Hereby perceive we the love of God, because "_He laid down His life for
us_." And the real test of any love is what it is prepared to "lay down."
How much is it ready to spend? How much will it bleed? There is much
spurious love about. It lays nothing down; it only takes things up! It is
self-seeking, using the speech and accents of love. It is a "work of the
flesh," which has stolen the label of a "fruit of the Spirit." Love may
always be known by its expenditures, its self-crucifixions, its Calvarys.
Love is always laying down its life for others. Its pathway is always a
red road. You may track its goings by the red "marks of the Lord Jesus."
And this is the life, the love-life, which the Lord Jesus came to create
among the children of men. It is His gracious purpose to form a spiritual
fellowship in which every member will be lovingly concerned about his
fellows' good. A real family of God would be one in which all the members
bleed for each, and each for all.
How can we gain this disposition of love? "God is love." "We love because
He first loved us." At the fountain of eternal love we too may become
lovers, becoming "partakers of the divine nature," and filled with all
"the fulness of God."