Having vs participating in God's love

Having and participating in God's love are two separate things (though not unrelated). 

The tension between these is throughout scripture.

Having God's love is based solely on (secured by) the faithfulness/work of another i.e. on Christ's faithful obedience and sacrifice. 

*Nothing we do can add to or take away from this. 

This is complete/finished.

Participating in God's love is based on our faithfulness/work. 

**Only what we do determines this. 

This is ongoing and never finished.

Having his love is like owning a bank account with unlimited funds, available to you at any and all times.

Participating in his love is making a withdrawal and using it to honor/love someone (whether that be God, someone else or ourselves).

We can have the former and never experience the latter but we can never have (participate in) the latter without the former.

And

We will never truly and fully know (experience) the former until we ***fully participate in the latter.

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*how can it since it's not based on our efforts to begin with.

**this is not to say we do this in our own power but only in the power of the Spirit. For several posts addressing the Spirit see the following:

Spirit driven

The empowering of Spirit

Operating in Spirit...mystical or practical?

Defining terms-flesh-spirit 

For a post discussing our "work" click here.

***we will not fully participate in this in this life but only begin to. The degree to which we do now, determines the degree to which we experience him in eternity.

Faith is contageous

Faith is not only necessary for living but contagious. We want to believe because we want to be cared for/valued. Belief is infectious because it is tied to our need for love. We are drawn to love like a moth is to flame/light.

This is why we are so easily allured to promises that can (or may) not truly deliver. Though we like to think our views are based solely on reality/truth, they are based more on belief and hope then irrefutable facts. Belief that what we seek for life, it truly life long term. 

However we are quick to trust and depend only on anything and everything except God, who alone promises true life long term (i.e. eternal life). Why? Two reasons. 

1. We can't control God. We don't like trusting in what we can not control. Trust and control are opposite's.

2. What God offers is often not immediate but a long term solution. What we want however is immediate reward, resolution or relief. Long-term reward or relief requires greater trust and patience and is outside our control (eating a treat or watching a movie on the other hand [or whatever is our "drug" of choice] is more immediate and within our control).

This is also why people are so emotional/passionate (even volatile at times) about their views (e.g. religion and politics); they are tied to their need for love, a sense of well-being, purpose and meaning. In effect if you mess with my beliefs you are messing with me, my identity and my sense of value i.e. our belief system is more emotionally than intellectually based.

This is also key to how you change someone's mind. If you wish to win someone to your way of viewing things, you treat them with more value (love) then their current belief system offers or provides. Love (meaning/purpose/value) after all is what we are really after, not facts.     

Trust and "gathering facts"

The reason we must trust is we are limited in the facts we can gather i.e. we are finite. We don't know everything and can not be everywhere to observe all that is "out there" to observe. Much of our views are based on what we don't know but simply must believe (trust) is so (we know what we know, but it's what we don't know that is our challenge). This is why someone's commitment to a particular view may seem irrational to others who don't hold that view while perfectly rational to those that do.

For example, I don't see God, therefore I don't believe he exists. And since he doesn't I am not accountable to a Creator and free to choose how I choose to conduct my life

OR

I believe there is a God because I see design, beauty and love in and around me indicating there is some kind of higher meaning and purpose to life. A higher purpose suggests a higher will (or Being) then my own. 

Neither of these views can be proven in the absolute sense due to our finiteness, so we interpret them to mean what we choose to believe.

In summary, we can not operate without faith, no matter what our world view. And since we are designed for love we gravitate to that which meet's that need best (at the moment) based on our limited perspective. Faith is not only necessary because of our limits it is necessary in that it is tied to our very sense and need for value/love. Because of these two factors faith is not just unavoidable, it is contagious.

For a further discussion on being finite click here.

For a further discussion on being designed for love click here for several related articles.

Do our deeds matter?

If God's love for us is not based on what we do, do our good deeds matter?

Absolutely! 

Doing things to honor God and love others has real value/importance/significance. 

To live in such as way as to honor God and display his infinite worth in our day to day affairs is a vital means by which others can see something of the love of God and our love for him and thereby be drawn to him. This also has immense value to God since he seeks to spread his glory throughout the earth.

To treat others with value/love is also of tremendous importance. It brings true value directly to them (whereas the above is more indirect) and can be a means by which we point them directly to God as the source of life, love and all things instead of just indirectly. It can be key to someone seeing something about God in and through our actions thereby also being drawn to faith in him. Loving others as he loves us is not only a way we directly bless others but a primary way in which we honor God.

So living for God in general pleases God and seeking to honor him by directly helping others, also pleases him by blessing others.

In these two ways, loving God and neighbor, we are acting as we were designed to; loving others out of our love for God.  

So there is no doubt as to whether what we do or don't do matters. It matters greatly. We are God's appointed means to "put him on display" and to love others so they might come to know him and experience him in all his glory for their greatest joy.

It matters to us as well since we are designed to operate in this way and how we experience the maximum of who God created us to be - which in turn brings us greatest joy as well as great reward.

