The Life that the Gospel compels us to live is impossible apart from the supernatural working of the Holy Spirit. 2 Peter 1:7 says: "Add to your brotherly kindness...love." That's a tough one! Being a loving person in an unlovely world stretches us beyond our limits and demands the resources of God.
Oswald Chambers writes:
...Love is the sovereign preference of one person for another, and spiritually, Jesus demands that that preference be for Him (Lk. 14:26). When the love of God is shed abroad in our hearts by the Holy Spirit, Jesus is easily first; then we must practice the working out of these things mentioned by Peter.
The first thing God does is to knock pretence and the pious pose right out of me. The Holy Spirit reveals that God loved me not because I was lovable, but because it was His nature to do so. Now, He says to me, show the same love to others - "Love as I have loved you." "I will bring any number of people about you whom you cannot respect, and you must exhibit My love to them as I have exhibited it to you." You won't reach it on tiptoe! Some of us have tried to, but we were soon tired.
...The knowledge that God has loved me to the uttermost, to the end of all my sin, meanness, selfishness and wrong, will send me forth into the world to love in the same way. God's love to me is inexhaustible, and I must love others from the bedrock of God's love to me. Growth in grace stops the moment I get huffed. I get huffed because I have a peculiar person to live with. Just think how disagreeable I have been to God! Am I prepared to be so identified with the Lord Jesus that His life and sweetness are being poured out all the time? Neither natural or Divine love will remain unless it is cultivated...maintained by discipline...and [I would add] resourced by the Life Of God in me, by faith.
Loving God and loving people...our greatest joy...and...the fulfillment of the two greatest commandments.
Love you all,
Mitch
