Each of us, from the great literary classic to the foundry worker, has at one time or another wondered what love is. Is there a person in the world who does not need it? We need it like air, like water and food, because without it we will wither away, without it everything will lose its meaning. Why do we need it so much? Yes, because she is God who created us, the earth and everything that is on earth from an overabundance of this great feeling. True love is often compared to an overflowing cup overflowing. Thanks to God's desire to share this holy feeling with the world, we all exist.
The connection between the Creator and his creation is the deepest basis of the existence of the world. This is why we are so drawn to love. We do not want to sever the thread that binds us to our Creator. After all, this is cognition, a feeling of oneself in the soul of another person, and of him in oneself. Let us remember Adam when God brings Eve to him. After all, he recognized her immediately. "Bone from my bones, flesh from my flesh." (Gen. 2:23) This is how we recognize God in ourselves. It is not without reason that they say that God lives inside each of us, and everyone can feel divine love in their heart.
What is divine love
We have all heard of this expression at some point. What does it contain? What does this concept mean and what is its origin?
Origin of the phrase
The origin of the phrase itself can be attributed to the writing of the Bible, where the understanding of this concept was laid down. Its emergence begins with the creation of the world.
This is the fundamental truth on which Christianity as a whole stands. It is inseparable from the principles of freedom and does not allow us to look at the feelings of God in a mundane way. We understand that we cannot afford any irresponsibility in words or actions before Him.
Meaning of the concept
Our Creator, who created the Universe and the Earth, and all of us on it, made us free, independently determining our own will. The union of God the Creator with the people He created is the love of God.
That is, this desire to exist not for one’s own personal benefits, but for the benefit of our loved ones, and therefore the concept of this feeling for the Almighty is not separated from the concept of freedom, since only in free choice is the act of His Love manifested.
For the feelings of our Lord there are no boundaries or limits, there is nothing that would be main or secondary, since the world is holistic, all the processes occurring in it are interconnected. The feelings of our heavenly Father support life in its various manifestations.
God became man
And the Word became flesh and dwelt among us, full of grace and truth; and we saw His glory, glory as of the only begotten of the Father.
John 1:14
When I read this verse 25 years ago, I was struck by the meaning of the Incarnation.
The incarnation of the Son of God is a central event in human history.
Where there is love, there is unity, because the property of love is to unite with the one it loves. And since God is love, He could not have acted differently after the fall of people. And therefore he united with us, becoming a man himself. The soul is so loved by God that Christ, by His Divinity, merged with human nature: our body, soul and spirit.
One of the greatest manifestations of God's love is that God became man and took on human flesh so that we could become partakers of the Divine nature.
Jesus called Himself the Son of man so that you and I could become children of God. Christ came to earth to take us to heaven.
The angel Gabriel appeared to Mary in Nazareth and said that she would conceive and give birth to a Son, and would call His name Jesus. But she did not understand how she could give birth without “knowing” her husband. But the angel replied that the Holy Spirit would descend on her, and the power of the Most High would overshadow her, therefore the Holy One to be born would be called the Son of God. And Mary said: “Behold, the Servant of the Lord; let it be done to me according to your word.”
Jesus Christ is the Living and Creative Word, the expression of the nature of the Heavenly Father. This is the person in whom God's Essence first becomes cognizable by the human spirit. He is the Divine principle that unites “earthly and heavenly.” And He is at the same time the mirror of eternal existence and the Light of this world.
The incarnate living Word is for us, not only a reflection or expression of the image of God, but also the Person and inexhaustible source of all life. Man and God are in one essence, not mixed, but united together.
The Son of God, the Eternal Word in the Father, Who is the brilliance, radiance, power of light of eternity, must become a man and be born in you if you know God; otherwise you will forever remain in darkness and doomed to grope.
Jacob Boehme
The Incarnation of Christ represents not only the historical birth and His earthly life. But it is a certain prototype of individual life, of what should happen in the human soul.
The Son of God had to be born not only from the Virgin Mary. He must be born within the soul, otherwise His incarnation and life will be useless for us. Rebirth in Christ, a new heart and renewed life must become ours. Just as God became man, so we need to be transformed into the Divine character.
