Love is the greatest power of which any human being has any knowledge. I John 4:7: "Beloved, let us love one another: for love is of God; and everyone that loveth is born of God, and knoweth God." What a wonderful blessing to know Him in this sense that we feel this great love in our heart as the assurance that we have been born of His eternal Spirit that can never die. Love is such a great power and source of energy that the human being cannot fully comprehend the power of it, yet we have knowledge of it being in the hearts of individuals. The experience of having this love made manifest to us in the new birth (which is a spiritual birth) does not arise from our own work (human righteousness), but from the imputed righteousness of Jesus Christ by grace I John 4:19 reads, "We love Him, because He first loved us." This Scripture sets forth a wonderful lesson for His people. This Scripture is sufficient to forever erase the idea that man might be first in some way of doing something that would bring about the new birth. God is always first because He is the source of life as well as the life itself. He is the only Creator that has ever been or ever shall be. God acts upon the individual and sheds His love abroad in their heart which is His Spirit and eternal life. This is that moving force of energy that causes them to love Him, and the power that draws them to God, the Creator, and to Jesus Christ, their Saviour and Redeemer.

The Holy Spirit is the third person in the Godhead that leads and comforts the child of God. The Godhead is often spoken of as the "Trinity." I John 5:7, says, "For there are three that bear record in heaven, the Father, the Word, and the Holy Ghost; and these three are one." So you can see that these three are inseparable. They were that way before God made man, and they are now and ever will be, because God is sovereign (not dependent on man or anything else). Love is the cause of man crying out unto God, and it is the moving force that draws man to God, and enables him to ask who He is and what He would have him to do, as Saul of Tarsus did when Christ revealed Himself to him.

God's love is so powerful that it gives eternal life by quickening (or being born again) by His Spirit, but it also brings about a state of repentance. "God grants repentance," but the individual does the repenting. Now they are capable of repenting as the result of what God has done for them. He is not only a loving God, but He is merciful toward His children because Jesus Christ shed His blood to make the atonement for their sins. This brings them into a oneness with God where they have mercy extended to them, because this love was demonstrated through God's only begotten Son, Jesus Christ, who laid His life down on the cross of Calvary and satisfied completely divine justice that He might be just and the justifier. Through His atoning blood His children have forgiveness.

"Behold what manner of love the Father hath bestowed upon us, that we should be called the sons of God: therefore the world knoweth us not, because it knew Him not."--I John 3:1. Being able to behold this manner of love, brings us to a high state of rejoicing in His love. We are made to realize that we are in possession of this love now while we live here on the earth in a fleshly body and can shew our love to our Lord by loving His people and honoring our Creator in our spirit and body, which is God's.

One of the greatest chapters in the Bible that deals with love to a great degree is the thirteenth chapter of I Corinthians 4-8, "Charity suffereth long, and is kind; charity envieth not; charity vaunteth not itself, is not puffed up, 5. Doth not behave itself unseemly, seeketh not her own, is not easily provoked, thinketh no evil; 6. Rejoiceth not in iniquity, but rejoiceth in the truth; 7. Beareth all things, hopeth all things, endureth all things. 8. Charity never faileth." Charity, which is love, never fails. Love and compassion was beautifully demonstrated by the only begotten of the Father in His Son when Christ was here in the earth in a bodily form as the son of man and the Son of God in His deity also. This love was shown in such a compassionate manner when He would heal the sick, restore the sight of the blind, and raise the dead as He did Lazarus, the brother of Mary and Martha, after he had been dead four days, proving that He was the resurrection and the life.

Jesus' voice was so powerful that all that was necessary was for Jesus to speak to Lazarus. Can you comprehend the great power of that love'? This love was so great that He went right on to the cross where the nails were driven through His hands and legs and His love failed not though they put a crown of thorns on His head and gave Him vinegar to drink when he thirsted for water, because He had a human body to represent His children who had sinned and were under the penalty of it. He didn't fail but laid His life down because He loved them and they were His by covenant relation that was agreed to between God, the Father and Creator, and Jesus Christ, the life-giving Word and Redeemer, before the foundation of the world.

