“But as touching brotherly love ye need not that I write unto you: for ye yourselves are taught of God to love one another.” (1 Thessalonians 4:9)
Man is not only good at doing evil; he is bad at doing good. The truly good is always of God. Even the best of human instincts go awry when God is not guiding them.
Love that is not the product of God operating in our heart can quickly turn to hate when not reciprocated. Love that is the product of our own good intentions can do more harm than good. However noble they may appear, when the movements of our heart are absent God’s instruction, they are destined to fall short. Love that never fails is the outworking of God’s Spirit within us.
God doesn’t want us to “try to be good.” He wants us to give up “trying” and look to Him to produce in us what we are naturally without. When the God of all love is at work in another there is no need to tell them to love; they are taught of God to do so. Likewise, when God dwells in us, no one needs to tell us what we should do – the anointing that dwells within us teaches us all things. Above all, God’s Spirit teaches us how to love.