The apostle John is declaring in our text above that the primary nature of God is that of agape love: spiritual love, holy love, sacrificial love, Christian love. In John 3:16-18 (NKJV) we read what is known as the golden text of the Bible: “For God so loved the world that He gave His only begotten Son, that whoever believes in Him should not perish but have everlasting life. For God did not send His Son into the world to condemn the world, but that the world through Him might be saved. He who believes in Him is not condemned; but he who does not believe is condemned already, because he has not believed in the name of the only begotten Son of God.”
Love should be the hallmark of anyone who claims to be a Christian. This is what Jesus required of His followers. Every congregational church in the world should be an example of love. It was said of the early church, “Behold, how they loved one another!” It was the plan of our Lord Jesus Christ to have a loving body of believers called out of sin, selfishness, and worldliness; redeemed by the blood of Jesus; and filled with the Holy Spirit to love, pray, worship, and reach out to help others. In Acts chapter 2 we read about the Pentecostal outpouring of the Holy Spirit, when thousands had been convicted of sin and had trusted in Christ as Savior, and “all who believed were together and had all things in common.” (Acts 2:44). The next verses record that they were “continuing daily with one accord in the temple, and breaking bread from house to house, they ate their food with gladness, ...praising God and having favor with all the people, and the Lord added to the church daily those who were being saved.”
I have been preaching the gospel of Jesus Christ now for 73 years, and it has been my privilege to be the pastor of nine churches in five different states here in the United States over a period of 43 years. Seven of those nine churches measured up to standards of that first Christian church in Jerusalem. I regret so much that I did not see the love and caring, the devotion to Christ, and the members living in the power of the Holy Spirit in those other two churches.
The love of God is the most powerful love in the whole world. But we cannot ignore the reality of the power of evil in the world. Jesus warned His followers to beware of the treacherous tricks of Satan to break in on us to weaken, damage, or destroy our influence on a lost world. The love of God in a born-again Christian is meant to be attractive, appealing, and desirable. It worked in the early church, and I saw it working in seven of the nine churches that I have been privileged to lead.
I must share with my readers something that is especially important! Those seven churches that grew in winning people to Christ took seriously the power of the Holy Spirit. Just before ascending back to His Father in Heaven, Jesus insisted that his disciples and other believers were not to start proclaiming the Gospel in Jerusalem and in other parts of the world until first of all THEY HAD PRAYED TO BE FILLED WITH THE HOLY SPIRIT. His promise to them was, “...you shall receive power when the Holy Spirit has come upon you; and you shall be witnesses to Me in Jerusalem, and in all Judea and Samaria, and to the end of the earth.” (Acts 1:8, NKJV)
We read in Acts 2: 1-4 that those 120 believers, including the 12 apostles and Mary (the mother of Jesus), prayed in one accord in an Upper Room in Jerusalem for 10 days. Suddenly, on the 10th day “...there came a sound from heaven, as of a rushing mighty wind, and it filled the whole house where they were sitting... And they were all filled with the Holy Spirit...” But their very next move was to go down into the streets of the city of Jerusalem and begin sharing the Gospel in languages they had never learned but were known to the hearers in the crowd. The apostle Peter began preaching the first Gospel sermon of the early Church as a Spirit-filled messenger. And, the result was that on the first few hours of early Christian ministry, 3,000 sinners repented of sin and were baptized in the name of Jesus and became members of the first Christian Church.
Too many leaders of the American churches over the last century have been hesitant to emphasize the importance of being filled with the Holy Spirit. But there are those who take Jesus seriously and emphasize the apostle Paul’s conviction— “...be filled with the Spirit.” More and more believing church members are hungering, seeking, and finding the fullness of the Holy Spirit for power—power to pray, worship, understand the Scriptures, and find their place in the church and in the world.
Let’s remember that Jesus, the Son of God, knew that as a human being— having given up His authority and power of being all-knowing and all-powerful— He needed to be filled with the Spirit before He began His redemptive ministry. Having been introduced by John the Baptist, He insisted on being baptized in the River Jordan in order to identify with sinners and do God’s complete will. No, He had not sinned, nor would He ever! After being baptized and while He prayed, heaven was opened and He was filled with the Holy Spirit (Luke 3:21-22).
God forbid that modern American Christians be afraid of the Holy Spirit! The Holy Spirit is the Spirit of God, the Spirit of Jesus, the Spirit of holiness, the Spirit of prayer, the Spirit of grace, the Spirit of worship, the Spirit of wisdom, the Spirit of truth, the Spirit of courage, and the Spirit of power! The Spirit does not make fanatics out of Christians! He makes us more like Jesus, enables us to pray and understand the Scriptures, and gives us power to love others and win them to Christ and the church.
“God is Love!” And it takes the Holy Spirit’s cleansing and filling our hearts with the love of God for us to experience and understand the greatness of that love.
“For I am persuaded that neither death nor life,
nor angels nor principalities nor powers, nor
things present nor things to come, nor height
nor depth, nor any other created thing, shall be
able to separate us from the love of God which
is in Christ Jesus our Lord.” (Romans 8: 38-39,
NKJV)
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