Human and Divine Love
We are all created by the Lord in His image and likeness, which means that all people are a small projection of the Lord, consisting of two components: physical and spiritual.
Common features
Based on the fact that God is Love, He has invested His ability to love in us, in all people there is a small copy of Him, in every person on Earth. Why is it that when people first experience this feeling, they seem to float above the ground? The whole point is that consciously or not, they understand their involvement in God.
This is the main similarity between human and divine love—the feeling of coexistence.
The human manifestation of this feeling is the same manifestation of the feelings of God, only reduced to our level. That is, it is the same thing, but with our inherent qualities. Its manifestation is not isolated, that is, several types can be distinguished.
For example, a feeling for children, you love them in your own way, you also experience this feeling for your parents, here it is filled with other shades, love for your other half is saturated with sharpness and passion, there is love for the Motherland, for nature, and more.
Distinctive features
The love of our Creator is holistic, limitless, everything in it has its own meaning, the significance of the smallest grain is colossal, one does not dominate the other, but is closely interconnected.
Human love has a beginning and an end, that is, we can say about it that it is “mortal.”
The love of the Lord is not subject to death, boundaries and frames. Immortality and its limitlessness are relative concepts of “something”. This “something,” for example, a person, exists only due to the presence of Divine feelings, and as long as these feelings or life itself are in it. If this “something” disappears, then the very dimension of the concepts of limitlessness and immortality evaporates. Therefore, concepts of this kind exist exclusively in the consciousness of the one who has them. The feelings of God live independently of these concepts.
Human Love is overshadowed by self-interest. A loving person constantly waits and wants to feel a reciprocal feeling from the object of his adoration; this is the same as waiting for payment for work or some other action. If the so-called “payment” does not come, a sharply negative reaction follows.
The Creator's love is selfless. If a person acts as a conductor of this form, then the desire to give, to pour out one’s feelings, as if a flow of energy flows through him, which no one can stop, prevails over egoism and the desire to receive something in return. He pours it out without thinking at all about the fact that he needs to leave at least a drop for himself.
A real mother, like God, loves her unborn child
– When we love someone and want their approval (as a child, as a volunteer in an organization, or as an active member of a parish), we try to do a better job of doing what is assigned to us. This is bad?
- This is good. This corresponds to the mercenary degree of service.
The parish should ideally resemble a family. In a family, if a son thinks “I’ll clean up my room now, finish the term well, and then my parents will give me a good New Year’s gift” - there’s nothing bad. But if a child does something to simply please his parents, to serve the common cause of order and harmony in the family, and not to make money, that’s even better.
Likewise, in a church community, when a parishioner does something good to earn the attention of the leader, there is nothing wrong, this is a process of growth. It could be bad for the person himself if the person stops here. Then he will not be able to understand what true love is, when a person no longer loves because there are some “reasons”.
This is how the Lord loves us. This is difficult for us to understand, because in human, most romantic love there is always this “for what”, or “love” can be a passion, an addiction. The most selfless thing is probably maternal love: in the book of Isaiah the prophet says: “Shall a woman forget her suckling child, so as not to have compassion on the son of her womb?” (Isa.49:15). The mother will love the child even if he is mischievous. Even if he does terrible things, she will not stop loving him, but her love will turn into pain.
But then the prophet continues: “But even if she forgot, I will not forget you.” Indeed, there are such mothers as are mentioned here, but the Lord assures: “I will never leave you.”
God, according to His word, was the first to love us: “You did not love me, but I loved you.” And God loves us, no matter what stage we are at. He loves us even if we never came to that ladder at all.
– What about other texts of the Old Testament? The psalms often say: “The Lord loves the righteous,” but hates sinners, will destroy them, and so on.
– Holy Scripture gives us such quotes. They are designed to warn a person against sin, to show the consequences that can come into his life.
