation 2:1-7, Jesus addresses the church at Ephesus. What He had against them was that they had fallen from their first love. This was a church raising the bar on righteousness, condemning false apostles, and exposing them. They were passionate for the Lord as far as doing what was right, but He said, “I have this against you: you’ve lost your first love.”
Unless it’s returned, He says, “you won’t have what was granted you.” He adds that to the one who overcomes, He will grant to eat from the tree of life which is in the paradise of God. He warned that if they didn’t repent from lacking that first love, He would remove their lampstand from its place unless they turned back.
What is that first love? A lot of people think it means that you have to feel that fiery love feeling you had when you were first born again. It doesn’t mean that; I think it means going back to the revelation of the love that God has for you, as it says, “We love because He first loved us.” That is “first love.”
When you meditate on how much God loves you, it becomes easy to love others. Until you have that revelation of how much God loves you, it can be extremely difficult to love others well and even to get started. So, I encourage you to go after that revelation; go deeper into the understanding of the love that God has for you.
Open up your heart to be loved well by God because the more you understand His love for you, the more you will be able to love others. I have a teaching called “Ultimate Passion,” available online. It’s a free download, and I just want you to enjoy that—listen to it over and over again. It will help you lay hold of the love of God.
Qualities of Love
Now, I want to look at the qualities of love. I’ve been meditating on this quote that the Lord gave me: “Love endeavors to activate and demonstrate the highest good for the sake of another.” Sometimes, that highest good isn’t easy; it can even include discipline, but it’s for the highest good of the one you want to love and for those around them who are affected by their actions.
I want to read this from the Amplified Version in 1 Corinthians 13:4-7: “Love endures with patience and serenity; love is kind and thoughtful; it is not jealous or envious; love does not brag and is not proud or arrogant; it is not rude, it is not self-seeking, it is not provoked, nor is it overly sensitive and easily angered; it does not take into account a wrong endured; it does not rejoice at injustice but rejoices with the truth when right and truth prevail.
Love bears all things regardless of what comes; believes all things, looking for the best in each one; hopes all things, remaining steadfast during difficult times; enduring all things without weakening.” Your love has been tested, is being tested, and will be tested. Those love tests, as you pass them, will establish and increase His love within your life. Possibly after a message like this, you will face some love tests, some opportunities to grow in love.
Patient and Kind
The first quality is patience. We need to be patient with each other—you want people to be patient with you, right? It takes time for people to grow. I spoke with someone recently who was struggling with another person because that person wasn’t growing fast enough in their mindset. I said, “You know, love is patient.” It takes time for a person to grow.
In a garden, some things grow really fast; radishes are quick, and Swiss chard is too. Other things take much longer to bear fruit, like an apple tree. If you were to plant an apple seed and look after two months and say, “Oh my gosh, nothing’s happening,” and then you dig it up, you will never get apples. You have to be patient. We need to cheer on and celebrate even the smallest progress that we see and be willing to give each other time.
Number two is to be kind and thoughtful. Love thinks through how another will be affected; it’s thoughtful of others. Love listens well and sees others. Love is generous and giving because that is what love does.
When we’re selfish, we can walk into a room and make it all about us. We think, “Do people like me? I wonder if they’re going to treat me nicely. I wonder if they’ll buy me lunch.” It’s all focused on us. When you’re in love, you are kind and thoughtful towards other people.
Not Jealous, Not Proud
Number three: Love is not jealous or envious. Love celebrates another person’s blessings without coveting. When someone else is blessed, you should say, “I’m so happy for you!” If you’ve been praying and contending for a breakthrough in a healing ministry, and all of a sudden, someone else is experiencing that breakthrough, don’t say, “That’s not fair; I’ve been doing this; I should have that.” No! Instead, celebrate them and even sow into them!
Love does not brag; it doesn’t have an exalted opinion of self or desire the esteem of others. People’s adoration and affection are fickle, so it’s nothing to place your trust in. Jesus entrusted Himself to no man because He knew what was in the heart of man. He loved perfectly, but he didn’t trust in their adoration.
Love is not proud or arrogant. Be humble before God and man. If you face confrontation, don’t become defensive; a defensive posture often indicates pride. Listen carefully and say “Thank you for sharing; I may not agree at this time, but I will weigh this up.” We need to remain humble, especially given the hate and slander displayed on social media during recent times.
Love is not rude—it is not offensively impolite or ill-mannered. Love does not push itself ahead of others, such as in situations while waiting in line for a restaurant or grabbing for the last shopping cart at the grocery store.
Love is not self-seeking; it does not seek personal advantage without considering how it affects others. We must think through our actions.
Love is not provoked, nor is it overly sensitive or easily angered. It does not take offense or judge others. There’s too much sensitivity in the church over minor things. We need to overcome that!
Love does not take into account a wrong suffered; it is forgiving. There is danger in unforgiveness. We need to forgive others just as we want to be forgiven, especially because we all have transgressions we need mercy for.
Love grieves over injustice. It does not rejoice in it but seeks to address it. Love looks for solutions.
Finally, love does not fail. If you don’t quit, you win. There will be times you may want to withdraw, but love persists.
Embracing Greater Love
In this next season, love is going to be emphasized. God is putting a demand on us to love. He wants to give greater works, greater anointing, greater glory—everything greater—within His body, but He wants it grounded in love because love is His motivation.
You are containers of love. When you recognize who you are—walking as vessels of love—ask yourself, “How can I pour out love today? How can I be like Jesus today?” The scripture states that just as the Father sent Jesus, He has sent you. You are sent out to love because God loves you.
Let’s embrace that; help me, love as You love, help us to demonstrate that love well. It is our longing! We ask and receive His grace to love well. Amen.