… IN US! We don’t have to pray it down or work it up – it is released … given away ….by using our faith!“Such hope [in God’s promises] never disappoints us, because God’s love has been abundantly poured out within our hearts through the Holy Spirit who was given to us.”Romans 5:5.

Jesus came into this world as Love personified. That’s why studying His life in the Gospels is so beneficial. We can see what God’s love looks like in real life, interacting with real people. He is our example, our living illustration of God’s love in action. That’s God’s love talking to the woman at the well, or pardoning the adulterous woman who was taken to be stoned. That’s God’s love touching lepers, loving sinners, and healing the sick in the middle of a service. That’s God’s love standing on a hillside preaching for hours. Jesus cared that the people listening had no food, and no way to get it easily and He provided for them.

Jesus is God’s love beautifully wrapped in vulnerable  human skin, flesh and bone. It was His love that stayed on the cross until the redemption of mankind was accomplished. It was God’s love that called Him away from here and leave this world, so He could stand beside His Father interceding on our behalf. His love sent back to us our best ally – our helper, teacher, counsellor, healer, etc. in the Person of the Holy Spirit. 

We all love miracles, but miracles are not the main thing! If we stop at miracles we are like Simon the Sorcerer in Acts, or the Pharisees demanding a miracle to order. When we see things like Jesus turning water into wine, walking on water, calming the storm, or healing Peter’s mother-in-law, or healing a man blind from birth …each one of those miracles are prompted by a passionate love for each situation and each individual…These things are not prompted by obligation, or formality or even to prove Jesus was God Himself in human form! God’s love chose to speak to ordinary people in extraordinary ways, in their everyday circumstances.

If we choose to look after ourselves and our own comfort, and refuse to actively learn what His love looks like so we can minister to someone else, we can render ourselves ineffective. The Holy Spirit is pure love — that’s why we can so easily hurt Him with our careless talk and attitudes toward others! Love makes itself vulnerable at great personal cost. So we need the Holy Spirit’s guidance desperately, every minute of every hour of every day – He knows how to please the Father and the Son a-n-d .. He knows the way through everything that happens to us! 

The purity of the Holy Spirit’s love is the power of God to do good. He is God’s goodness in action! Human beings desperately need His kind of altruistic love… it has nothing whatsoever to do with feelings. Jesus came into this world to illustrate love’s true nature. The bible tells us that He demonstrated God’s love toward us while we were sinners. The most precious form of love there is, has nothing to do with the other person’s behaviour. We can’t make that kind of love up!  I don’t care how nice you are to others, nice runs out! 

Love is a little like Joseph’s beautiful coloured coat in Genesis.  It was given to him by his father Jacob. That coat was a concrete illustration of Jacob’s love for his youngest son. It covered that young man, and marked him out everywhere he went. People who saw him might say; ‘There goes Jacob’s youngest son!’  That’s why his brothers were jealous, they had to stare at that coat! 

God’s Love covers US in the same way. His unchanging love is the stamp of God upon His people. It can’t be faked. The people who choose to be transformed by love are enabled by His Grace to put whatever other people do to them – by accident or design – under His blood. We have a far far greater purpose than revenge – we have been appointed by Almighty God Himself to share His Love with other people! There is no greater calling than that. 

Forget this title, or that important position, or this influence, or that speaking ability – loving others is the reason we are all here … We must consciously decide to learn that kind of love. And the grumpy difficult people in our lives are our teachers, our motivators – they inspire us learn how to rely even more deeply upon God’s grace to do the impossible. These people give us opportunities to die to what we want, and say yes to what God wants.

Paul says this beautifully in 2 Corinthians 5:12-21.MSG.“God alone knows how well we do this, but I hope you realize how much and deeply we care. We’re not saying this to make ourselves look good to you. We just thought it would make you feel good, proud even, that we’re on your side and not just nice to your face as so many people are. If I acted crazy, I did it for God; if I acted overly serious, I did it for you. Christ’s love has moved me to such extremes. His love has the first and last word in everything we do.”

‘May the love of Christ be foremost in everything we say and do as we follow Him.’ Amen. God’s love has been given to us to share, it is alive, it will totally change lives.  Bye. 🙏