Exercise our Spirit of Love, Activate the Law of Love and Love others with God as love

Love is the most excellent way for us to be anything or do anything for the building up of the church as the organic Body of Christ; we need to activate the law of love by exercising our spirit of love to love the Lord and love all the saints with no partiality.

There are many ways for us to take when we do things in the church life, but the most excellent way is love.

Love is not only a virtue, an essence, or an emotion; love is a way. Actually, love is the most excellent way.

There are many different ways and many of these ways are needed and legitimate, and we may take some of these ways.

But among all the ways, love is the most excellent way. If we take the way of love, we will not go wrong when we do something or are something.

This doesn’t mean that we tolerate sin or idolatry, that we cover gross sins because “we love others”; rather, we know what is legal and moral, we have the highest morality, and we do not compromise our faith.

We do not compromise the principles of the Scripture, we never compromise the faith, and we contend for the truth; however, in all these, we choose the most excellent way, which is love.

Love is the most excellent way for us to be anything or do anything to build up the Body of Christ.

A parent who has to discipline a child, when it is necessary, needs to consider how he does it. If he does it in the flesh and with hate, this will elicit in time a reaction of the flesh from the child, even though the parent was right in disciplining the child.

The heart of a parent needs to be full of love; especially in disciplining the children, the heart needs to be full of love and void of hate or anger.

God, the Father of spirits, disciplines us, His sons, with a heart full of love.

We are not bastards: we are sons of God, and He disciplines us because he loves us.

As we are under God’s discipline, we can sense His love, for the source of His discipline is love.

Many times, however, the situation in the church life is abnormal; we may have a burning spirit of power or of knowledge with much zeal, but we may not have love.

We may even fall into legality, imposing certain doctrines or practices on others, and being quite formal and legal about it. Oh, Lord Jesus!

May the Lord save us from a spirit of legality that seeks to creep into the church life today.

May we have the loving and receiving heart of our Father God, the shepherding heart of our Savior Christ, and the seeking spirit of the Spirit toward the saints, loving them with the Lord as our love.

May we take the most excellent way of doing anything and being anything in the church life; may we take the way of love.

Regarding the matter of legality, the younger we are, the more we tend to be legal, but the more mature we are, the more we become conscious of this, and we allow the Lord as love to be expressed through us, dropping anything of legality.

Being like God in Loving others by Exercising our Spirit of Love and Expressing the Divine Life

In 1 Cor. 13 Paul speaks of the most excellent way for us to be anything and do anything in the church life: love.

The love described in this chapter is the expression of the divine life (vv. 4-8).

The fact that love is the fruit of the Spirit indicates that the substance of love must be the Spirit (Gal. 5:22).

We need to realize that, if we don’t have love, our speaking is like that of sounding brass and a clanging cymbal, which give sounds without life (1 Cor. 13:1; 14:1, 3, 4b, 12, 31; 2 Cor. 3:6).

We all know that what we need most of all is a higher level of life; we need more life, for the church life is a matter of the divine life, and the more life we have, the more we can live Christ and express Him.

This life, the divine life, finds an expression in love; the divine life is expressed through love.

When we say we are full of life but no one senses the divine love, there may not be that much life there.

We may think we are spiritual and knowledgeable, and we may be quite capable and have a good heart, but the essence of love may be missing.

May the Lord have mercy on us in this matter.

May we read and pray, pray and read 1 Cor. 13 before the Lord and allow the Lord to shine on us, expose us, and infuse himself into us as love.

God is love, and love is the essence of God. Love doesn’t brag; when someone expresses God as love, taking the most excellent way to do anything and be anything, he will not brag.

Love is not easily provoked; love doesn’t take account of others’ evil. Love believes all things, hopes all things and covers all things.

This is not our human love; this is not the love that we try to build up in ourselves – this is God as love.

Christ is love, and for us to be like God and love others as He does, we need to exercise our spirit of love and express the divine life.

The substance of love is something that we can generate or have; that substance is the Spirit, the pneumatic Christ.

We may give a good prophecy today, we may give a good message, or we may be able to preach the gospel in a prevailing way today, but we may not do it in love or out of love. Oh, Lord Jesus!

