Love Deficit

By Emmanuel Ogunjumo

The only way to win in life is to win in love. Unfortunately, too many of us have become complacent in our pursuit of love and so have allowed our fears to make us settle for less than Gods desire for us. Love Deficit reveals the folly of fear and how crucial it is that we develop a heart of love if we are to experience victory in our lives.

If victorious is a word you would not use to describe your life, then you need to read Love Deficit. It can help you understand what is hindering you from taking possession of the blessings that God has already made available to you. It can unleash the power of love in your life so you no longer have to live in defeat and torment.

• Language: English
• Publisher: WestBow Press
• Release date: Nov 1, 2013
• ISBN: 9781490812199

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Copyright © 2013 Emmanuel Ogunjumo.

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Scripture taken from the New King James Version.

Copyright 1979, 1980, 1982 by Thomas Nelson, inc. Used by permission. All rights reserved.

ISBN: 978-1-4908-1219-9 (e)

ISBN: 978-1-4908-1218-2 (sc)

ISBN: 978-1-4908-1217-5 (hc)

Library of Congress Control Number: 2013918433

WestBow Press rev. date: 10/30/2013

Table of Contents

Preface

Introduction: Love Deficiency

Fear Is Bad, but There Is Hope!

If Fear Is Bad, Then Why Does God Tell Us to Fear Him?

Love of God—What’s in It for Me?

What Does It Mean to Have Love?

Everything We Want Comes from Love

How Can God Be Good When the World Is Terrible?

Overcoming Love Deficit

Closing: A Surplus of Love

About the Author

To my family and friends

Preface

It is possible to write volumes upon volumes of books on love and still fail to scratch the surface of God’s love. In truth, no book written by man can ever satisfactorily explain or address love. The only exception is the Bible. While the Bible was technically written by man, it was carried out under the inspiration and instruction of the Holy Spirit (2 Tim. 3:16). Hence, in truth, the Bible was written by God. He just made it available to us in written form through the hands of man so that we may forever be reminded of his love.

To claim complete success in explaining love is to claim to fully know God. This claim itself is ignorant at best and extremely prideful at worst, for no man knows the true depths of the love of God. As his children, we are simply privileged to continue to grow in the knowledge of his incredible and undying love for us.

But here is the good news: we neither have to fully know God nor the full extent of his love to experience it. We can experience his love on a daily basis by yielding ourselves to the power of the Holy Spirit and by developing a mind that is set on humility, seeking God through his Word, conversing with him daily in prayer, and obeying his voice promptly.

I have written this book because it is my great desire that every believer experience the fullness of God’s love. In it, I expose what I believe is the root cause behind the lack of victory in the lives of many Christians—a love deficit. I believe that it is when we overcome our love deficit that we become what God has redesigned us to be. We can become triumphant all the days of our lives.

Friend, it is high time we become privy to the machinations of the Enemy. My hope is that Love Deficit helps you pinpoint and address areas in your life where you are weak in love. I pray that it speaks to your heart and propels you forward toward living victoriously in Christ.

Introduction: Love Deficiency

I have often heard people say that love will not pay the bills, that love alone is not enough. I agree in a sense because love that is based on human sentiment carries no power. Yet, in another sense, I completely disagree. Agape love, or the love that comes from God, will never fail but conquers everything—including the bills. A person who is grounded and walks in the love of God will always experience the materialization of the good and wondrous promises of God in his or her life. Not only will God supply all of that person’s needs, he has also promised that person a life of lacking nothing good (Ps. 34:10). Therefore, the only way to win in life is to win in love.

The truth is that love has won victory over everything that the world can throw at us. God, who is love, has already trampled all over the god of this world (Satan) and brought his power over our lives to an end. Love is victorious!

Despite this being the case, victory seems to be the last word many of us would use to describe the state of our lives. For too many of us, words such as strife, troubles, battle, and perhaps even crisis are more apt to describe our lives. If this is the case, it is because we are suffering from a love deficit.

To win in love, we have to be with love. We have to be with the love that made his home in us when we changed our minds about Jesus. Although love came into our lives the moment we believed in our hearts and confessed with our mouths (Rom. 10:9–10), we have to tap into it to experience the victory therein. Hence, after salvation, it is no longer a question of whether we have love on the inside of us but a question of whether we choose to commune with the love within us. In other words, God is in love with us, but are we in love with God? It is only those who are in love with God and those who are in tune with his Spirit that win in love.

No wonder the apostle Paul beseeches us to be with love. He says that if we live in the Spirit, then we should also walk in the Spirit (Gal. 5:25). In other words, if we have love inside of us and only love brings life, then we should choose to walk in love. Again, though we already have the love that produces victory within us, the only way to enjoy the spoils of the treasures of his kingdom is to walk in love. Just as there is no point in having kitchen appliances inside our home if we do not use them, there is no point in fighting in life if we do not walk in the love we have in us, for there is no winning without love. Just as it is vain to buy a sports car that we never drive just to show everyone we have a nice sports car, we fool ourselves and are vain when we do acts that depict love without ever developing the heart of love.

A heart of love can be developed only when we allow Jesus to take the steering wheel of our lives. Actions such as quoting from the Scriptures, speaking in all sorts of tongues, going to church seven times a week, and fasting once a week do not impress God much if the heart behind them is devoid of love. What am I saying? I am saying that we cannot buy the love of God; we can only yield to it. When we take actions outside of a heart of love, we render ourselves Pharisees—the ones Jesus calls hypocrites for they were motivated by power, status, and fear.

We must not mock ourselves; only those actions motivated by love will produce the peaceable fruit of righteousness and victory in our lives. It is for this reason that the Scripture tells us that we are blabbering fools (author’s paraphrase) if we speak in tongues all day long without walking in love (1 Cor. 13:1) and that our works of sacrifice profit us nothing if we do not do the works out of loving obedience. Simply put, love is the more excellent way, not action. Anything done outside of love is not pleasing to the Father, who is love and the author of love (1 John 4:7–8).

How dreadful it is to have a love deficit. The Enemy loves to attack those areas of our hearts that are deficient in love. It is in those areas that we have the most problems. It is those areas that lead to regrets and the gnashing of teeth if left unfixed. A love deficit is the root of unforgiveness and bitterness. It stifles reconciliation and nullifies the possibility of restoration. It has caused many to botch up relationships simply because they cannot get past previous hurts. The regret etched on the faces of those who waited too long to show love to their loved ones is often plain to see. Likewise, it is easy to spot those whose relationships are deficient in love—they are fraught with dissatisfaction, fights, stonewalling, the blame game, and quiet desperation. Can you see how love deficits are responsible for the divorce epidemic and mental health problems that seem to have swept parts of the Western world?

The good news is that we do not have to surrender to our love deficits. They do not have to have their way with us. Today, if you listen closely, you will find Jesus saying, You already have me in your corner, so why do you refuse to get me in the ring? Why don’t you involve me in every situation you face so that I can win victory for you instead of taking unnecessary punches in life? When I died, I died for all of you. So, when I say I am victorious, I am victorious over every single area of your life. All you have to do is call on me and I will answer.

See, for believers, having a love deficit does not mean God is absent in our lives; rather, what is absent is our willingness to allow God to lead in our lives! It happens when we put circumstances, the consequences of our actions, and our own interests above God. It happens when we idolize something or someone other than God. If we are honest with ourselves, fear-induced pride and selfishness are what we place above love (God) most of the time. So now we have a choice: do we courageously walk in love, or do we hold onto our love deficit and by so doing develop a fear dependency? Do we lay all things in the hands of God, or do we take matters into our own hands?

Biblical stories teach us that nothing