Let's return to the analogy of mother and child. For example, she says: “You can’t put your fingers in a socket,” the child doesn’t listen and wants to definitely conduct an experiment. And when once again he reaches for the socket, and his mother scolds him, the child gets angry, cries, it seems to him that his mother is not good and does not allow him to do what he really wants. In fact, it's the opposite.
Likewise, God is not a punishing tyrant, but a merciful Father, who out of love tries, sometimes strictly, to warn us: if you serve idols, you will lose grace. This is not a threat, but information, a warning. The grace of God cannot be united with evil. A person full of sin will simply burn if the grace of God does not depart from him.
Three stages of love
If it were possible to compare such an abstract concept as love with something earthly, ordinary, then most likely it would be a wonderful staircase with three steps.
Let's look at them in more detail:
- Earthly. The very first step is considered to be earthly love. At this stage everything depends on external factors. That is, a person depends on material goods, clothing, people around him, and even on the weather. A person's ways of love are based here on interaction with his environment. This is the so-called love through the human ego. Depending on the weather, human love, like the same weather, is fickle and changeable. The Gospel describes such a person in the form of sand, which pours out, but has neither shape nor appearance, he rushes where the wind blows, he is washed away by water and carried away by the elements. After all, nothing depends on a person here; he is completely subordinate to external factors. This creates a desire to change everything around him instead of changing himself.
- Divine. At the second stage - Divine love - self-knowledge, the person himself and his inner world, this is the main internal state. The Gospel describes it to us in the form of a stone that is strong, despite external irritants, it does not care about winds, rains, storms, or thunderstorms - “and the house stood on it.” In the Gospel this state is called the “Kingdom of Heaven.” Having this feeling in his heart, a person loves absolutely everything that is in this world.
- Absolute. The third stage of manifestation of love is “Absolute”, which the Lord gives to the God-man. This is true love, the one that the great prophets possessed.
From the Gospel: “From the days of John the Baptist until now, the kingdom of heaven suffers violence, and those who use force take it.” (Luke 16:16.)
Each of us needs to know the love of our Heavenly Father, because the only feeling through which we can know the Lord is His love, the brightest feeling on Earth, it is great and beautiful.
As we live our lives, we gain experience and knowledge, skills and acquisitions, but all these are just auxiliary processes on the path to man’s knowledge of the love of God, because only through it is the Almighty known.
The acquired sets of knowledge and skills, all the experience of the past years should serve only a single goal - the quality of love in us, in our entire being, in our heart and soul, it must be pure and sincere.
The love of the Lord is the pinnacle of Divine creation. All people just need to open their souls and hearts to it. And when she joins this heart, she will explain and teach you which path to choose in life.
Many people ask a philosophical question: what is the meaning of life? And the answer is actually simple - we live our whole lives with only one goal - to learn to love. The way our Creator truly loves us, because His love means great spiritual growth and colossal work. And only those who want to develop, who are not lazy and reach this level, when the need to love becomes higher than the need to be loved, receive this precious gift from our heavenly Father.
Life is not a computer game of scoring points
– Martin Luther is credited with saying: “God does not love me because I am good, but I am good because God loves me.” In fact, in our church pedagogy, starting from childhood, all we hear is: be a good boy/girl, God will love you. Do you agree that you need to earn God's love?
- No, I don’t agree. “You have heard that it was said: “You shall love your neighbor and hate your enemy.” But I say to you: love your enemies, bless those who curse you, do good to those who hate you, and pray for those who use you and persecute you, so that you may be sons of your Father in heaven, for He makes His sun to rise on the evil and on the good, and sends rain on the just and the unjust.” (Matt. 5:43-45).
The Lord calls us to love not only the “good”, but also the “evil” because He Himself loves both.
These words once especially struck 14-year-old Andrei Bloom, the future Metropolitan of Sourozh Anthony. He realized that if he wants to be with God, he must love everyone - because God loves everyone. This is precisely what He offers us as a justification for the need to love everyone, including our enemies.
However, when a person just comes to Church and does not yet think in adult Christian categories, it may seem to him that life is like a computer game with scoring points. He took an old woman across the road - he got glasses, attended a service - he got glasses, he stood for many hours of worship in a monastery - he got a lot of points. And if he committed a sin, then the glasses burned out.
