Love Like God Loves by David Jeremiah

Monday, October 2

Love Like God Loves 

He who does not love does not know God, for God is love. 
1 John 4:8 

Recommended Reading John 13:34-35

You have no doubt learned to expect certain traits to be evident in certain friends when you meet with them. Perhaps one is consistently encouraging, another is always humorous or winsome, still another is caring and kind. While those who met Jesus face-to-face would have encountered many godly traits, they could all be incorporated into this: God is love (1 John 4:8, 16). Because Jesus is God, He also is love. Jesus never failed to show love in what He did and said.

Jesus said to His disciples, “By this all will know that you are My disciples, if you have love for one another” (John 13:35). Why? Because He knew the Holy Spirit would soon come to indwell His followers and manifest His (Christ’s) life in them. If God is love and Jesus is God, and if the Holy Spirit is God in us, then love will always be present in and through us—provided we allow the Spirit of God unhindered lordship in our life. Paul conveys that by describing the fruit of the Spirit, the first of which is love (Galatians 5:22-23).

Live your life “filled with the Spirit” (Ephesians 5:18) and manifest the love of God to all you meet. Let them learn to expect love whenever they meet you.

Love is the outgoing of the entire nature in self-sacrificing service. 
W. H. Griffith Thomas