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The Birth of Love

All of us constantly shop for ideas on how best to love in our own way. There are plenty of suggestions in the world on how to do it. Agony Aunts and counsellors are all paid lots of money to help us deal with the search for love, especially when it goes wrong. Their answers are well known: love yourself more and try a bit harder.

The Bible tells us the opposite. You cannot truly love as you are meant to love until God gives you a new heart that can truly love! All human beings have rebelled against God. We have all rejected His love since the fall of man in Eden. Sin is a virus that has ravaged every single area of our relationship with God and with one another! We are in fact dead in sin. So, to truly love as God intends us to love we need God to give us new life. We must first be born of God :

Beloved, let us love one another, for love is from God, and whoever loves has been born of God and knows God. Anyone who does not love does not know God, because God is love. (1 John 4:7-8)
John is saying, Only those who have received a new spiritual DNA, who are truly born again have a new capacity from God to love and therefore can in fact truly love others! To some this sounds offensive. You don't consider yourself a follower of Jesus and you are wondering, are you really saying I don’t have any love?

No, what the Bible is saying that if you are not a follower of Jesus you cannot love with the true love that only comes from God. Just as you can’t expect apples to produce oranges, you cannot expect a person not born of God to show the authentic love of God. For you and I to love others with the love of God, we must first have the same spiritual DNA that God has. In other words, we must be born of God anew through faith in Jesus. 

This means you need to acknowledge your sin and ask God to forgive your sins based on the death of Jesus on the cross. Place your full trust in Jesus. If you do that God will take away your old heart of sin and give you a new heart. He will pour His love in it, which enable you to love others.

Recognising that birth of love starts with the new birth of faith has implications for all of us who already followers of Jesus. In particular, it affects how you relate to non-Christians in your life. Maybe you have difficult family situation. You need to remember that if your family members are not followers of Jesus  you cannot expect them to love with the love that comes from God. So you must be patient with them, love them unconditionally, and pray every day for them!

Love Series :

The Origin of Love 


Copyright © Chola Mukanga 2017
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