No, our relationship with God is not a game in which we need to collect and spend points. Ephraim the Syrian says: “Be afraid to call God just.” If the Lord judged only with justice, we would all have been punished long ago so that there would be nothing left of us.
Our God is a merciful and long-suffering God, and He also cares about the whole world and about every person at the same time. And the person thinks how good it would be, even “saving” for him (his family), but how the fates of others will deal with this is no longer very interesting.
But for God, every person is his son or daughter. Every.
– What is the difference between the desire to earn God’s love and the desire to live a good life according to the commandments, the word of God?
– In the patristic tradition there is a teaching about three stages of serving God:
1. Service is slavish, out of fear of punishment.
When a person comes to God from paganism or atheism, at first he may be driven by the same fear and calculation: I must do good deeds, otherwise God will punish me.
2. Mercenary service for a reward.
A servant serves for a reward: I must be good in order for God to love me. These services are preparatory; they are natural for our sin-damaged nature, thoughts, and hearts.
3. Serving as a son. This is truly a true Christian attitude towards God, who is no longer the Judge, no longer the Distributor of rewards, but God the Father. And the son serves his father not out of self-interest, without expecting reward, without fear of punishment, but out of love.
At this stage we fulfill the commandments because we ourselves want to. Of my own free will. Because we love. At this stage one can feel that “His yoke is light”, His commandment is light. For example, Ephraim the Syrian addressed God in prayer:
“If Your love pleases to send me to hell, then there too I will worship You and praise You.”
Not everyone can immediately move to the third step. But we are all called precisely to this filial and filial ministry.
How to Awaken God's Love
This question can best be considered using the example of the holy righteous Job the Long-Suffering. The unity of people who love each other creates a feeling of completeness. This is what the Lord gave us, this is His gift to us. Through this gift we gain obedience, we find ourselves in God, becoming a part of Him.
Having rejected this grace after the Fall, man lost the integrity of his worldview and vision of the world, which from joyful and beloved became hostile and gloomy. The relationship between a person’s mind and heart was disrupted, thereby depriving him of his relationship with other people, and therefore the possibility of communication and unity with God. All this will ultimately lead to death.
Job feels this destruction, because “the way is closed” and the Father “surrounded him with darkness” (Job 3:23). The feeling that Job experienced at that moment is very difficult to describe in words; he was in infinite pain from the fact that God had abandoned him; apparently, these are the very arrows of the Almighty, the poison of which his spirit drinks (Job 6:4).
Job knows that the Lord does everything in the way that is best for ourselves, but communication with the Lord is a great need for him, without this communication he cannot live, he needs the reciprocal love of our heavenly Father, because only in this way can he accept everything , anything, knowing that the Lord will “raise the decaying skin from the dust” and he will see God in the flesh (Job 19:25–26).
Everything can be endured if the mind understands what is happening and what the meaning is in all this, therefore Job says to God: “Do not blame me; tell me why you are fighting me?” (Job 10:2). Job’s heart is breaking from the thought of whether he will be able to justify himself before the Creator, whether his life will be enough for him to do this (Job 9:2), because he, like all of us, knows that no one can be born “pure from unclean" (Job 14:4).
Job explains this this way: “even if I washed myself in snowy water and completely cleansed my hands, even then You will plunge me into the mud, and my clothes will be abhorred by me” (Job 9:30-31).
Job’s desire to find an explanation for the reasons why Heavenly Father punishes those who love Him should not be considered insolence before God, as Job’s friends accused him of. But those who rebel against God are those who “doom” their friend “to be a prey” (Job 17:5), do not show sympathy and do not help defend the truth and good deeds that Job did before the Creator, do not remember his good deeds towards him, do not say “thank you” to him for everything he did for them.
Why does Job, who courageously endured all the hardships and troubles that the Lord sent him, who accepted from the Father with gratitude both good and bad, cannot withstand the seven-day silence of his friends? The answer to this question is simple: one who loves sincerely cannot bear to have his goodwill and love ignored. You can survive any betrayal, but not from those people with whom you feel kinship in soul and heart, on whose support you count most.
