Love Is So Easy -- But in Case You Still Think Otherwise . . .

What's wrong with trying to love, anyway? If we try in our own might, then we are in the flesh. Paul outlined the unwholesome consequences of those attempts:

"Now the works of the flesh are manifest, which are these; Adultery, fornication, uncleanness, lasciviousness,

"Idolatry, witchcraft, hatred, variance, emulations, wrath, strife, seditions, heresies,

"Envyings, murders, drunkenness, revellings, and such like: of the which I tell you before, as I have also told you in time past, that they which do such things shall not inherit the kingdom of God." (Galatians 5: 19-21)

Here, "flesh" speaks of any effort through the body and the mind. If we do anything through our own power instead of relying on the grace of God in us, it will only produce all manner of evil. Even if we will to do the good or the right thing, it will still only produce weak and beggarly elements, dead works which profit nothing:

"I find then a law, that, when I would do good, evil is present with me.

"For I delight in the law of God after the inward man:

"But I see another law in my members, warring against the law of my mind, and bringing me into captivity to the law of sin which is in my members.

"O wretched man that I am! who shall deliver me from the body of this death?

"I thank God through Jesus Christ our Lord. So then with the mind I myself serve the law of God; but with the flesh the law of sin." (Romans 7: 21-25)

In the last verse, Paul speaks to the mind of Christ, which is formed in every believer:

"For who hath known the mind of the Lord, that he may instruct him? But we have the mind of Christ." (1 Corinthians 2:16)

However, we still possess a fleshly intellect, one which wars with the Spirit of God within us. Our body, our members are still fallen, not regenerated when we are born again.

So, every believer faces the temptation not so much expressly to sin, but to live from one's flesh, to try in one's own might to be obedient.

We love because He first loved us. He works in us to receive His love and release His love to others. However, because we still inhabit broken bodies, a reprobate mind, and live in a fallen world, the temptation remains to try and love, to try and forgive, and thus activate the flesh within ourselves and fall short of God's gracious and glorious ideal.

So, beloved, do not try to love. Magnify God and His love by faith and faithful meditation on the Word of God, and watch Him work wonders in your life.

Love is easy -- Because God is, God is for you, God is in you, and God does all things through us by faith -- So stop working so hard!