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Love is a necessary expression of new life and knowledge of God. If we are born of God and know God, we will love one another, and this love must be expressed in our actual behavior. John is blunt about the alternative: Whoever does not love does not know God.
Suppose you examine yourself and discover that you are impatient, unkind, jealous, a braggart, arrogant, unbecoming, easily provoked, the opposite of everything that Paul says characterizes love. Suppose you feel that your love has grown lukewarm or cold? What do you do?
The one thing you ought not do is turn to yourself. All the will power in the world, and all your most resolute resolutions will not produce Christian love. You can’t manufacture love. Trying to work up love from inside assumes you are the source of love. I don't mean to be insulting but: You're not.
Our love for others is an overflow from the God who is love, for, as John says, love is from God. A thirsty man needs to go to a spring to get a drink. If you’re unloving, you need to go to the source of love.
How do you cultivate love? God's love in Jesus is what calls out love from us. Meditate on the gospel and the cross, read the Scriptures, pray, renew fellowship with other believers, seek the God of love in the feast of love at the Lord's table. Do this all in faith, trusting that the Lord of love will renew your love as you seek Him.
If your love has gone cold, don't think you can warm yourself up. Turn to the God who is a consuming fire, who burns with the eternal flame of Love.
posted by Peter J. Leithart on Sunday, January 21, 2007 at 08:25 AM
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