| The love with which we are called upon to love one another is not mere human love, so easily offended and cooled; it is, rather, “love in the Spirit.” It is “the love of God … shed abroad in our hearts by the Holy Ghost which is given unto us.” It is the same love by which “was manifested the love of God toward us, because that God sent His only begotten Son into the world, that we might live through Him.” With this “love of God” in our hearts, we can love those who are unlovely, and we can love even if it is unrequited. And we can love sacrificially, without counting the personal cost. For to love with “the love of God” is costly, not merely in material things, but in many other ways. It can involve great burden and heartache. “But whoso hath this world’s good, and seeth his brother have need, and shutteth up his bowels of compassion from him, how dwelleth the love of God in him? My little children, let us not love in word, neither in tongue; but in deed and in truth.” “Beloved, if God so loved us, we ought also to love one another.” |