And until the Lord helps Job, he will languish from the inability to recognize the bright and great feeling of God: “My heart is melting away in my chest!” (Job 19:27), “I cry to You, and You do not listen to me; I stand, and You only look at me. You have become cruel to me” (Job 30:20–21).
Only a person who thirsts for reciprocal love can complain and lament in this way, because only in it does he place his life. To accept it, you need the understanding of the Lover and trust in the Lord.
Still, it is very difficult for someone who is “blameless, just, fearing God and shunning evil” (Job 1:8; 2:3), but still “fed up with humiliation” (Job 10:15); also “his flesh hurts in him, and his soul suffers in him” (Job 14:22). Is it possible to solve something that is completely unsolvable: why, for example, good people endure troubles and misfortunes, and bad people abound in luxury, “why do the lawless live, reach old age, and are strong in strength?” (Job 21:6), why “in the city people groan, and the soul of those who are killed cries out,” but “God does not forbid it?” (Job 24:12).
How is it possible for a person who is overwhelmed with troubles and sorrows, who is surviving or surviving, but not living, to carry within himself a feeling of sacrifice. Is it possible to know this feeling or learn it in the process of life? How to find it?
Only the Lord himself reveals to us the meaning of his feeling; he alone can help us recognize the place where we can find it: this true feeling is found in the mediastinum of the Cross, opening its arms, without wanting anything in return and without demanding reciprocal feelings.
A person who has experienced this testifies to the whole world, as the holy Apostle Paul testified, that “neither death, nor life, nor angels, nor principalities, nor powers, nor the present, nor the future, nor height, nor depth, nor any other creature can to separate us from the love of God that is in Christ Jesus our Lord” (Rom 8:38–39), because “for me to live is Christ, and to die is gain.” “I am drawn to both” (Phil 1:21,23), but “it is no longer I who live, but Christ who lives in me” (Gal 2:20).
In conclusion, I would like to note that we all truly love when we are not looking for reasons for our love, when we love because we simply cannot help but love. And you need to love your neighbor, not a relative or close person, but your neighbor - any, absolutely any person on earth.
God's love is not rejected, but very often misunderstood.
Christian love is God's love poured into our hearts by the Holy Spirit.
Arthur Pink
“If I speak in the tongues of men and of angels, but do not have love, then I am a ringing brass or a sounding cymbal. If I have [the gift of] prophecy, and know all mysteries, and have all knowledge and all faith, so that [I can] move mountains, but do not have love, then I am nothing. And if I give away all my property and give my body to be burned, but do not have love, it does me no good.” (1 Cor. 13:1-3)
Many are mistaken in believing that the desire to acquire knowledge can be equated with love for the Truth (2 Thess. 2:10). They admit that the accumulation of knowledge and growth in grace are one and the same. To a large extent, our success depends on what goals we pursue when turning to the Word of God. If our goal is to become more familiar with the contents of the Bible and become more proficient in its details, then most likely the garden of our soul will not bear fruit. But if we prayerfully desire to be convicted and corrected by the Word, to be tested by the Holy Spirit, if our heart is ready to receive holy commands, then we can expect God's blessing.
In our lifelong spiritual growth, we are constantly trying to identify those important criteria by which we can determine what our progress in personal godliness is.
There are many different signs by which we can honestly test ourselves. Here are some of them. Do I acquire a greater hatred of sin and gain practical deliverance from its power and impurity? Have I become more familiar with God and His Son? Has my prayer life become healthier? Am I more motivated to do good deeds? Has my submission to God become more joyful and complete? Am I moving away from this world in all my affairs and desires? Am I learning to use God's promises correctly in my life; Do I rejoice in Him so much that His joy is my daily reinforcement? If I cannot say with all my heart that all this is (to some extent) my personal experience, then there is good reason to fear that my study of the Scriptures is not really benefiting me.
