Student Study Guide
Chapter 8
The Price of Love
Section 1 — The Price of Love
Section One
In November 2014, Steve was carrying an unusually heavy season - his adopted son James was three years deep into addiction and facing a potential ten-year prison sentence, his wife was dealing with what was then an undiagnosed terminal cancer, and the church he pastored in Fort Worth was in the middle of major internal battles. Into that season, God sent him to preach at a church in South Carolina with Apostle Robinson.
Over lunch, Apostle Robinson told Steve he had been praying a particular prayer for seven years - and that for the last two of those years, he could not talk about it without crying. Right on cue, he started crying again. Steve sat there thinking, "Whatever this prayer is, I want it." After thirty minutes, Apostle Robinson finally got the words out: "I have been asking God to help me love His people the way He loves them." That was it. Seven years of tears, for that.
In the same instant, by the Holy Spirit, Steve felt the full weight of what that prayer would cost - the suffering, the rejection, the betrayal, the death Jesus had willingly walked into because He loved us. And for the first time in his entire Christian walk, his gut reaction to something God was inviting him into was: "I don't think I want that."
Think It Through
Why do you think a prayer request that had produced seven years of tears could still provoke resistance rather than eagerness once its true cost was understood?
Your Thoughts
Recall Check
Fill in these details from the story above, from memory.
Apostle Robinson had been praying his prayer for years.
The prayer was: "I have been asking God to help me ___ His people the way He loves them."
Steve's gut reaction was: "I don't think I that."
Section 2 — My Cross Was Standing Right in Front of Me
Section Two
Remember From Section 1
During that season, Steve's wife was dealing with an undiagnosed terminal ___.
Back in his hotel room, Steve prayed honestly: "I want to love Your people a lot. But I don't know if I want to pay that price." His cross was standing right in front of him, and he was looking for a way out - genuinely, not theatrically. He went home and told his church he didn't want to pray it. They laughed, thinking he was joking. He wasn't.
For three weeks he wrestled, the Holy Spirit gently and firmly pressing the same question into his spirit: "Will you ask Me for this?" He knew he couldn't just comply with gritted teeth - the Father had already told him obedience alone was not enough; he had to choose to want what God wanted. And God wanted this. After three weeks, he made up his mind. He cried out in full surrender: "Teach me to love Your people the way You love them."
There is no other way. There is only the cross. And on the other side of it is the kind of power that three weeks of wrestling finally produced.
Recall Check
Fill in these from what you just read above, using your own memory.
For three weeks, the Holy Spirit kept pressing the question: "Will you ask Me for ?"
The Father had already told Steve that alone was not enough.
After three weeks he cried out: "Teach me to love Your people the way love them."
Reflection
"My cross was standing right in front of me, and I was looking for a way out." What "cross" is God currently holding in front of you that you find yourself looking for a way around?
Your Thoughts
Section 3 — The Young Adults Conference
Section Three
Remember From Section 2
"My cross was standing right in front of me, and I was looking for a way ___."
Two weeks before this prayer, and again in the weeks that followed, Steve discovered the full depth of his son James's addiction and bondage - driving him into days of continuous prayer, not just for James but for an entire generation trapped in that darkness. That burden was still on him weeks later at a conference of over twenty thousand young adults, where a third of the crowd had already drifted out during a powerful but unreceived prophetic message.
As the speaker made his final impassioned plea, something broke open in Steve that he could not contain. He exploded with a loud cry that filled the building: "Oh God, have mercy on us." He dropped to his knees, gripping the chair in front of him. Within moments, others began crying out too. The preacher stopped, the leader cancelled the next session, and the altar was thrown open. Thousands rushed forward. In the middle of that ninety-minute outpouring, God spoke to Steve: "Son, your cries will ignite a fire." And later: "Your prayers will always be far more powerful than your preaching."
Recall Check
Fill in these from what you just read above, using your own memory.
Steve discovered the full depth of his son James's and bondage.
Steve exploded with a loud cry: "Oh God, have on us."
God said, "Son, your will ignite a fire."
