One essential ingredient of the Jesus-follower’s life is love. We have enough hatred in the world to meet everyone’s need for that. The news is filled with stories of hatred. And the stories of love are usually ones that trivialize it, like a lost puppy being rescued or a sex change operation that is being paid for by the tax payers for a prisoner. The stories of self-sacrificing love are extremely rare. Could it be they are rare because self-sacrificing love is rare? Perhaps, but the more likely explanation is that this kind of love doesn’t sell advertising.
This kind of self-sacrificing love doesn’t have its origin here on earth. This kind of love has a heavenly origin. This kind of love is evidence of God’s character working in someone’s life. John tells us that the person who loves like this has been made alive by the LORD. They have had a heavenly birth in addition to their earthly birth.
Mom and Dad were responsible for our earthly birth. It still takes two, even in our day of artificial, surrogate, and multiple parent designer babies. Dad might not even know Mom, but he is involved. And no one would deny the role of Mom in the birth. But earthly birth is not enough. We must be born in a manner that involves God in the process. This is the post-birth birth.
And when we have that post-birth birth, we come to know God in a different, personal way. It is similar to the knowledge an infant has of its mother at birth. Birth opens us a whole new realm of knowledge to the infant. They have already learned many things about their mother even while in the womb. But when birth takes place their world of knowledge explodes. They look into their mom’s face and begin to call for responses and give responses. They ask for their needs to be met and they have their needs met.
So when we know the LORD, we love as He loves. Just as the infant responds to the love of the parent, we respond to God’s love for us by loving each other. And if there isn’t this love response, John tells us that we don’t know the LORD. Love is an essential outcome of knowing the LORD.
Love is something that happens after our birth. The LORD creates in us a new being when we believe. And one of the outcomes of that new growth is love. If there is no love, we can honestly doubt the reality of the birth. And we must remember that love is not required prior to birth. It is something that comes as a result of the birth. God does His work in us and we respond with love toward each other.
So how is your loving going?
The Arnold Journey 