As we continue to follow the fruit of the Holy Spirit this will be our fourth and final meditation in this series on the one called love. Today we are looking at God’s love for us and how it affects us in our relationship with others. God says “Yes, I have loved you with an everlasting love; Therefore with lovingkindness I have drawn you” Jeremiah 31:3. Not only was this to Israel in the Old Testament but extends in the New Testament, “… to all who are afar off, as many as the Lord our God will call” Acts 2:39, “both Jews and Greeks” 1 Corinthians 1:24. His love is so strong that He was not content to express it only verbally, but He acted to manifest it at great cost to Himself; “For God so loved the world that He gave His only begotten Son” John 3:16, demonstrating “His own love toward us, in that while we were still sinners, Christ died for us” Romans 5:8. How does this affect our relationship with others? “Beloved, if God so loved us, we also ought to love one another” 1 John 4:11. As His love has been poured into us it should be pouring out of us, and He makes it a commandment in verse 21, “that he who loves God must love his brother also.” Remember this fruit is the life of the vine being manifest through the branches, see John 15:4-8. The fruit of love overcomes obstacles, difficulties, barriers, racial and cultural differences, social lifestyles, Etc. as Song of Solomon 2:8 would imply, where the lover overcomes mountains and hills to reach his beloved! And the Bible indicates that we cannot love God and not love others, 1 John 4:20!
Jesus loves us
By James E Lesson (selected by Rose Hill)
Savior teach me day by day
Loves sweet lesson to obey;
Sweeter lesson cannot be,
Loving Him who first loved me.
With a child-like heart of love,
At thy bidding may I move;
Prompt to serve and follow thee,
Loving Him who first loved me.
Scripture quotations are from the New King James Version copyright …1982 by Thomas Nelson Co. used by permission