In our last visit we saw, according to Dr. Wuest, that “God as to His nature is love.” We also saw that Jesus is our model. It is His love for us that is the basis for our motive to be love driven and directed. Listen to what John says in his 1st epistle, 4:19, “We love because he first loved us.”
Once we receive by faith God’s love offer of forgiveness and acceptance we experience a new life, eternal life. When that happens the Holy Spirit begins to dwell in us. As a result of His presence Paul shares in Romans 5:5, that “God has poured out his love into our hearts by the Holy Spirit, whom he has given us.”
You see, the Holy Spirit is God the third person. As God, He, as to his nature, is love. It is His nature to be loving. When He enters our lives at the time we receive Jesus Christ as our Savior He begins pouring out His love into our hearts. We become profoundly aware of how much God loves us. It is humbling and exhilarating at the same time.
This experience prompts us to reciprocate and love God in a new, fervent way. But John makes it clear that when this happens it is not something that is to be primarily private. Our love for God will be seen by our loving our brothers.
Again, listen to what it says in 1st John 4:20-21, “If anyone says, ‘I love God,’ yet hates his brother, he is a liar. For anyone who does not love his brother, whom he has seen, cannot love God, whom he has not seen. And he has given us this command: Whoever loves God must also love his brother.”
Our motive for loving God and others is His love for us.
