The Holy Spirit of Love
Love endures long and is patient and kind; love never is envious nor boils over with jealousy, is not boastful or vainglorious, does not display itself haughtily. It is not conceited (arrogant and inflated with pride); it is not rude (unmannerly) and does not act unbecomingly. Love (God’s love in us) does not insist on its own rights or its own way, for it is not self-seeking; it is not touchy or fretful or resentful; it takes no account of the evil done to it [it pays no attention to a suffered wrong]. It does not rejoice at injustice and unrighteousness, but rejoices when right and truth prevail. Love bears up under anything and everything that comes, is ever ready to believe the best of every person, its hopes are fadeless under all circumstances, and it endures everything [without weakening]. Love never fails [never fades out or becomes obsolete or comes to an end]. As for prophecy (the gift of interpreting the divine will and purpose), it will be fulfilled and pass away; as for tongues, they will be destroyed and cease; as for knowledge, it will pass away [it will lose its value and be superseded by truth].
(1Co 13:4-8)

God’s love has all these qualities.  The Spirit of God known as the Holy Spirit is the Spirit of love.  The very embodiment or essence of love itself.  When the Holy Spirit is present and leading,  these above mentioned traits are present in action.

How does mankind measure up to this kind of love?  After giving careful thought to what love is,  one can see we as people fall short of this perfect Godly love. 

The amazing thing about love is that it has to be passed on or bestowed upon.  Only the Father and the Son have love within themselves or self-sustaining love. 

For even as the Father has life in Himself and is self-existent, so He has given to the Son to have life in Himself and be self-existent.
(Joh 5:26)

The scripture is plainly talking about Jesus here.  No one besides the Father and the Son have self-sustaining or self-existing life or love within themselves.

Love is the light that shines in the darkness of men and women hearts.  God is light and God is love.

And this is the message [the message of promise] which we have heard from Him and now are reporting to you: God is Light, and there is no darkness in Him at all [no, not in any way].
(1Jo 1:5)

  He who does not love has not become acquainted with God [does not and never did know Him], for God is love.
(1Jo 4:8)

In Him was Life, and the Life was the Light of men.
(Joh 1:4)

The life this scripture is talking about is the love of God.  This life is the Holy Spirit.  Only the Father and the Son have this self-sustaining Spirit of life.

That said,  why do we men and women act like we have love within ourselves apart from God?  No one has 1 Cor. chapter 13 kind of love in his or her life apart from the presence and indwelling Spirit of the living God.  No one can have this Holy Spirit of love without first accepting Jesus Christ as Lord and savior. Jesus is love.  He is the exact image of God the Father.

[Now] He is the exact likeness of the unseen God [the visible representation of the invisible]; He is the Firstborn of all creation.
(Col 1:15)

If we reject Jesus,  we are rejecting love.

We try to love,  we try to live good lives,  we try very hard to be selfless in our giving but we always fall short and come to an end to our patience and caring for others.

The reason for this is obvious.  We do not have a self-existent love or life within our beings.  We are not the life giver.  We are not the life sustainer.  We are not love. 

God is love.  He is the life giver.  Anyone who tries to live a life of pure perfect love apart from the indwelling and empowering love of the Holy Spirit will fail miserably.  This is a truth of God’s word and this truth plays out in our everyday lives.  We all fall short of true love,  God’s love. 

We cannot love like God if we are not receiving love from God himself.  This truth although simple,  has eluded many of us through the ages. 

If we took a human baby from the moment he or she were born,  and never gave or directed our affection and love towards this child,  this infant would grow up without the ability to give love because it did not receive it.  He or she would become an unfeeling and probably hateful person.  If we have never received love then we cannot give it.  You cannot give what you first have not received.

Understanding this truth,  one can clearly see why this world is in the state it is in.  The more we fall away from God who is perfect love,  the more we are seperated from God’s kind of love.  We become self-centered,  selfish people instead of 1 Cor. 13 kind of loving people. 

Even many in the church do not have a grip on these truths.  If we did we would understand that we must first go to Jesus and accept His love.  We must truly learn how to receive His love and friendship in everyday life.  When we learn how to receive His love and affection,  Then we will be filled with His Holy Spirit of love and start loving our neighbors like we know we should.

You can’t give what you never got.  Jesus is here for us if we just learn how to let Him love us.  I am always amazed how hard it is for most of us to receive a complement from someone.  We find that we push love away from us.  We do not know how to receive love anymore. 

We need to learn from a child.  Little children know how to receive love and praise from someone else.  They smile and usually express some kind of gratitude either in words or action.  They clearly do not reject love when it comes their way no matter what kind of person it was who gave it.  Little children are not judgmental.  They can walk over to any kind of person even if that person doesn’t look very nice and express an interest in relationship. 

Jesus said, ” unless you become like a little child,  you can by no means enter into the kingdom of God.  What is this kingdom of God?  I am sure it is a kingdom of love.  God is love remember.  Some of us have forgotten how to receive love therefore we cannot give it either.  We have been so busy trying to protect our hearts that we forgot to let someone love us!  That’s right.  We need to let down our walls that keep everyone from our hearts and let the light shine in. 

Jesus is that light.  He is the only way, truth and life.  Without Jesus,  no one can keep the love they thought they had.  None of us can hold on to love.  It is the vapor of God.  It is the light of God.  God’s love cannot be stored up in some kind of energy holder.  If we are not continually letting His love fill us up and shine into our hearts,  then we are dwelling in darkness and eventually we will find ourselves totally lost in selfish doom and death.

 That said the answer to our problems in this world is not in giving only but first learning again like a child to receive what ever love and attention someone might be trying to shine into us.  God is love and His love is continually shining down on us from some unknown or unappreciated source.  All we need to do is stop rejecting Him.  We need to stop rejecting Jesus.  Jesus made it possible to have forgiveness since He paid the penalty for our sins.  All we need to do is quite rejecting His love and trust completly in His love.  It’s only after accepting what He did for us that we finally come back to that humble childlike heart of receiving His love again.

Jesus gave His life so we could be forgiven and embrace God’s love again.  So the next time someone says to you, ” you look nice today!” or ” I just wanted to tell you that I have noticed all the nice things you do for others.”  just receive the love and let it soak in and make you smile back.  Don’t say, ” Oh I don’t think I look very nice today at all!”  or don’t you dare let the complements bounce off by saying, ” Oh it was nothing really!”  But rather,  be like a child and smile warmly and say, ” why thank you for noticing me!”

If we could start to learn how to receive God’s love,  we would find ourselves being constantly filled up so we can pass it on to someone else.  Love has to be passed on.   Love is God’s very Spirit.  Anyone who rejects Jesus is really rejecting God’s ultimate show of love.  If we reject love then we are rejecting life.  Only death is left.  Only darkness and loneliness.  So let us embrace God’s love.  Let us receive God’s gift.  Jesus died so we could have love.  His Holy Spirit of Love.