“Beloved, let us love one another, for love is of God; and everyone who loves is born of God and knows God.”
for love is of God;
True love finds its origin in God and derives it from Him. We cannot love with the standard of God’s love without the filling of the Holy Spirit. God, the Holy Spirit, is the true source of love. Love for God means that we love all genuine Christians. Christians love because it is their spiritual nature to love. We can love because we are born of God.
Christians should love one another for two reasons: 1) love is of God, and 2) God is love (next verse). The nature of Christian love flows out of the God of love.
PRINCIPLE:
The nature of Christian love flows out of God’s love.
APPLICATION:
Since love is from God, who is the source of love, the best thing that we can do is go back to the source. Each believer is a responder to God. God first loves us; then, we send love back to Him. Before our love reaches out to anyone, it first goes up to God. When it goes up to God, God gives it strength or power, and then we extend it to the human race. That is the circuit of love.
Every Christian has two kinds of love operating inside them. They have their human love, and then they have God’s love. Divine love extended through the believer toward other Christians comes from God Himself.
The Holy Spirit produces this love. Human love can take the form of a very pleasing personality. They never buck the tiger. They are always sweet and nice. They always yield to other people (at least publicly). They show a mouth full of teeth when relating to others. Sweetness is not the same as spirituality. Many people buy into this sweetness and confuse it with the real thing.
If you love God, you will love all believers. Let’s say someone maligns another believer, and you get on the bandwagon, and you malign him also. But if you are spiritual, your attitude should be the same toward a carnal believer as toward a spiritual believer. We have our molds, and we want to fit people into those molds. The more unstable we are, the pushier we become. When we criticize and malign and run down others, we imply, “God really needs my help; I’ll straighten out that person.” God doesn’t need our help to straighten out others.
Ga 5:22-23, 22 “But the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, longsuffering, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, 23 gentleness, self-control. Against such there is no law.”
The dynamics of biblical love relate closely to the filling of the Spirit. The filling of the Spirit is crucial to the process of absorbing the principles of the Word. Conversely, as we absorb the Word, we walk in the Spirit more consistently, and we love more powerfully. The believer with this dynamic is a balanced, solid Christian. He is strong and stable with great inner animation. He is free from malice and bitterness. He finds no need to down other Christians.
The Spirit filled believer does not operate with a priggish, self-righteous attitude toward others. He loves everyone the same. He loves the carnal Christian as much as the spiritual Christian. This is not Pollyanna love that gushes and bleeds all over people. No, it is divine love that originated in God Himself.
Let us presume that you are a very critical person. You are a Christian working in an office with many non-Christians. You run down your colleagues and undermine the policies of the company. You constantly and consistently demonstrate this attitude. If this is the case, then your testimony will be in the pits. No one will respond to your message. You will not have an impact for Christ because everyone will see you for what you are. If you start walking in the Spirit and stop nitpicking and criticizing everyone in sight, people will ask what happened to you. They will eventually respond to your gospel message.
