[W]e know that we all have knowledge. Knowledge makes arrogant, but love edifies. If anyone supposes that he knows anything, he has not yet known as he ought to know; but if anyone loves God, he is known by Him.

1 Corinthians 8:1-3 (portion)

Love builds up.  It edifies.  It substantiates.  Love is the substance of the Gospel.  The man without love is without God, for God is love.

The Kingdom of God requires diligence, patience, long-suffering, peace, and trust, because these are what love are.  Perhaps one of the greatest equalizers in the universe is the power of love.  Both kings and those who the world regards as “nobody”s can have it, and it can make either of their hearts warm, and soft, and alive.  Both can possess everything that matters in this life, and never lack, because love is enough.

When some people begin to talk about the cost, others usually assume that one is elevating themselves, to paraphrase another preacher.  Yet, it is when it is done for love, that it doesn’t matter to the individual what price is paid, even if it costs everything he is.

If a man were to give all the riches of his house for love, it would be utterly despised.

Song of Songs 8:7 (portion)

Truly, if it is done for love, a man would completely hate any recognition that he’d done anything important.

But, the world cannot do this love.  The world cannot live this life.  The earthly man cannot even imagine this life of a Christian, really.

When someone comes to you with an argument, with a disagreement, with a position, or a with a doctrine, one good place to start is, is it in love?  The factual information may be correct, but that is not, according to Paul, enough.

The man who thinks he knows something does not yet know as he ought (verse above).  There is not truth in this world.  Truth comes through Jesus Christ.  The answer is not in a renaissance of the arts, although there will be one.  It is not merely the spirit of prophecy,  although it is the testimony of Jesus (Revelation 19:10).

But, this love is the substance of the message, the love and person of Jesus Christ.

This love is not the love that requires something in return, nor the love of affections, but it is God’s love.  Look at the life of Jesus.  Study His way of handling situations in interpreting love.  It is not as the world loves, but it is a love that is separate, that does not trust its heart to anyone because it knows what is in the hearts of men (John 2:24).  This love is the love that lifts the sinner who knows they are in sin (John 8:1-11), and yet pronounces Woe! upon those who stand in the way of the truth (Matthew 23:13-36).  It is a heart that loves righteousness and the proclamation of truth, and brings the judgement it hates when it does not respond in the light (Luke 19:41).  Again, this is not the world’s love.  It is not what they sing about on the radio.  It is not what they write about in their books.  It is not the way the carnal man loves, but it is God’s love.

In Peter’s list of things to add to our walk in 2 Peter 1, Love is the final thing, not because it is least, but because it is greatest. We add goodness, knowledge, self-control, perseverance, godliness, brotherly-kindness, and finally love.  It takes God’s love in us to love, to feel secure to love, to know that we have nothing left to protect.  And, yet, it knows its place.  Even Jesus’ first response to the foreigner with the demonized daughter responded that He had not been sent to her.  He knew what He was called to.

These thoughts, however, are just thoughts though, if they are not mixed with faith, and not filled with the substance of this love.  Unless this is walked out in the presence of the Holy Ghost within us, and worked out in understanding and context with the one who wrote the scriptures, they are simply another law, another rule book, and they must not be that.

So long as you think you know something, you do not yet know as you ought, for knowledge puffs up, but love builds up.  So long as you have an doctrinal position, and do not have God in that doctrinal position, your might end up standing on your own strength.

Because of this, it is most important to fall deeper in love, to learn His Presence, to learn His Spirit, once you have the foundations of the faith, the basic doctrinal tenets.  God can use any model or pattern He sees fit, but because an intellectual position without faith does nothing with being infused with His life, it is essential that we be built up in Him at least as much as we are filled with the understanding of Him.

His Spirit is the Spirit of Truth, and He leads us into all truth and keeps us from error.  The Gospels say that other spirits were  ‘unclean’, where as God’s Spirit is pure, holy, and clean for man (Psalm19).  The Holy Spirit is sufficient to keep a person from error, so long as we are taught to listen, and to discern Him.  His wisdom is first pure, then peaceable, easily entreated or received (James3:17).

As we grow in His Spirit and His love, we begin more and more to act as He acted, not out of a list of rules, but from the laws that have been written upon our heart.