Love is the essence of God. A problem we have is that we really do not know what the word love means, we so easily associate it with sentimentality, or romantic love. The love of God is much deeper than this.
If we are born of God, then His love will start to be reflected in our lives. We need to understand that the Holy Spirit will be working in our lives so that more of His love starts to become evident in us. This will often go against our human nature, so our flesh will need to die. This can be painful at the time, and we can fear that we are losing something. Instead we need to realise that actually we are gaining something of infinite worth.
The cross is the ultimate expression of God's love. We need to understand that the cross is not about Jesus persuading a reluctant God to forgive us. Rather it was the plan that the Father, Son and Holy Spirit agreed upon to save us. The Father sent His Son.
Love originates in God. "This is love, not that we loved God, but that He first loved us". We need to remember where the origin is. It is not in us, it is in God. The starting point for any progress in our lives has to be God's love for us. This will result in us having love for God and for others, but if we make our love for God the starting point we will fail.
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