Another criterion for testing how close reading of God's Word helps me spiritually is how much this Christian virtue is manifested in me. It is impossible to read Scripture carefully and not notice how much it says about love. Therefore, it behooves each of us to prayerfully and carefully examine whether his love is truly spiritual, whether it is in a healthy state and whether it is correctly practiced.
The subject of Christian love is too vast for all its aspects to be fully covered in one chapter. We should begin by considering our love for God and Christ, but since we have already touched on this in previous chapters, we will now skip this topic. Much can be said about the ordinary love that we should show towards our neighbors, our relatives, but the need to write on this topic is not as great as the importance of what we will talk about now. We want to invite you to pay attention to spiritual love for our brothers in Christ.
- We benefit from Scripture when we realize the supreme importance of Christian love. Nowhere in Scripture is this stated more emphatically than in chapter 13 of First Corinthians. In this text the Holy Spirit tells us that a professing Christian can talk fluently and eloquently about divine concepts, but if he has no love, he is like metal, which, although it makes a sound when struck, has no life. Although a man can prophesy, understands all mysteries and has knowledge, and his faith performs miracles, yet without love in his heart, he is a spiritual nonentity. And even if he is ready to give up his entire fortune to feed the hungry, if he is ready to die a martyr’s death for his faith, but does not have love, then all this will not bring him any benefit. How highly valued is love, and how important it is for me to be sure that I have it!
The Lord says: “By this everyone will know that you are My disciples, if you have love for one another” (John 13:35). In Christ's placing of love among the hallmarks of Christian discipleship, we also see the importance of love in Scripture. This is an extremely important criterion for the truth of our confession: we cannot love Christ if we do not love His brothers, because they are tied “in the knot of life with the Lord...” (1 Sam. 25:29). Love for all those whom He has redeemed is a sure testimony of spiritual and supernatural love for the Lord Jesus Himself. Where the Holy Spirit has wrought the new birth, He will cause the new nature to manifest itself, He will work in the heart, life and conduct of the saints supernatural grace, which will be expressed in love for all Christ's sake for the name of Christ.
- We benefit from Scripture if we learn to discern the sad distortions of Christian love.
Just as the waters of a river cannot rise above the shoreline, so carnal man is unable to understand, much less appreciate, spiritual things (1 Cor. 2:14). Therefore, we should not be surprised when unregenerate people mistake human sentimentality and carnal pleasures for spiritual love. However, how sad it is to see some of God's children living on such a low level that they confuse human goodwill, sexual attraction and courtesy with the highest of Christian virtues. Although spiritual love is characterized by meekness and tenderness, it is still very different from and far superior to carnal politeness and kindness.
How often have loving fathers withheld the rod to punish their children, incorrectly believing that true love and punishment are incompatible! How many foolish mothers, who neglected the corporal punishment of their children, boasted that “love” reigned in their homes! One of the most difficult experiences for me was the necessity, during my many travels, to stay with families where the children were completely spoiled. In such cases, a gross distortion of the concept of “love” occurs when it is used to cover up moral laxity and parental connivance. But this same destructive thought guides the minds of many people in other ways. If a servant of God reproaches people for their carnal and worldly ways, if he uncompromisingly sets forth God's commands to his listeners, then such a person immediately begins to be accused of “lack of love.” How terribly Satan deceives many people on this extremely important issue!
- We benefit from Scripture when it teaches us to see the true nature of Christian love. Christian love is a spiritual grace that abides in the souls of saints along with hope and faith (1 Cor. 13:13). This is the holy disposition produced in them at the moment of regeneration (1 John 5:1). This is nothing less than God's love poured out into their hearts by the Holy Spirit (Rom. 5:5). This is the principle of righteousness, according to which a person seeks the good of others. This love is the complete opposite of selfish love and the desire to please only oneself. It is not only a tender regard for all those who bear the image of Christ, but also a strong desire to do everything for their good. It is not a variable feeling that can easily be extinguished, but a constant active force that cannot be drowned either by the “many waters” of cold indifference or the “streams” of hostility (Song 8:7). Although it is very distant in its power, in essence it is the same as that of the One about whom it is said: “... Having loved His own who were in the world, He loved them to the end” (John 13:1).
