Wednesday

Related Verses
John 3:16
16 For God so loved the world that He gave His only begotten Son, that every one who believes into Him would not perish, but would have eternal life.

1 John 4:10
10 Herein is love, not that we have loved God but that He loved us and sent His Son as a propitiation for our sins.

2 Cor. 5:10, 14
10 For we must all be manifested before the judgment seat of Christ, that each one may receive the things done through the body according to what he has practiced, whether good or bad.
14 For the love of Christ constrains us because we have judged this, that One died for all, therefore all died;

John 3:3, 5-7
3 Jesus answered and said to him, Truly, truly, I say to you, Unless one is born anew, he cannot see the kingdom of God.
5 Jesus answered, Truly, truly, I say to you, Unless one is born of water and the Spirit, he cannot enter into the kingdom of God.
6 That which is born of the flesh is flesh, and that which is born of the Spirit is spirit.
7 Do not marvel that I said to you, You must be born anew.

Luke 12:46-47
46 The master of that slave will come on a day when he does not expect him and at an hour which he does not know, and will cut him asunder, and will appoint his portion with the unbelievers.
47 And that slave who knew his master’s will and did not prepare or do according to his will, will receive many lashes;

Related Reading
God’s nature includes Spirit as the nature of God’s person, love as the nature of God’s essence, and light as the nature of God’s expression. Since God is dispensing Himself in His nature into us, the more we are under God’s dispensing, the more we have of His Spirit, love, and light.  

Because God is love as well as Spirit, the more we are under His dispensing, the more love we have…When the New Testament says that God is love, this does not mean that God merely has love but that He is love. Through God’s dispensing of Himself into us, we become love in the sense of being constituted of God as love…Only one kind of love is genuine, and that is the love that comes out of God’s dispensing. When we are under God’s dispensing, we react with genuine love, which is God Himself. (The Conclusion of the New Testament, pp. 69-70)

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If we are under [God’s] dispensing, our reactions will indicate to others that we have much Spirit, love, and light, even that we are constituted of Spirit, love, and light.  

The divine love…is the nature of God’s essence. Thus, it is an essential attribute of God. John 3:16 tells us that “God so loved the world that He gave His only begotten Son,” and 1 John 4:9 says, “In this the love of God was manifested among us, that God sent His only begotten Son into the world that we might have life and live through Him.”…The “world” refers to fallen mankind [1 Tim. 1:15], whom God so loved that, by making them alive through His Son with His own life, they might become His children. In this the love of God has been manifested.  

The word herein [in 1 John 4:10] refers to the following fact: not that we loved God but that He loved us and sent His Son as a propitiation for our sins. In this fact is the higher and nobler love of God. The divine love as God’s essential attribute is mainly expressed in sending His Son to redeem us and impart God’s life into us that we may become His children.  

Ephesians 2:4 says, “God, being rich in mercy, because of His great love with which He loved us.” The object of love should be in a lovable condition, but the object of mercy is always in a pitiful situation. Hence, God’s mercy reaches further than His love. God loves us because we are the object of His selection. But we became pitiful by our fall, even dead in our offenses and sins; therefore, we need God’s mercy. Because of His great love, God is rich in mercy to save us from our wretched position to a condition that is suitable for His love. The nobler love of God as His essential attribute needs His attribute of mercy to reach us in the deep pit of our fallen life.  

From the day we believed in the Lord Jesus, the love of God has been poured out in our hearts [Rom. 5:5]. This is not merely a matter of feeling. On the contrary, something substantial, something essential, has been poured out into our hearts…As believers, deep in our hearts we have something of the divine essence, and this is God the Father as love…God as love is the divine essence that has been poured out into our hearts. Therefore, the pouring out of the love of God into our hearts is a matter of the essence of God. Because we have been regenerated, we have love as the nature of God’s essence within us. Because the love of God has been poured out in our hearts, the heart of every believer is a heart of love. In our experience and enjoyment of God as the Father in His love, we experience and enjoy the dispensing of love as the nature of God’s essence into our hearts. (The Conclusion of the New Testament, pp. 71, 75-76, 1477)  

Further Reading: The Conclusion of the New Testament, msg. 8; CWWL, 1989, vol. 4, “The Advance of the Lord’s Recovery Today,” ch. 5