| “Dear friends, since God so loved us, we also ought to love one another. No one has ever seen God; but if we love one another, God lives in us and his love is made complete in us.” |
| —1 John 4:11-12 |
When the Holy Spirit reveals to a person that, out of the depth of God’s love, He has given him or her the gift of salvation from his or her sins, through the birth, life, suffering, death, resurrection, and ascension of the Lord Jesus Christ, and that person acknowledges what God has done, the Holy Spirit comes to live inside that person. The reality of this supernatural event is a great mystery that we simply do not have the capacity to fully understand. Nevertheless, the Bible gives ample testimony that this is exactly what happens.
In fact, the Bible talks about this process that includes the Holy Spirit coming to live within us as “regeneration.” The ongoing Presence of the Holy Spirit causes the beginning of yet another process that makes believers become more and more holy—more and more like Jesus. We call this process “sanctification.” As the person increasingly learns how to bend his or her selfish will to God’s perfect will, he or she becomes more imbued with the holiness of Jesus.
I’ve written quite a bit of late in this blog about God-breathed love. One of the realities of this magnificent type of love is that it arises within us because the Holy Spirit lives in us. God lives in us. That’s a powerful truth. And, the Apostle John writes about this very truth in his letter found in 1 John 4:11-12:
Dear friends, since God so loved us, we also ought to love one another. No one has ever seen God; but if we love one another, God lives in us and his love is made complete in us.
Imagine the reality that God makes His love complete in us and, therefore, allows us to have the power necessary to love one another. That is a wonderful thought to cling to, as we begin another new day.
Based on a blog originally posted on Monday, May 29, 2017
