2. You Are Commanded to Love

How could I ever measure up to such a high standard?

Two very important considerations will help us to desire to love and please Him completely:

God’s Character and Holy Spirit Motivate Love!

FIRST

The Holy Spirit has filled our hearts with God’s love, as promised in Romans 5: 5

SECOND

By meditating on the attributes of God and the wonderful things He has done and is doing , our love for Him is growing. We love Him because He first loved us.

Jesus said:

 I demand that you love each other as much as I love you.

When Christians begin to act like Christians and love God, their neighbours, their enemies and especially their Christian brothers — regardless of color, race or class — we will see in our time, as in the first century, a great transformation in the whole of society. People will marvel when they observe our love in the same way people marveled when they observed those first century believers saying, “How they love one another.

3. You Cannot Love in Your Own Strength

Just as surely as “those who are in the flesh (the worldly, carnal person) cannot please God,” so in your own strength you cannot love as you ought.

You cannot demonstrate agape, God’s unconditional love for others, through your own efforts. How many times have you resolved to love someone? How often have you tried to manufacture some kind of positive, loving emotion toward another person for whom you felt nothing? It is impossible, isn’t it? In your own strength it is not possible to love with God’s kind of love.

By nature people are not patient and kind. We are jealous, envious and boastful. We are proud, haughty, selfish and rude, and we demand our own way. We could never love others the way God loves us!

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