“Now that you have purified yourselves by obeying the truth so that you have sincere love for each other, love one another deeply, from the heart. For you have been born again, not of perishable seed, but of imperishable, through the living and enduring word of God”
When we encounter the truth of the Word of God, we encounter the Living Word, meaning Jesus. In the Gospel of John, we are introduced to the Word …. “In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. 2 He was with God in the beginning. 3 Through him all things were made; without him nothing was made that has been made. 4 In him was life, and that life was the light of all mankind.” (Jn 1:1-3).
When we have been born again, our hearts are opened to spiritual love. We learn that the Spirit of God does something within us that allows us to be the vessels through which His love now flows when one commits himself to obey the truth he receives from God’s Spirit. He now has been born again. He is a new creature in which the Spirit of God lives. The Holy Spirit is not someone who comes and goes. He is permanent. He is holy, living, and active.
Salvation begins within us as a decisive act, but the response is ongoing. It is an imperishable seed. The word of God takes root within responsive soil. We want to be holy because He is holy. Holy love is spiritual love. It is reflecting the character of our Creator. We can only understand love if we begin to understand it as a gift from God and desire to share it to others. Unless we know the author of love, all other expressions are mere imitations and temporary.
Peter is telling his readers, now that you have purified yourselves by obeying the truth, lets recognize the implications of being forgiven from all sin and made right with God because of His love. Now that you have spiritual love, you have a sincere love for your brothers, so love one another deeply from the heart. Now that you have love, love more, would be another way of putting it.
There are many romances based on false love. It is not a desire to please the other, but to manipulate and use one another for one’s own feelings. Marriages are too often built on pretense. Many will come to the point of saying,” I am not sure I love you anymore." Feelings come and go. A phony love is one that one falls into or out of, but true love takes commitment to one another with the Spirit working within.
He enters into the believer and remakes us by His truth, love, and power. We can resist the Spirit or we can yield to Him and find love coming through us from Him.
I like what one of my teachers said, “Something happens to us, so that something happens in us, so that something happens through us.”
Application: Jesus is knocking, open the door and invite Him in. Then go to His Word and let Him plant the seed of His Love in the soil of Your heart.
Prayer: Lord, God may Your Truth move from our minds into our hearts and through our relationship to others.
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