#156 What love is
From Meditations on the Epistles of John, by Samuel Froehlich
If we should ask what love is, John answers that in the children of God it is the exact opposite of hate in the children of the devil. As, for instance, hate is not slothful or indifferent but zealous, active, inventive that it allows no rest until its last bit of fury has cooled off, one risks goods and chattels, life and body to secure satisfaction for himself and only then is brought to his senses when he has hurled himself and others into destruction and misfortune and is himself often changed by hardened obstinacy (even as Cain who, after he had slain his brother, asked, “Am I my brother’s keeper?"). So is divine love not cold, slothful or indifferent either, but zealous and burning for God and all good things, with resignation and the offering up of one’s self, so that every member of the body of Christ cooperates for the edification of the whole and seeks to please all the others for the good and lets one have no rest until the house of God is made ready, like David who would give no slumber to his eyes (Psalm 132) until he had sought out a place for a habitation of God.
Isaiah 62:6-7 I have set watchmen upon thy walls, O Jerusalem, which shall never hold their peace day nor night: ye that make mention of the Lord, keep not silence, “And give him no rest, till he establish, and till he make Jerusalem a praise in the earth.”
Slothfulness and coldness is also the opposite of love, since in the lukewarmness and drowsiness of the believers the devil exercises his first and greatest power for the destruction of the same, so as to rob the blessing of fellowship and brotherly love, and we shall see to it that we bury not the pound we have received but through usuriousness husband it for the Lord, so that we receive praise from Him and as faithful servants enter into the joy of the Lord on the day of reckoning. For as it is said of Him, "The zeal of thine house hath eaten me up," so shall the love of Christ constrain us also to be zealous for His kingdom and honor, for ourselves and for others, and as good angels of God help and serve one another unto salvation.
Where each one will be for himself only and will go his own way, there neither the love of Christ nor the communion of the Spirit is to be found and he who does not contribute toward the salvation of the whole, does not work out his own salvation either—with fear and trembling. He who does not serve God with fervent love already helps the devil to harm, even if it is not his intention and he does not know it. The influence of the devil through the fleshly mind is very near at hand and by the example of Peter (Matthew 26), we see that even believers and friends with good intentions can serve as instruments of Satan.
Anything that causes slothfulness and uncharitableness and negligence is of the devil and is not God’s way. Faith without love’s works is dead in itself, even though by word it may boast ever so much. It would indeed be a grievous thing if the children of God were less zealous in love than the children of the devil are in hatred.