Love
by Heidi Baker

I am going to share with you from Luke 10. It is my favorite chapter in the Bible, so it's a great one for me to teach and preach from. I really have to think about it because it's what I live; it's my life; it's everything that God has put in me, so it's my great joy to share it with you. As I share it there will be an impartation in your life -- you will become more like Jesus; you will act more like Jesus and talk more like Jesus and walk more like Jesus.

There are two stories here. One is about a religious leader approaching Jesus to ask Him what God expects of him. The other is the story Jesus told in answer to his question. Both stories are relevant to us today. Let's look briefly at the first story, the man who came to Jesus. He is the wise man in the story who was trying very hard to understand what God is like; he wanted to know what Jesus is like -- but not really. This is because it is frightening to really know what Jesus is like. If you really know what Jesus wants of you, it is terrifying in many ways. Why? Because your life is not your own, you don't get to keep your life -- it belongs to Him.

You belong to God, and He doesn't always use you the way you expect Him to. He doesn't always do things the way you expect Him to. So you must seek Him and find out what He wants. At times you need to wait before Him, to soak in His presence, to discover His will and to allow Him to speak to us. In fact, we need to spend large quantities of time just seeking Him and looking to Him and waiting upon Him and worshipping Him.

Our ministry is based in Mozambique. We have some compounds there. And worshipping God and soaking in His presence are very much a part of how we do things. Intimacy with God impacts every aspect of our ministry. We are into soaking, healing prayer. We've seen blind see, deaf hear, dumb speak and crippled walk. One time we soaked a little boy for six weeks in healing prayer. We held this little boy who was blind, deaf, dumb, brain dead, and paralyzed, for six weeks. Every time we held this little boy in our arms something would happen. First it was his eyes. Then it was his ears. Then his legs. I remember when he got his legs it was the strangest thing how God healed him one piece at a time.

You'd think God would do it instantly, and I love it when He does heal instantly -- that happens a lot -- but not always. Many times God wants to take the compassion of a loving heart and get that compassion pouring into that person for weeks and weeks. And every time we minister to that person in compassion, more strength, more power and more healing flows. We've learned this as we've held dying people in our arms and watched God work.

He would take away AIDS -- it's glorious when you see that AIDS test go from positive to negative! It's the most glorious thing. But we soaked one AIDS boy for two years before we got a negative test. Could we say we'd been failing for two years? No. Because the compassion of God was pouring through our lives for two years, soaking that boy who was mean, soaking that boy who used to hit everybody, soaking that boy who stole everything he could get his hands on; soaking that boy who lived under a bridge for four years, soaking that boy, who was raped and beaten, soaking him with the love of God. We soaked him with love and held him with love. No, healing is not always instant.

Even growth in our Christian walk is not always instant -- we want it in an instant. We want God to fix us in seconds so that we are all fine. It does not usually work like that, does it?

Sometimes it takes years of holding them in your hearts and holding them in your arms until their brokenness is completely made whole by the love of God. Then the AIDS disappears because it can't stand any more of the love of God. Let me share one story with you.

We just held our little AIDS baby and held him and held him. He was blind and God healed him. I remember when he started walking. He was kind of scared. He would run around and he would bite everybody. That's all he did -- just bite people. It didn't feel very holy or healed, but he could see and he could bite. That's all he did. He would bite you everywhere he could get his little teeth on you and he had AIDS.

We'd just keep holding him close. One day he stopped biting. It was such an awesome thing. He was running around biting people like usual. Then he came and ran up to me and I thought, "okay here we go." Two little girls came up and one said, "Don't worry. I saw you put him under the water and he came up healed." The second little girl, "I had a dream last night that you put him in the water and when he came up he was healed." What great prophetic words from tiny children. Nothing of intelligence about them -- they are just little girls that grew up in the dirt, with the presence and the love of God. And there they were, telling me this wonderful story.

But there he was, still running around biting people. I searched my mind for what to put water in. We didn't have a bathtub there, so I thought to get a swimming pool. Just then, the boy turned around and said, "Mama I have a big problem." The boy couldn't speak before -- he was dumb. He was completely brain dead. They told us he was a vegetable. And he was speaking. He said, "Mama I have a problem" in perfect Portuguese. He said, "I need a car." He loves little cars. I stopped everything and ran to my house to get him a car.

The story I related to you blesses my heart, because it's about compassion and faith and hope. We often want a microwave Christianity. We like our instant fix Christianity. God is looking for long-suffering hearts. He is looking for people who love like He loves, even when it hurts, even when it breaks them into pieces. The weapons of our warfare are love.

We're a different kind of people. We fight with a different weapon. We're the kind of people that love in the midst of evil. We're the kind of people that love in the midst of hideous injustice. If we will love in the midst of hideous injustice, think of what will come and conquer the hearts of evil men. God will come and conquer the hearts of those who are living in utter darkness. We need greater power, and that power comes from the love of God breaking our hearts, until we become like Him, and we lay our life down. He died on that cross to demonstrate what love was. He died. He didn't fight back. He laid down. He let them nail His hands. He didn't scream, "No!" He let evil men crucify Him. He said, "Now, I have shown you what to do. Now I have shown you how to live. I have shown you what it's like to be holy. Give your life away. As I demonstrated and as I give Mine here for an evil generation, I am asking you to give yours." He didn't say, "Give your life for the nice guy." He didn't say, "Give your life for the sweet one." He said, "Give your life, full stop, give your life."

Sometimes you can preach things because you live them. If you don't live them, it's better you don't try to preach them. We don't need to hear some academic discussion or some well thought-out sermon. What we need is an impartation from the Most High God that will so take our little hearts and make them huge that we can't be the same anymore.