Reflection
Have you ever experienced a moment when a private burden burst out publicly and shifted the room around you? Describe it, or describe what holds you back from that kind of open cry.
My Thoughts
Section 4 — Greater Love Has No One Than This
Section Four
Remember From Section 3
God told Steve, "Your prayers will always be far more powerful than your ___."
We have traveled a long way through the Upper Room together - the greater works, the pattern of the Father and the Son, the condition of agape love and obedience, the Vine and the branches, the rhema word, the five promises of the Spirit. Now Jesus arrives at the summit: "Greater love has no one than this, than to lay down one's life for his friends" (John 15:13). He is not offering a metaphor. He is describing what is about to happen to Him in a few hours, and connecting it directly to the prayer anointing He has been unfolding all evening.
The love that makes divinely energized prayer possible is not the warmth of human affection or spiritual enthusiasm. It is agape - a deliberate choice of the will to act in the best interest of another, regardless of the cost to yourself. Jesus makes the connection explicit elsewhere: "My Father loves Me, because I lay down My life... I have power to lay it down, and I have power to take it again. This command I have received from My Father" (John 10:17-18). The Father loves the Son because He lays down His life in obedience - and out of that love, the prayer partnership between them operates at full power.
You have met agape three times already in this book (Chapters 4, 6, and 7) as the fuel behind alignment, abiding, and Pentecost's power. Here agape shows its hardest edge: not a feeling poured into you, but a life laid down for others - which is exactly the love the chapters ahead will show must flow between believers, not only from God to you.
Recall Check
Fill in these from what you just read above, using your own memory.
"Greater love has no one than this, than to lay down one's life for his ." (John 15:13)
Agape is a deliberate choice of the to act in another's best interest.
The Father loves the Son because He lays down His life in to the Father's command. (John 10:17–18)
Reflection
This chapter calls agape "the hardest edge" of the D.E.E.P. anointing, not the soft edge. Where in your life is love currently costing you something real?
Your Thoughts
Section 5 — My Love Produces My Power
Section Five
Remember From Section 4
Jesus said of laying down His life, "This command I have received from My ___."
In 1988, at a Morris Cerullo conference in Anaheim, lying on the floor for ninety minutes barely able to speak, Steve finally asked God what had happened. God said, "Son, My love produces My power." That word never left him - but it wasn't until South Carolina in 2014 that he understood what it fully cost. The love received in Anaheim was real. The love asked of him after South Carolina was more expensive - tested in the fires of everything that followed his prayer - and it was that costly love flowing through him when he dropped to his knees at the conference. God didn't fill the room through preparation, gifting, or theological understanding. He filled it through the love that had been wrung out of Steve by the cross he had just carried.
The same principle appears at Pentecost. When the disciples gathered in the upper room after Jesus ascended, they finally became united - in one accord - and God could not hold the power back. Not because they had better theology, but because the agape love Jesus had commanded them to walk in was now flowing between them by the Holy Spirit. When that love was flowing, the power had nowhere to go but out.
Two Encounters With Love
| Moment | What It Reveals About Love and Power (in your own words) |
|---|---|
| Anaheim, 1988 — "Son, My love produces My power." | |
| South Carolina, 2014 — "I have been asking God to help me love His people the way He loves them." | |
| The Hotel Room — "I want to love Your people a lot. But I don't know if I want to pay that price." | |
| Three Weeks of Wrestling — "Will you ask Me for this?" | |
| The Young Adults Conference — "Your cries will ignite a fire." | |
| The Upper Room After Pentecost — united, in one accord |
Recall Check
Fill in these from what you just read above, using your own memory.
In 1988, God told Steve, "Son, My love produces My ."
When the disciples finally became united in the upper room, they were in one .
Reflection
Which of these six moments do you relate to most right now - receiving love, or being asked to pour it out?
My Thoughts
Section 6 — Love One Another: The Hinge Everything Turns On
Section Six
Remember From Section 5
God filled the room through the love that had been wrung out of Steve by the ___ he had just carried.
