The Spirit of Love
“God is love” (1 John
4:8). His love cannot change because He does not change. His love had no
beginning and never will cease. Because God is infinite, His love is infinite.
His love is pure and holy. In deed, His love is incomprehensible.
The apostle Paul wrote
words of encouragement to believers saying, “the love of God has been poured out
within our hearts through the Holy Spirit who was given to us” (Romans 5:5; cf.
Gal. 4:6).
The Holy Spirit makes
the love of God so abundant in the believer’s heart that it overflows (1 John
4:8, 16). He is the divine Agent who expresses the love of God to the believer.
“The fruit of the
Spirit is love” (Gal. 5:22). The apostle Paul gave eight aspects of that love.
The fruit of the Spirit cannot be imitated. It comes from our abiding in Christ.
As the Spirit of love abides in us He bears His fruit to the glory of God.
It is great assurance
for the Christian to know that we are now God’s children and that God loves us.
Before we were saved God demonstrated His love by sending Jesus to the cross to
die for our sins. Now we have the inner experience of His love through the Holy
Spirit that sustains us in our daily life. His sustaining grace gives us
patience in our trials and enables us to live to God’s glory.
God’s kind of love is
created and fulfilled in us by the Spirit of love.
The apostle John
wrote, “Behold, if God so loved us, we also ought to love one another. No one
has beheld God at any time; if we love one another, God abides in us, and His
love is perfected in us” (1 John 4:10-11).
The evidence that we
are the children of God is this divine love dwelling in us. “Hereby know we that
we dwell in Him, and He in us, because He has given us of His Spirit. . . God is
love; and he that dwells in love dwells in God, and God in him” (1 John 4:13,
14).
Jesus promised that
the Holy Spirit would live and abide in us forever. The evidence that the
promise is true is seen in the fruit the Holy Spirit bears in our lives. The New
Testament teaches us that the fruit of His abiding in us is love (Gal. 5:22-23).
The apostle John tells us this, too.
When the Holy Spirit
fills our hearts we see men and women as Jesus sees them. There is no greater
ministry for the believer in Christ to do than to demonstrate and share the love
of God in Jesus Christ to those who have never heard or seen it in action. I
pray the Spirit of love lead us to the individuals the world over who have never
experience the love of God. May the Holy Spirit break our hearts with the things
that break the heart of God.
“For God so loved the
world, that He gave His only begotten Son, that whoever believes in Him should
not perish, but have eternal life” (John 3:16).
How does an invisible
God reveal Himself to the world? He reveals Himself in the transformed lives of
His children. The lost world looks at us and sees the difference and they ask
how can this be. Why are you different? What is it that gives you this quality
of life? If we abide in Christ, we will love one another and the world will see
the difference. That love is a reflection of God’s love in us. “The one who does
not love does not know God, for God is love” (1 John 4:8). “God’s love will be
experienced in us and then will be experienced through us.”
Abiding in God’s love
is made possible by the indwelling of the Holy Spirit (1 John 4:13). What a
privilege to have God abide in us. We have God’s Spirit living in us as a
permanent resident. Let’s give Him permission to settle down and make Himself
completely at home in our hearts. We abide in His love, and we experience the
abiding of God in us.
“If you love Me you
will keep my commandments,” Jesus said (John 13:34; 15:12). What did He say was
the greatest commandment? God’s love is perfected in the believer. God’s love is
made perfect in you and me, sinners saved by the grace of God. He reveals His
love through us. May our lives be a constant testimony and demonstration of the
Spirit of love abiding in us.
“God is love, and he
that dwells in love dwells in God, and God in him” (1 John 4:16).
Selah!
Message by Wil Pounds (c) 2006
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