Acts 19:2 – He said to them, “Did you receive the Holy Spirit when you believed?” And they said to him, “On the contrary, we have not even heard if there is a Holy Spirit.”
Rom.5:5 – the love of God has been poured out within our hearts through the Holy Spirit who was given to us.
One of the most disturbing passages of scripture to me is found in Revelation 2. It is the first of seven letters written by John from the Lord and it brings correction to the church in Ephesus. After listing all of their accomplishments and deeds He said He had one thing against them, they had “left their first love”. WOW!! Those are words I never want to hear from the Lord, can you imagine the heartbreak, tenderness, and authority in His voice? I would definitely be looking for a place to hide. When that letter was written thirty years had passed since the beginning of the church in Ephesus. In the early days that church had been consumed by the love of God but time has a way of cooling things down. Today’s verse from Acts talks about the Holy Spirit and how Paul prepared them to be filled with the Spirit. A first love lifestyle is the work of the Spirit in our lives. Here is what Edwards said about that in his comments on Romans 5:5.
“By “the love of God shed abroad in our hearts,” the Apostle probably intends so as to include a sense of God’s love to us….. as well our love to God, for ’tis said, “the love of God,” not “love to God.” In short, the term “the love of God,” as used by the Apostle, when applied to something infused into our hearts and diffused there, is a term of larger signification than as it is commonly understood by us. It includes the whole of that divinely sweet sensation that is in the soul of a Christian when the Holy Ghost is given him as a seal, and earnest, and future glory, exciting as it were in the soul, an inward soul-ravishing sense of mutual love between God and us.”
What exactly is the connection with the Holy Spirit and the love of God? The Holy Spirit is a distinct person that exists as a manifestation or better, the personification of the infinite love enjoyed between the Father and the Son. This is what John means when he said, “God is love”. Sooooooo, the Holy Spirit is God’s love expressed in a person. When we are filled with the Spirit we are consumed by God’s love. This is where our love for God comes from, it is as if Jesus is loving the Father through us. When someone is filled with the Spirit, first love is always the result.
