Wednesday

Related Verses
1 John 4:19-21
19 We love because He first loved us.
20 If anyone says, I love God, and hates his brother, he is a liar; for he who does not love his brother, whom he has seen, cannot love God, whom he has not seen.
21 And this commandment we have from Him, that he who loves God love his brother also.

2 Cor. 5:14
14 For the love of Christ constrains us because we have judged this, that One died for all, therefore all died;

John 14:21, 23
21 He who has My commandments and keeps them, he is the one who loves Me; and he who loves Me will be loved by My Father, and I will love him and will manifest Myself to him.
23 Jesus answered and said to him, If anyone loves Me, he will keep My word, and My Father will love him, and We will come to him and make an abode with him.

Jer. 2:2
2 Go and cry in the ears of Jerusalem, saying, Thus says Jehovah: I remember concerning you the kindness of your youth, The love of your bridal days, When you followed after Me in the wilderness, In a land that was not sown.

Jer. 31:3
3 Jehovah appeared to me from afar, saying, Indeed I have loved you with an eternal love, Therefore I have drawn you with lovingkindness.

Psa. 119:15-16, 140
15 I will muse upon Your precepts And regard Your ways.
16 I will take delight in Your statutes; I will not forget Your word.
140 Your word is very pure, And Your servant loves it.

Related Reading
We are God’s species because we have been born of Him to have His life and nature (John 1:12-13). We have been regenerated to be God’s species, God’s kind, and God is love. Since we become God in His life and nature, we also should be love…As His species, we should be love because He is love. 

God does not want us to love with our natural love but with Him as our love. God created man in His image (Gen. 1:26), which means that He created man according to what He is…According to the revelation in the Holy Scriptures, God’s first attribute is love…Although created man does not have the reality of love, there is something in his created being that wants to love others…But that is just a human virtue, the very expression of the divine attribute of love. When we were regenerated, God infused us with Himself as love. We love Him because He first loved us [1 John 4:8, 19]. He initiated this love. (CWWL, 1994–1997, vol. 5, “The Vital Groups,” p. 121) 

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God’s predestination of us unto the divine sonship was motivated by the divine love…God predestinated us unto sonship in love [Eph. 1:4-5]. John 3:16 says that God so loved the world. He loved us before the foundation of the world. 

God’s giving of His only begotten Son to us that we may be saved from perdition judicially through His death and have the eternal life organically in His resurrection was motivated by the divine love (3:16; 1 John 4:9-10)…First John 4:10 says that God sent His Son to us as a propitiation for our sins. This is judicial through His death. Verse 9 says that God sent His Son to us that we may have life and live through Him. This is organic in His resurrection. John 3:16 should be read with 1 John 4:9-10. 

God’s love is the source of the grace of Christ dispensed to us through the fellowship of the Spirit (2 Cor. 13:14). This is for us to enjoy the processed and consummated Triune God. 

God’s love motivates us, His children, to love our enemies that we may be perfect as He is; He loves the fallen human race, who became His enemies, by causing His sun (signifying Christ) to rise on the evil and the good indiscriminately and sending rain (signifying the Spirit) on the just and the unjust equally; thus, we may become the sons of the heavenly Father who are sanctified from the tax collectors and the Gentiles (Matt. 5:43-48). The entire human race became His enemies, but God still loves the human race. If God sent Christ to us with discrimination, we would be disqualified from receiving His salvation. He causes His sun to rise first on the evil and then on the good without discrimination. 

We should be like God in our love for others…The Lord said, “If you love those who love you, what reward do you have? Do not even the tax collectors do the same?” (v. 46). If we love only those who love us, we are of the same species as the tax collectors. But we are of the super, divine species, so we love the evil ones, our enemies, as well as the good ones. This shows how God as love prevails. 

A proof that our vital group is prevailing is that we love people without any discrimination…While Christ was being crucified on the cross, two robbers were crucified with Him (27:38). One of them said, “Jesus, remember me when You come into Your kingdom” (Luke 23:42). Jesus said to him, “Truly I say to you, Today you shall be with Me in Paradise” (v. 43). The first one saved by Christ through His crucifixion was not a gentleman but a criminal, a robber, sentenced to death. 

Teaching without love may puff us up [1 Cor. 8:1b]. We may listen to the messages of the ministry and become puffed up with mere knowledge. This does not build up. Love builds up. (CWWL, 1994–1997, vol. 5, “The Vital Groups,” pp. 121-123) 

Further Reading: CWWL, 1994–1997, vol. 5, “The Vital Groups,” ch. 8