New Life and New Love
Dearly beloved, under the Old Covenant of the Law a person could only love God with all their heart, soul, mind, and strength because that is all a person was capable of doing. They were natural men, only having soul life. The scriptures refer to them as people “in the flesh.”
Once the Lord Jesus Christ made the promise of the Father available, which was the gift of holy spirit, people that receive it are no longer in the flesh. They are born of God’s spirit, and they became His children. God says that they are now “in the spirit.”
“But you are not in the flesh, but in the spirit, if so be that the spirit from God dwells in you. Now if any man has not the spirit, that is to say Christ, he is none of His. And if Christ be in you, the body [the old nature of Adam] is dead because of sin; but the spirit is life because of righteousness.” Romans 8:9, 10
In Christ we received new life, everlasting life. The spirit we received from God is the source of this life.
“But if the spirit from Him that raised up Jesus from the dead dwells in you, He that raised up Christ from the dead shall also quicken [make alive] your mortal bodies by His spirit that dwells in you.” 8:11
What dwells in us? The spirit from God that raised up Jesus from the dead dwells in us! We are born of that spirit today. It in-dwells us. Christ became a life-giving spirit in us. When Christ returns, that spirit will be the source of our everlasting life. We will have everlasting life and glorious new bodies like Christ’s glorious body.
We are alive spiritually today; we are born again of God’s spirit. We have access to God as our Father by that spirit. We may be led by the spirit of God as God’s children. We have the spirit of sonship and it bears witness with our inner being that we are the children of God, heirs of God, and joint-heirs with Christ. We will be glorified together with him!
Dearly beloved, we have the spirit of life in Christ Jesus. God sealed us with it for the day of redemption; the day that Christ Jesus will return and transform us so that we will have glorious bodies like his glorious body, by the vast power and authority His Father has given him.
God so loved us that He gave His only begotten Son for us. Dearly beloved of God, we ought to so love Him that we walk in the reality of the spirit life He gave us in Christ. We ought to walk like sons of God with power. We ought to live as dead men raised to life. We should be living sacrifices that live to do those things that please Him. We should no longer be self-willed; we should live to do His will.
God’s love has been poured out in our hearts by means of holy spirit, which has been given to us, dearly beloved. Now we can truly love Him and one another: that is God’s will concerning us. We can walk in the love of God as we renew our minds to who we are in Christ and manifest it to others.
We can keep the new commandment that Jesus gave his disciples: “A new commandment I give unto you, that you love one another; as I have loved you, that you also love one another.”
“And walk in love as Christ also has loved us and has given himself for us an offering and a sacrifice to God for a sweet smelling fragrance.”
We ought to think in the same manner as he thought. We should follow God with reverence and obedience, for He who works in us to will and to do of His good pleasure.
Beloved, God is love; walk in THAT love.
If God so loved us that He gave His Son, His only begotten Son for us, we ought to love one another with THAT love. We have known and have believed the love which God has in us. God is love, and he who abides in THAT love abides in God as well as God abides in him.
We are able to love because He first loved us. Beloved, walk in THAT love.