Yes! Thanks for reminding me. I will get back to that shortly. Didn’t mean to leave you (and others) hanging like that!

“We love because He first loved us” (1 John 4:19)

The question asked and somewhat answered in the comments of the previously question was, “What is love?” We tend to approach love anthropomorphically. That is, we experience love in the fallen world of men where we have an idea of reconciliation and the development of personal intimacy. I believe this may be God’s intent to demonstrate to us in a way meaningful to us His relationship with us as well as internally to himself. Therefore I theorize philosophically that love from an eternal aspect is God’s internal cohesion where he always agrees with himself. I doubt any of us lack internal conflict of some sort, but in our relationship with God as those who have been given the gift of reconciliation through the work of Christ and the indwelling of the Holy Spirit, our conviction works itself out in sanctification as our internal conflicts are to be continually addressed and reconciled as our sins are mortified so that we experience increasing intimacy in the Body of Christ and with God Himself. Therein we learn humility, submission and self-sacrifice even as we support each other in the Body of Christ in the battle for reconciliation in each other’s internal conflicts. Perhaps this is love.

Thanks for the feedback. To be sure, I’m reading.

I’ve also been thinking since the last discussion about Christ’s linking of our love for him to obeying his teaching and his Father’s commands in John 14. Love is the cause and obedience the result here, but the Bible also says that obedience keeps us in His love (“If you obey my commands, you will remain in my love, just as I have obeyed my Father’s commands and remain in his love.” John 15:10 and “But if anyone obeys his word, God’s love is truly made complete in him. This is how we know we are in him:” I John 2:5) So our love leads to obedience, but our obedience also keeps us in God’s love and completes His love in us, which I think would also increase our love for Him.

Still thinking it all through , but I would have to say we come to have love for Christ first through the gift of salvation and the Holy Spirit working in us. But we also remain in that love, and grow in love, through obedience to God’s Word.