God is love

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​“He that loveth not knoweth not God; for God is love.” (1 John 4:8)

Consider well THE MULTITUDE OF LOVE'S DIFFICULTIES. When the grace of God comes into a man he is born at once to love. He that loves is born of God, and he that is born of God loves…No sooner is love born than she finds herself at war. Everything is against her, for the world is full of envy, hate, and ill-will.

You will have to contend with all that is within yourself. Nothing in your original nature will help you. God has put within you a new life, but the old life seeks to smother it. You will find it a severe struggle to master yourself, and if you succeed you will be a conqueror indeed. 

You will find very much about the best of people that will try your patience; for, like yourself, they are imperfect, and they will not always turn their best side towards you, but sometimes sadly exhibit their infirmities. Be prepared, to contend with "all things" in them. As for the ungodly whom you are to love to Christ, you will find everything in them that will oppose your loving them, for they, like you, by nature are born in sin, and they are rooted in their iniquities. 

Yet, be encouraged, “Happily, though love has many difficulties, it overcomes all difficulties.”

“I can do all things through Christ which strengtheneth me.” (Phillipians 4:13)

Charles Spurgeon

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