July 29

Beloved, let us love one another, because love comes from God. Everyone who loves has been born of God and knows God. — 1 John 4:7 BSB

“Love is of God.” I cannot have any real satisfaction that I am a partaker of the Spirit and grace of Christ unless I feel some measure of the love of God poured into my heart. I might have hopes, expectations, and various evidences—sometimes dim, sometimes bright—but I cannot have a sure and clear conviction in my soul that I possess the Spirit and grace of Christ unless I am blessed with the love of God. Until this love comes, there remains fear, which brings torment. As long as there is tormenting fear, we cannot be made perfect in love. Without the love of God in our souls, there is no assurance that God has loved us with an everlasting love, nor any bright testimony that the Holy Spirit has made our bodies his temple.

But when the crowning blessing comes—when the love of God is felt and enjoyed as the Spirit sheds it abroad in the heart, and the Spirit of adoption enables us to cry “Abba, Father”—then we receive the sealing testimony of the true Spirit. This Spirit is “a spirit of power, and of love, and of a sound mind.” Where this Spirit is, there is also a spirit of love and affection toward all the family of God.