While many people talk about “loving others,” few understand that true LOVE can be received and expressed only by those who know the love of GOD, our Creator, through His Son Jesus Christ. It is only when the very Spirit of Christ dwells within you that selfless love becomes your desire, and you become willing and able to love God and love others. While those who do not believe in Jesus are at times able to show human love to other people, they are totally unable to love God because they do not know Him. And they are unable to love people by pointing them to the source of true hope, peace and joy. We who by God’s grace have been born again have new life, and by the work of the Spirit love for God and love for others becomes possible! “WE love, because HE first loved US!” (I John 4:19). It is only in being united to Christ by faith through the work of His Spirit that your heart will be changed and your mind will be set on pleasing Him rather than yourself. Jesus summarized God’s commandments in Matthew 22:37-40: “You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind. This is the great and first commandment. And a second is like it: You shall love your neighbor as yourself. On these two commandments depend all the Law and the Prophets.” Merely human “love” can never lead to the oneness of spirit that God’s love in Christ is able to produce. GOD’s love is more than a feeling. It is an action that is at all times focused on pleasing God, for His glory and for the good of those to whom love is shown. This is why the Spirit moved Paul to write, “Love is the fulfilling of the Law” (Romans 13:10). May you know the life- transforming love of God for YOU in Christ, and then be moved to love Him back!