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.|