There is no surer way to gain a true understanding of the essence of Christian love than to study it carefully in the perfect example of the Lord Jesus. When I say "thorough study," I mean an examination of all that is said about Him in all four Gospels, not limited to a few favorite texts of Scripture. If we do this, we will discover that His love was not only benevolent and generous, full and tender, unselfish and sacrificial, patient and unfailing, but also included many other elements. Love could refuse an urgent request (John 11:6), rebuke His Mother (John 2:4), use a scourge (John 2:15), sternly reprimand His doubting disciples (Luke 24:25), and rebuke the hypocrites (Matt. 23:13-33). Love can be harsh (Matt. 16:23), even wrathful (Mark 3:5). Spiritual love is holy: it is faithful to God and uncompromising to all evil.
- We benefit from the Word when we discover that Christian love is the divine fellowship of the faithful. “We know that we have passed from death to life because we love the brothers...” (1 John 3:14). “Love for brothers is the fruit and consequence of the new supernatural birth wrought in our souls by the Holy Spirit. This is evidence that Heavenly Father chose us in Christ before the foundation of the world. Loving Christ and our brothers in Christ is a connection with God's nature, of which He has made us a part through the Holy Spirit... This love for brothers must be very special, such that only a regenerated person can know and practice. If this were not so, then the apostle would not have made special mention of it. It is so special that a person who does not have such love is not reborn: “He who does not love his brother is dead” (S. E. Pierce).
Love for brothers is much greater than acceptance of the company of those whom we consider like-minded people, people of the same temperament and views as ourselves. This love transcends human nature, it is spiritual and supernatural. This means turning your heart to those who have a piece of the essence of Christ within them. This is more than a general spirit; it extends to all in whom I can see the image of God's Son. That is, it is love for them in the name of Christ for the sake of the fact that I see His image in them. The Holy Spirit moves me to love my brothers and sisters in whom Christ abides. Thus, true Christian love is not only a gift from God, but it depends entirely on God, who supports it and helps to practice it. Each of us should pray daily that the Holy Spirit will help us in our lives to practice and demonstrate to God and His people the love that He has poured out in our hearts.
- We benefit from Scripture when we rightly practice Christian love. This is achieved not by the desire to please our brothers in faith and gain their respect, but by a real desire to seek the highest good for them. “By this we know that we love the children of God when we love God and keep His commandments” (1 John 5:2). How can I accurately test my personal love for God Himself? We love Him if we keep His commandments (see John 14:15, 21, 24; 15:10, 14). The truth and strength of my love for God is not determined by the words I speak, nor the cheerfulness with which I sing songs of praise to Him, but by my obedience to His Word. The same principle characterizes my love for my brothers.
“By this we know that we love the children of God when we love God and keep His commandments.” If I like to chat about the failures and downfalls of my brothers and sisters, if in my relationships with them I act according to my own desires and will, then I do not love them. “Do not be hostile to your brother in your heart; rebuke your neighbor, and you will not bear sin for him” (Lev. 19:17). Love should be shown in God's way, and never at the expense of cooling my love for God. Indeed, it is only when God has his proper place in my heart that I can truly show spiritual love to my brothers. True spiritual love is not about satisfying their desires, but about pleasing God and helping them, and I can only help them when I follow the path of obeying God.
Pampering and indulging each other is not brotherly love. It will be much more useful if we exhort one another to strive for the goal before us, and urge one another (by confirming our words by daily walking in faith) to look to the image of Christ. Brotherly love is holy. It has nothing to do with carnal feelings or listless indifference to the paths we choose. God's commandments are an expression of His love for us, as well as His power over us, and to ignore them, even while trying to be kind to one another, is not love. The manifestation of love must be completely consistent with God's revealed will to us. We must love “in truth” (3 John 1:1).
