Good News #84: As I Know, Believe and Receive More of God’s Love For Me, Loving Others Becomes Easy!
There is a world of difference between the “love OF God” and “the love FOR God”.
People will kill people out of their love FOR God — We see this exemplified by the Crusaders, under the leadership of the popes, whose religious military campaigns spanned from the 11th to 13th century killing millions, all out of devotion to the Latin church and the pope.
When religion pushes for and prioritizes the love FOR God, obedience TO God, service TO God over the love OF God and God’s love FOR us, it ultimately creates religious zeal often producing conduct that goes against the very grain of the new covenant command Jesus gave in John 13 and 15 which is to love one another.
In John 13:34, Jesus says…
“A NEW commandment I give to you, that you love one another; AS I HAVE LOVED YOU, that you also love one another.”
He iterates the same in John 15:12…
“This is MY commandment, that you love one another AS I HAVE LOVED YOU.”
Notice that the act of loving one another MUST be predicated upon HIS LOVE FOR US.
The Pharisees, teachers of the law, scribes and Jewish leaders at the time of Jesus were zealous over their love FOR God that they completely missed the very Presence of God in the Person of our Lord Jesus right in their midst.
The ones who fought for doing, obeying and serving to earn God’s favor were not able to recognize God Himself who came to demonstrate the love OF God for them and for all of humanity.
Jesus says it is a NEW commandment because the ten commandments and its fine prints were based on man’s finite doing…
Jesus came so that our doing is simply a product of His doing…
1 John 4:19 says…
We love because He first loved us.
We cannot give what we do not have. The only way to fulfill Jesus’ new commandment to love one another is to receive the love OF God for us first so that it produces in us the true kind of love for God that manifests in loving one another as the Lord loves us.
The gospel is this — Know, believe and receive the love OF God first because it is in having the love OF God in you that you bear the fruit of the Spirit to which no law is against.
Whatta transforming powerful love God has for us!
✨❤️✨❤️✨❤️✨❤️✨❤️✨❤️✨❤️✨
