What’s Love Got To Do With It? – Fasting & Prayer Day

What's Love Got to Do With It?

What’s Love Got To Do With It?

If you ask my dad to define love, he will laugh and say “Love is a feeling you feel when you feel you’re going to feel the feeling you’ve never felt before!”  Merriam Webster defines love as “a strong or constant affection for a person.  [An] attraction that includes sexual desire; the strong affection felt by people who have romantic relationship.”  Love is Like, on a more intense level.  Love, when done right, makes you feel happy, light and free. Love makes you want to show someone how you feel in more ways than one. Love doesn’t happen overnight but you will wake up one morning and realize that you have been falling in love with someone. Love is a gradual, slow and patient process. But it’s sooo worth it. Love is so important in our everyday world, that there are countless books, other than the Bible, that explains love. In Gary Chapman’s book, The Five Love Languages, he explores the different ways in which we can love someone, and the ways in which we receive, interpret and understand love.  The five love languages are Acts of Service,  Words of Affirmation, Gifts of Love, Quality Time, and Physical Affection.  If you don’t know what your love language is, I urge you to spend a few moments today, and take the short test.  Provided is the link: http://www.5lovelanguages.com/profile/

Today, from 12:00 AM to 11:59 PM, we will be focusing on Love, how it impacts our daily lives, and what God’s Love Language is!  Our culture uses the word love so much that it has lost its value.  We love our significant others, family, shoes, and food all the same.  God’s original design of love was never meant to be trivialized or taken lightly.  Love requires sacrifice,  and when the sacrifice is removed from the equation, love will lose its value.  Today, we will intentionally repurpose, recondition and redefine our minds with God’s original definition of love, while dispelling the definition of love that society has presented and taught us for most of our lives.

Make Time for God

To DO

  • Post on your social media:
    Today, in addition to fasting from junk food, I will meditate on how the Holy Spirit residing in my heart bears the Fruit of Love. #MyGenPrays #LetsPrayTogether #WhatsLoveGotToDoWithIt #HappyPraying
  • Connect with your prayer partner, remind and encourage each other to spend time with God today.
  • Meditate on Love and ask God which part of your heart needs improvement on how to love others.
  • Ask God to soften your heart so that the Holy Spirit can take root and grow in your heart.
  • Ask God to reveal to you which areas of your life you are stifling the Holy Spirit from growing and loving.
  • Use discernment and wisdom. The Bible calls us to love everyone, not to be their bosom buddy. If the person is toxic to you, use wisdom in your communication with them. Your health is equally important while still loving them as God loves them.

Do Not

  • Allow the devil to distract you from spending time with God.
  • Believe the devil’s lies! Every aspect of Love is well within our reach. It takes prayer, faith, trust and persistence. Let your desire to walk in the Spirit and bear His fruit of Love be greater than the desire of your flesh to repel it.
  • Pick and choose who you will love: the Bible commands us to love our neighbor, not just tolerate them.
  • Use past experiences to justify why you can’t love someone. Remember, God intentionally loves you everyday, despite your past. We mean more to him than our past.

Join us as we pray at 9 AM, 12 PM, 3 PM & 6 PM. Corporate Prayer is at 8 PM.

All of these prayer calls happen in our Google Hangouts group. If you haven’t joined our Fasting Group on Hangouts you may do so by pressing the button below.

Join The Fasting Group
on Google Hangouts

Verses for Meditation

But the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, longsuffering, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, self-control. Against such there is no law.Galatians 5:22-23
If we live in the Spirit, let us also walk in the SpiritGalatians 5:25
I can do all things through Christ who strengthens mePhilippians 4:13
Love suffers long and is kind; love does not envy; love does not parade itself, is not puffed up; does not behave rudely, does not seek its own, is not provoked, thinks no evil; does not rejoice in iniquity, but rejoices in the truth; bears all things, believes all things, hopes all things, endures all things. Love never fails1 Corinthians 13:4-8
He who does not love does not know God, for God is love.1 John 4:8
And we have known and believed the love that God has for us. God is love, and he who abides in love abides in God, and God in him.1 John 4:16
We love because He first Loved us.1 John 4:19
A time to love, And a time to hate. Ecclesiastes 1:8
For God so loved the world that He gave His only begotten Son, that whoever believes in Him should not perish but have everlasting life.John 3:16
Though I speak with the tongues of men and of angels, but have not love, I have become 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 that I could remove mountains, but have not 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 have not love, it profits me nothing. Love suffers long and is kind; love does not envy; love does not parade itself, is not puffed up; does not behave rudely, does not seek its own, is not provoked, thinks no evil; does not rejoice in iniquity, but rejoices in the truth; bears all things, believes all things, hopes all things, endures all things. Love never fails.1 Corinthians 13:1-8
About the Author

Hannah Love

While I am a born and raised Seventh-day Adventist (I was baptized at the age of 8, and then again at 21), I am not a product of Adventist Education. As a matter of fact, it is my public school education, both at DeWitt Clinton HS, and the University at Albany that has strengthened my relationship with. High School reignited my love for singing in choirs, and led me to join the Angelic Voices of Praise, the only gospel choir on campus. It was at corporate prayer before choir rehearsal one Thursday evening in Albany that my prayer life was brought under a microscope. You see, up until that point, I was praying these little Baby Prayers, the Patty Cake Prayers, the rehearsed Prayers, the One Liners. There wasn’t any conviction, and it almost appeared that I was afraid to talk to God in a very real way. That night a seasoned member saw something that I didn’t see in myself, and because she allowed the Holy Spirit to use her, took me to the back of the LC during corporate prayer and taught me how to pray. I mean Really Pray! That night not only changed my life, but changed my Prayer Life forever. My prayer life translated well as I served as a Pathfinder Leader and an Assistant AY Leader and Praise and Worship leader. It was my constant communication with God that allowed Him to use me to lead Teens and Young Adult closer to God, and many more into Praise and Worship. While I understand that our life experiences have differed, I believe that our God is the same. He is the same yesterday, today and tomorrow. He is the God that desires to have a deeper communication with us, who longs to chat with us, and craves quiet moments that we can offer as sacrifice to Him Do not for a moment think that I am perfect. In fact I am far from it. I mess up and mistakes, but my relationship with God is just as real as this letter you are reading. It is my relationship, and my prayer life, that restores me each and every time I fall. It is my prayer life with God that has allowed Him to use me for His work, and the furtherance of His Gospel! I charge each and everyone of you to explore a genuine and real relationship with God! Sit at His feet, talk to Him, worship him, Praise Him! Ask God to show Himself to you in a very “You Specific Way” Just in case you don’t know where to start, I encourage each and everyone of you who are able to join in with us on our Weekly Prayer and Fasts that meet each Wednesday. It is in these Fasts, that God reveals our character flaws to us, in hopes of not only correcting our Spiritual Cancers that seek to draw us away from God’s divine love, but pull us closer to the feet of Jesus! I pray that each and everyone of you experience God in a very real and “You Specific Way”. I Love you and God Loves you more!

Share this Post