What we need is not more power or gift; what we need is more love.

One day, prophecy will stop and the gift will be no more, but love will still be here.

Love is not jealous, it is not provoked, it does not take account of evil but rather, covers all things, endures all things, survives everything, and is the greatest (1 Cor. 13:4-8, 13).

We may endure by gritting our teeth and trying our best, but eventually, love endures all things. Love is the greatest; love is the most excellent way.

We should be like God in our love for others, loving people without any discrimination (Matt. 5:43-48).

Some may say that we need to love the good and promising ones and, when it comes to those who are evil, do bad things, and are sinning, we should leave them alone.

However, the first one saved by Christ through His crucifixion was not a gentleman or a good person but a criminal, a robber, and sentenced to death (Matt. 27:38; Luke 23:42-43); this is very meaningful.

We may consider that some people are beyond hope and it is not possible for us or anyone to love them, but the Lord seems to see things differently; He loved even the one who was crucified with Him on the cross, simply because he repented and turned.

If He loves such ones, how much more should we also do the same?

We need to love people without discrimination; we need to love them without classifying them or thinking they are beyond hope or love – just love them with Christ as love.

We are of the divine species and we have the divine life; we can love not only those who are good but also those who are our enemies, the evil ones, for God as love prevails.

May we fan our gift into flame, for God did not give us a spirit of cowardice but of power and of love and of sober-mindedness (2 Tim. 4:6-7).

We may think that we’re very powerful and sober, but our spirit is not of love.

It is possible for us to be burning in spirit yet our spirit to be of power and not of love; this will cause others to be hurt and “burned” by our powerful spirit.

May we have a burning spirit of love, not a burning spirit of authority or of power.

Under today’s degradation of the church, we all need a spirit of love fanned into flame to be burning in spirit. This is how love prevails.

When we speak something, we should not threaten others nor should we rebuke or criticize them; rather, we should always say something out of love.

We need to exercise our spirit of love, fanning into flame the gift of God given to us by the Lord and therefore loving the Lord and others even as God loves them.

Lord Jesus, may we be like God in our loving others so that we may love them without any discrimination. Amen, Lord, we exercise our spirit of love to be burning in spirit, loving the Lord and loving others even as God loves them. May love prevail in the church life and also in our family life. May Your life increase and grow in us so that this life may be expressed as love. Grow in us, Lod, so that we may have more love toward God and man. Save us from doing things without love. Save us from speaking and doing things that are like a sounding brass and a clanging cymbal, giving sounds without life. Oh Lord, we do not have love in ourselves. We come to You to be filled with Your life. We exercise our spirit of love to do all things in love and out of love. Amen, Lord, we choose to take the way of love, the most excellent way for us to do anything and be anything in the church life!

When the Law of Love is Activated within us, we will Shepherd others and have a Labor of Love

The law of the Spirit of life is the law of Christ as the law of love (Rom. 8:2; Gal. 6:2-3). There is something called the law of love, which comes out of the law of the Spirit of life.

The law of love must be substantiated by the law of the Spirit of life so that we may be able to bear one another’s burdens.

But if we are filled with pride, if we are proud and think more highly of ourselves than we ought to think, we will be unable to bear others’ burdens.

If we’re filled with pride, we deceive ourselves by thinking that we are something when we are nothing (Gal. 6:3).

The law of the Spirit of life works automatically and spontaneously; when we fulfil the requirements for the law of life to operate, it will simply work.

This law of the Spirit of life automatically delivers us from the law of sin and of death.

We don’t have to try to do this or that – we simply need to activate the law of the Spirit of life, and it will operate automatically.

There is a law of life installed in us, which results in the law of love, operating automatically and spontaneously, even overwhelming us and taking over us.

When the law of love is activated within us, we automatically and spontaneously will be shepherds who have the loving and forgiving heart of our Father God and the shepherding and seeking Spirit of our Savior Christ (John 21:15-17; Luke 15:3-7).

When we exercise our spirit of love and activate the law of love activated in us, our labor in the Lord is a labor of love (1 Cor. 15:58; 1 Thes. 1:3) in which we support the weak (Acts 20:35) and sustain the weak (1 Thes. 5:14).