Ephesians 1:4: "According as He hath chosen us in Him before the foundation of the world, that we should be holy and without blame before Him in love; 5. Having predestinated us unto the adoption of children by Jesus Christ to Himself, according to the good pleasure of His will. 6. To the praise of the glory of His grace, wherein He hath made us accepted in the beloved." This proves that Christ was in the Godhead with the Father before the foundation of the world (before Adam was made). This love was not only strong enough for Christ in His humility and faithfulness to lay His life down, but it was so powerful that He came out of the tomb because neither death nor any other force was able to hold Him.

The power of love which is God, did not fail Him on this occasion, but by the same power He came unto His disciples in the house when the door was shut and said, "Peace be unto you." He appeared on other occasions after His resurrection. At one time, He appeared to above five hundred brethren and finally ascended up into heaven where He is now seated on the right hand of the Father to make intercession through the Spirit for all those for whom He died on the cross. He told them that He would not leave them comfortless because He was returning to heaven to be with the Father but would send the Holy Ghost. John 14:16: "And I will pray the Father, and He shall give you another Comforter, that He may abide with you for ever." What a wonderful exhibition of His love that we can have when we go to Him in prayer to thank Him and beg at mercy's door because the Bible tells us that He is plenteous in mercy and we realize that mercy is all that will reach our case.

People often think this, and sometimes they even express it. They believe what the Bible says about Jesus Christ laying His life down on the cross and corning forth from the grave, but they doubt about themselves coming forth from the grave. With this great doubt of unbelief in mind, let us again go to "Thus saith the Lord." We still have knowledge of the love of the Lord in our being, though persecution and Satan that has access to our frail bodies in their infirmities and weaknesses cause us to get in doubts and fears. So from Scriptural examples let's see how strong love is again. One of the good places to turn to is the 8th chapter of Romans, beginning with the 28th verse, "And we know that all things work together for good to them that love God, to them who are the called according to His purpose." Here we have all things that work together for good to them that love God. All things does not have reference to all things in the world both good and bad caused by the acts of men and events, but all refers only to the things described in the following verses of this chapter. And further, it is described and confined to the ones that love God. They are called by His grace, because He loved them and they have His love as evidence of His love. The 29th verse tells whom (His people), not things or events, but what He did about it. Verse 29: "For whom He did foreknow, He also did predestinate to be conformed to the image of His Son, that He might be the firstborn among many brethren." Verse 30: "Moreover whom He did predestinate, them He also called: and whom He called, them He also justified: and whom he justified, them He also glorified." So if God has all these things working for our good, what could be said against it, "If God be for us, who can be against us".

The Scriptures in other places tell us that we are justified through His shed blood and by His grace through the redemption that is in Christ Jesus.

Romans 8: verse 23: "And not only they, but ourselves also, which have the first-fruits of the Spirit, even we ourselves groan within ourselves, waiting for the adoption, to wit, the redemption of our body."

It is certain that this will be accomplished because I Thessalonians 4: 13-17[says]: "But I would not have you to be ignorant, brethren, concerning them which are asleep, that ye sorrow not, even as others which have no hope. 14. For if we believe that Jesus did and rose again, even so them also which sleep in Jesus will God bring with Him. 15. For this we say unto you by the word of the Lord, that we which are alive and remain unto the coming of the Lord shall not prevent them which are asleep. 16. For the Lord Himself shall descend from heaven with a shout, with the voice of the archangel, and with the trump of God; and the dead in Christ shall rise first 17. Then we which are alive and remain shall be caught up together with them in the clouds, to meet the Lord in the air; and so shall we ever be with the Lord."

So while we are waiting and still alive, let us present our bodies in obedience and service to God that we may glorify God in our spirit and body which are God's. I Corinthians 1:31 "That according as it is written, he that glorieth, let him glory in the Lord."

May we rejoice in the love of God wherewith He has loved us. Taken from 'Identity of the true Baptist church' Volume 2 by Elder Wiley Sammons