The Response!

The Response!

Beloved, if God loved us so [very much], we also ought to love one another. 1 John 4:11 AMPC

The Charge:

There is a love the world tries to define and set as the only standard to live by. The world lays huge focus on actions and behaviours as the basis of love, but there is another side to love that the world cannot define, because it does not know the origin or its target and destination. That is the love of God. It is not a love that is first transactional, like the love the world tries to promote, but it is a love that is relational. It is love that is of God, who is presented to us as the personification of love. The bible says God is love, and love is of God. You cannot define love outside of God. There is no true version of love that excludes God. 

How do we know this is love? Consider what we got: the life of His Son was laid down so that my own life could be secured and free from sin. This is love in its full measure. My life will flow out with whatever I have received. I cannot take it, and I can't pretend to have what I don't. Love is not one of those things that you can simply talk your way into. It is first about who God is, then something I open my heart to. God has to first do a work in me before that work can flow out of me. This work of love is so amazing that words cannot fully describe it. It is love that I did not deserve, and there is nothing I could do to change God's mind about me. 

The Conclusion:

Just as I have received this love, God expects me to show it to other people. This love cannot be hidden; I cannot keep hidden that which is a spring of love in me. The work that God does is first internal, then the fruit will definitely manifest on the outside. Love from God will always look like God, and it is constant and consistent. It does not wait for me to earn it; God does not need my approval. I got it simply because I am created by God. He just would not see me go to waste. It is a duty on my part to flow out with what I have received from God. Men are waiting for the manifestation of God in and out of me. Would I allow Him do what He alone can do? God's time of favour is here.