5/17/2023 0 Comments One love one spiritBut also take down your Bible and look to Jesus in his word. Which means again, then, that the Spirit produces love where Jesus is trusted, that is, where Jesus is found satisfying like a fountain of water.Ĭonclusion: When you want to become a loving person, by all means pray for the transforming and empowering work of the Holy Spirit. He who believes in me, as the Scripture said, From his innermost being shall flow rivers of living water.'" The next verse says that this river of life-giving water flowing out from us is the Holy Spirit. You can see this again in John 7:37-38, “Jesus cried out, saying, 'If any man is thirsty, let him come to me and drink. Therefore, he keeps himself quietly beneath the surface, as it were, and puts forward “hearing with faith” as the conscious cause of love. But the Spirit is utterly committed to getting glory for Jesus. If the Holy Spirit simply caused acts of love in the human heart without any clear, ongoing causal connection between love, on the one hand, and faith in Christ’s promises, on the other hand, then it would not be plain that Christ’s all-satisfying dependability is honored through love. The answer seems to be that the Holy Spirit loves to glorify the all-satisfying dependability of Christ and his Word (John 16:14: “ shall glorify me”). Now the question rises, Why? Why does the Spirit limit himself to bring about love only through conscious faith in the word of Jesus? Particular acts of faith in his promises bring empowerments of love. So we see that the Holy Spirit does not produce the fruit of love apart from faith in Jesus and his word. When we read or hear a portion of God’s promise to us in Christ, and we believe it, that is, we trust and rest in it and are satisfied by it, then the Holy Spirit is flowing to our hearts and love is being produced. Which means it is faith in all that God promises to be for us in Christ. It says that the Spirit works miracles through “hearing with faith.” In other words, the faith that brings the Spirit is faith in something heard. When we exercise faith, the Holy Spirit is flowing in the channel of that faith with love-producing power.īut let’s be more precise. So the way that faith and the Spirit combine to bring about love is that the Spirit works his miracles (including love) through faith. Paul asks rhetorically, “Does then, who provides you with the Spirit and works miracles among you, do it by the works of the law, or by hearing with faith?” This means (at least) that the powerful work of the Spirit in our hearts is not owing to works of law but to hearing with faith. Galatians 3:5 shows how the two sources of love fit together. So which is it? Is love produced by the Holy Spirit (Galatians 5:22)? Or is faith the thing that produces love (Galatians 5:6)? But Galatians 5:6 says, “In Christ Jesus neither circumcision nor uncircumcision means anything, but faith working through love.” This means at least that love comes from faith. According to Galatians 5:22, “The fruit of the Holy Spirit is love.” So it is clear that the Holy Spirit is the one who produces genuine love in the heart. Why then does he create that love only through our conscious trust in the promises of Jesus? He has the power to create love in our hearts any way he pleases.
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