This Is Love

This Is Love

“Not that we loved God, but that He loved us and sent His Son to be the propitiation for our sins.” V. 10.

“We love Him because He first loved us.” V. 19. “For he who does not love his brother whom he has seen, how can he love God whom he has not seen?” V. 20. “And in brotherly love, love toward all men.” 2 Pet. 1:7.

Our love for God is no greater than our love for our fellow men. Those who live by the animal impulses in their body call adultery and fornication love and infatuation; and those who live on a human level—those who are soulish people—love their fellow men in relation to how they are treated by them. However, godly love does not change according to circumstance or how other people treat us. “In this is love, not that we loved God, but that He loved us . . . .”

Our spiritual life is in constant development; we are to be “rooted and grounded in love.” Then we are able to “comprehend with all the saints what is the width and length and depth and height—to know the love of Christ which passes knowledge; that you may be filled with all the fullness of God.” Eph. 3:16-19.

Jesus bore the sins of the entire world. The width and length and depth and height of the love of Christ is so great that all the world’s sin drowned in it; He is also the atonement for the sins of the whole world. 1 John 2:2. If we are grounded in love, we will, through the vagaries of life, come to a better understanding of the cubic form of the love of Christ. Then it will be as Paul says in 2 Corinthians 12:15: “The more abundantly I love you, the less I am loved.”

We see that circumstances further an increase of love. However, those who are not grounded in love fall out of love in life’s changing circumstances and have to be assisted as babes in Christ. Those who are not willing to be helped are among those whose love grows cold because lawlessness is abounding. Matt. 24:12.

Love either grieves or rejoices. “And I shall mourn for many who have sinned before and have not repented . . . .” 2 Cor. 12:21. “For what thanks can we render to God for you, for all the joy with which we rejoice for your sake before our God . . . .” 1 Thess. 3:7-10.

The evidence that John gives us as to whether we are abiding in love is if we abide in God and God abides in us. It is also easy for us to know in our hearts whether we think of our own best or of the best of the others. It says about Jesus, “Since He ever lives to make intercession for them.” Heb. 7:25. We are in God if we abide in love; then we are always—in our spirit—in the ministry of intercession together with Jesus. The person who is bitter and offended is far from doing that. By this it is easy to understand whether we are in God, and God is in us.

“And we have known and believed the love that God has for us.” 1 John 4:16. Jesus came full of grace and truth. He forgives and blesses first. Then we sense the love God has for us. However, once we have become children for whom He cares, we have to love the truth—the chastening—in order to grow. “No chastening seems to be joyful for the present, but grievous . . . .” Moreover, because we experienced His love, we are also able to believe that the chastening, even scourging, is also love. “Nevertheless, afterward it yields the peaceable fruit of righteousness to those who have been trained by it.” Heb. 12:6-11.

As God’s servants we, too, must be gracious to people in spite of their sins and stubbornness, so that they may “know” the love we have for them. Then we can also, by means of chastening, help them to salvation and growth in Christ.