- We benefit from Scripture as we discover the various expressions of Christian love. Loving our brothers and showing love in everything is our direct responsibility. But in no other way can we do this more truly and effectually, without pretense and boasting, than by fellowship with them at the throne of grace. My brothers and sisters in Christ live in all corners of the earth, about whose difficulties, trials, temptations and sorrows I know nothing. However, I can show my love for them and pour out my heart to God in sincere prayer and intercession for them. There is no better way for a Christian to show loving attention to his companions than to use his relationship with the Lord Jesus by asking Him to bestow His mercies and blessings upon them.
“But whoever has the world’s goods, but sees his brother in need and closes his heart from him, how does the love of God abide in him? My children! Let us love not in word or tongue, but in deed and in truth” (1 John 3:17-18). Many of God's children are in great need in this world. Sometimes they wonder why this happens; This is a big test for them. One of the reasons why the Lord allows this is to give other Christians the opportunity to show compassion and share with those in need the abundance that God has blessed them with. True love is very practical: for it there is no task too unpleasant, no task too humiliating, if this can alleviate the suffering of a brother. When
The Lord of love was on earth, He took care of feeding a crowd of thousands, and did not consider it a humiliation to wash the feet of His disciples.
But among the children of God there are those who are so poor that they have almost nothing to share with others. What should such people do? Oh, they can make the spiritual needs of all the saints their own, presenting the concerns of their brethren in the faith before the throne of grace. We know from our own experience how the feelings, sorrows and lamentations of other saints can depress our spirit. We have sad experience of how easy it is to allow the spirit of discontent and murmuring into our hearts. But we also know what wonderful peace and comfort we receive in our hearts when we cry to the Lord, and He stretches out His calming hand to us and brings to our memory some precious promise. Let us implore Him to show the same mercy and grace to all the discouraged saints of God. Let us strive to share their burdens, to mourn with those who mourn and to rejoice with those who rejoice. In this way we can show true love to those who are in Christ, calling upon their Lord and our Lord to remind them of His eternal goodness.
This is how the Lord Jesus shows His love for the saints of God: “...He always lives to make intercession for them” (Heb. 7:25). He accepts their difficulties and worries as His own. He addresses God the Father on their behalf. He does not forget anyone, every single sheep from the flock is brought to the bosom of the Good Shepherd. Thus, by exercising our love for the brethren in daily prayers for their various needs, we are brought into fellowship with our great High Priest. Moreover, if we do this, then our brothers become especially dear to us: each of our prayers for them, as the beloved of God, increases our love and respect for them. We simply cannot bring them to the throne of grace unless we have a true affection for them in our souls. The best way to overcome the bitterness of an insult caused by a brother is to pray earnestly for that person.
- We benefit from reading Scripture when it teaches us how to properly cultivate Christian love. There are two or three rules that should be followed. First, from the very beginning we must admit that just as there is much in you (me) that will seriously test the love of the brothers, so there is also much in them that will test our love. We should “bear with one another in love” (Eph. 4:2). This is a wonderful message that each of us should fix in our hearts. It is remarkable that the first quality of spiritual love (1 Cor. 13:4) is precisely long-suffering.
Secondly, the best way to properly cultivate any virtue or quality is to constantly practice it. We will not achieve success if we only talk and pontificate about it without putting it into practice. Today you can hear many complaints about the lack of love that is manifested everywhere, and isn’t this a reason for me to set a better example! Do not allow the coldness and unkindness of those around you to choke your love, but “overcome evil with good” (Rom. 12:21). At least once a week, prayerfully meditate on chapter 13 of 1 Corinthians.
Third, and most important, keep your heart in the light and warmth of God's love. Like produces like. The more deeply you are truly consumed by Christ's tireless, unfailing, immeasurable love for you, the more will your heart reach out in love to His children. A beautiful illustration of this is that the apostle who wrote more about brotherly love was the one who reclined on the bosom of his Lord. May the Lord grant both the author and the readers of this book everything necessary to follow these rules for the benefit of His beloved people and for the sake of His glory.
Arthur Pink, How to Benefit from Scripture, Translation from English: Olga Kovalenko, Sergey Denisyuk, © Russian edition: “Come over and help”, 2001.