Jesus doesn't just say greater love has no one than this. He makes it a commandment: "This is My commandment, that you love one another as I have loved you" (John 15:12). It is not enough to lay down your life for the Father in private prayer while treating the brothers and sisters around you with contempt, competition, or cold indifference. The love that makes divinely energized prayer possible is not only vertical. It must flow between believers the same way it flows between the Father and the Son.
"By this all will know that you are My disciples, if you have love for one another."
— John 13:35
The world is not supposed to know we are His disciples because of our theology, our preaching, or our conferences. It is supposed to know by how we love each other - the testimony the Church has too often failed to produce across twenty centuries of history. All the theology in the previous seven chapters - the energeo prayer, the greater works, abiding in the Vine, the rhema word, the five promises of the Spirit - cannot operate at full power in a corporate context without the love that lays down its life for the people around you. The D.E.E.P. anointing in its fullest expression is not an individual anointing. It is a corporate one.
The chapters just ahead will look honestly at how the Body of Christ became divided - not just theologically but spiritually - and at the corporate, Spirit-produced oneness the early Church carried into that upper room. The individual anointing this book has been building in you cannot reach its fullest, corporate expression without the costly love described in this chapter.
Recall Check
Fill in this from what you just read above, using your own memory.
"By this all will know that you are My disciples, if you have for one another." (John 13:35)
One More Table
| What It Looked Like | What Was Actually True |
|---|---|
| Steve's power in that conference came from his years of powerful preaching | It came from the costly love that had been wrung out of him by the cross he had just carried — "Your prayers will always be far more powerful than your preaching." |
| Where do you see love failing to flow horizontally — between you and specific believers — even though your love for God feels strong? Name one relationship where this hinge needs to move. |
"Love one another as I have loved you." Write a short, honest response to that command as it applies to a specific relationship in your life right now.
My Response
Personal Prayer Journal
Write your own version of the prayer this chapter closes with: "Lord, teach me to love Your people the way You do."
Chapter 8 — Practice Test
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Part A: Multiple Choice (5 questions · 2 pts each)
1. What was the prayer Apostle Robinson had been praying for seven years?
2. What was Steve's initial gut reaction once he felt the true cost of that prayer?
3. What triggered Steve's outcry, "Oh God, have mercy on us," at the young adults conference?
4. According to John 10:17–18, why does the Father love the Son?
5. What does Jesus say is the sign by which the world will know we are His disciples? (John 13:35)
Part B: True or False (6 statements · 1 pt each)
1. Apostle Robinson had been praying his prayer for three years before he told Steve about it.
2. Steve's first reaction to understanding the true cost of the prayer was eager excitement.
3. Steve's wife was dealing with what was then an undiagnosed terminal illness during this season.
4. God told Steve that his prayers would always be far more powerful than his preaching.
5. This chapter teaches that love for God is what matters, and love for one another is optional for operating in the greater works.
6. Agape, as this chapter defines it, is primarily a warm feeling rather than a deliberate choice of the will.
Part C: Fill in the Blank (5 items · 1 pt each)
1. "Greater love has no one than this, than to lay down one's life for his ." (John 15:13)
2. Agape is a deliberate choice of the to act in another's best interest.
3. God said, "Son, your cries will ignite a ."
4. "By this all will know that you are My disciples, if you have for one another." (John 13:35)
5. In 1988, God told Steve, "Son, My love produces My ."
Part D: Short Answer (completion credit)
1. Explain what made the 2014 prayer ("teach me to love Your people the way You love them") different from the love experiences Steve had already received, such as the 1988 Anaheim floor experience.
2. Explain the connection Jesus draws between John 10:17–18 (the Father and Son) and John 15:12–13 (the call to lay down your life for others).
3. Explain why Jesus says the world will know we are His disciples by our love for one another rather than by our theology, preaching, or conferences.
Part E — Before You Leave
Is there a "cross" — a person, situation, or kind of costly love — that God may be inviting me to pick up right now? What is it?
Where have I asked God to love people through me, and where have I resisted that invitation?
Where do I sense a lack of unity blocking greater works around me, and what is my commitment this week?