Who are those who are weak? It is those who are weak either in their spirit or soul or body or who are weak in faith (Rom. 14:1; 15:1).

Paul said, Who is weak and I am not weak? We all are weak. We cannot consider others weak and us not weak.

We should not have a hidden prejudice against others, a hidden kind of preference for certain saints or against certain saints. Rather, we need to support the weak, sustain the weak, and care for the weak.

The Lord came as the Great Physician to care for the weak; He spent time with the weak and sustained them, cared for them.

We can take care of those who are weak by activating the law of love and loving them without any discrimination. The church life is a life of brotherly love (1 John 4:7-8; 2 John 5-6; John 15:12, 17; Rev. 3:7; Eph. 5:2; cf. Jude 12a), and the Body builds itself up in love (Eph. 4:16).

We may listen to the messages of the ministry and become more knowledgeable, but we may be merely puffed up with mere knowledge; knowledge puffs up, but love builds up (1 Cor. 8:1; 2 Cor. 3:6).

Our God-given spirit, our regenerated spirit, is a spirit of love; we need to have a burning spirit of love to conquer the degradation of today’s church.

May we be those who exercise their spirit of love to thus activate the law of love and conquer the degradation in the church today.

We should love everyone – even our enemies; if we don’t love those who seem bad or not so promising, we may not have many people to love, for eventually everyone is bad or not promising.

May we be perfect as our heavenly Father is perfect (Matt. 5:48) by loving the evil ones and the good ones without any discrimination.

To those who are weak, we can also be weak to gain the weak (1 Cor. 9:22); that is love.

If we are proud or we simply exercise to have a spirit of power and sober-mindedness without love, we may think we’re strong and not weak, so we will not be able to help the weak.

Without taking love as the most excellent way to do anything and be anything in the church life, we cannot build up the church as the Body of Christ.

As branches of Christ, the true vine, we need to love one another in order to express the divine life in fruit-bearing (John 15:12-17).

Lord Jesus, we exercise our spirit of love to love You and love all men without any discrimination. May the law of love be activated within us so that we may spontaneously shepherd others with a loving and forgiving heart. May the law of love be activated within us so that our labor in the Lord may be a labor of love in which we support the weak and sustain the weak. Amen, Lord, may the church life be a life of brotherly love so that the Body may build itself up in love! May we all allow the Lord to minister to us, the weak ones, and may we activate the law of love to care for the weak and minister life to them. Oh Lord, save us from merely being puffed up when we read the Word or listen to messages. May we exercise our spirit of love, activate the law of love, and love others with God as love.

References and Hymns on this Topic

• Sources of inspiration: the Word of God, my enjoyment in the ministry, a sharing by brother Minoru Chen in the message, and portions from, Collected Works of Witness Lee, 1994-1997, vol. 5, “The Vital Groups,” msg. 8, as quoted in the Holy Word for Morning Revival on, Loving the Lord and loving one another for the organic building up of the church as the Body of Christ (2022 fall ITERO), week 1, entitled, Loving the Lord and loving one another – the most excellent way for us to be anything and do anything for the organic building up of the church as the Body of Christ.
• Hymns on this topic:
  – How sweet, how heav’nly is the sight, / When those who love the Lord / In one another’s peace delight, / And so fulfill His Word: / When each can feel his brother’s sigh, / And with him bear a part; / When sorrow flows from eye to eye, / And joy from heart to heart. (Hymns #857 stanzas 1-2)
  – For which cause, I remind you / To fan into flame the gift of God / Which is in you / Through the laying on of my hands, / You fan into flame the gift of God, / Which is in you. / For God has not given us / A spirit of cowardice, / But of power and of love / And of sobermindedness. (Scripture song)
  – Never a weakness that He doth not feel, / Never a sickness that He cannot heal; / Moment by moment, in woe or in weal, / Jesus, my Savior, abides with me still. / Moment by moment I’m kept in His love, / Moment by moment I’ve life from above; / Looking to Jesus till glory doth shine; / Moment by moment, O Lord, I am Thine. (Hymns #486 stanza 5 and chorus)