But are our actions, good deeds, obedience etc the means by which we gain/earn God's love and acceptance? 

And are we to seek and find our sense of value, acceptance and purpose by bringing value (doing good deeds) to others. This is often were much confusion lies and a distinction must be made. 

There is no doubt we can be valuable to others and also no doubt we will derive a sense of our own value in helping others. The question however becomes whether this is the basis or grounds for our true acceptance and value. 

To say it another way, do we act to gain acceptance and approval from God and others or because we already have it? If we already have it we will give or bring value to others. Loving others - treated them as valuable, significant etc - is the fruit of our being loved by God. And when others benefit we can legitimately rejoice in being the means of showing them God's love. But to garner acceptance and praise of others is not to be the reason we act. We are designed to act out of fullness and not in an attempt to obtain acceptance from others by or through our actions i.e. out of emptiness.

This is easy to say but not always easy to identify since the true motive of our hearts is not always obvious to us. Our hearts after are desperately wicked. Who can know it. 

So what exactly is the basis of God's acceptance of us and from where do we acquire our true sense of significance, meaning and value?

In truth, there is *nothing we can do to earn or gain God's acceptance. The ultimate grounds by which we are accepted and loved by God has to come not by our efforts but that of someone else. It is in and by God's approval of his Son i.e. his Son's faithfulness in honoring God and loving his neighbor to the point of losing his own life. This is because we can not and do not honor God or love our neighbor well enough for our efforts to ever cause God to love and accept us.

God's absolute love and acceptance of us requires our 100% (perfect) faithfulness. Faithfulness we never do (or can do). Anything less is inadequate, unacceptable and insufficient because God is the 100% cause of life, love and all things (all that we have and are). Because these are true he rightfully deserves and should receive our 100% commitment, faithfulness, honor and love.

Since we never are 100% faithful (and can be without his Spirit/love moving us to faithfulness) this had to be done for us if we were ever to be accepted by God. It had to be done perfectly because God is perfect and is rightly due perfect and absolute faithfulness. Only the eternal Son of God could do this and did do this, for us. If there was to ever be any hope of God restoring us to himself, this had to be done because we could not do it ourselves. We simply are too distrusting and too unfaithful i.e. we are not 100% faithful. If he hadn't done this for us we'd be without hope. Because it's 100% obtained for us by Christ we have absolute 100% hope. 

To do things in order to be accepted and loved by God or others will never cause God to love and accept us or give us what we need and were designed to experience i.e. 100% acceptance and love by God. 

To say it simply we don't act to gain value but to give it because we already have it, in Christ. And in so doing we in fact bring real value to others.

We treat others with value because God is 100% worthy of our faithful pursuit and so are others he's created.

God certainly loves and approves our doing things for his honor and glory; when we demonstrate our love for him by loving our neighbor as ourselves. It's just not the basis by which he accepts and receives us.

Pleasing God is not performing for God to gain his acceptance, it is operating by faith to spread his glory.

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*The issue in question is a legal one i.e. justification, not the very practical day to day one of pleasing God. Faithfulness definitely pleases God, it simply doesn't justify us and make us right with God or causes him to accept us.

We do things to bring him glory, not to earn or cause him to accept us. 

Lovable versus lovely

Seldom are we are ¹truly lovely but we are always lovable and even adorable in the eyes of God.

There is something about us that is worth adoring. 

Not only so but we have the capacity to experience and enjoy adoration i.e. to be adored.

What is it about us that is worth loving and adoring? At a minimum -- at our worst and even in our greatest state of rebellion -- we are like God in that we still have the capacity to display something of who he is and what He's like as the ultimate person worthy of all adoration i.e. our capacity/ability to be loved and adored makes it possible for us to be lovely and adorable because we are like God, who is lovely and adorable. 

As His image bearer, we have the capacity to experience and enjoy love and adoration and respond to Him in love and adoration. In fact, in order to love and adore him as much as possible, in such a way that even comes close to his true and full worthiness of all our adoration, we had to have the innate capacity to be loved and adored. 

We are designed to be in a reciprocal relationship with God to receive his love and adoration and respond in kind.  And in so doing we put God on display for others to see and be drawn to him. This capacity - only given to us by God and ²not lost in our rebellion - is what makes us lovable, adorable and of great worth to God and others. 

Nothing else fits who we are 

Finding love and adoration apart from and outside of God is not sufficient. Anything less than the love and adoration of God -- receiving these from and reflecting them back to him -- simply will not do. No substitutes will work because there is nothing else like God -- i.e. There is only one God who is the most lovable and adorable, who created all things and on which all things depend. 

It also fits who He designed us be. We were made to be in a love relationship with this all loving, wise and powerful being called God. Why is the giving and receiving of love and adoration significant? These are core to God's being as Father, Son, and Spirit who love and adore each other and we are like him so we too might take part in this triune community of love, beauty, and overflowing joy that is core to who God is.

He is the most lovely and most adorable and has created us with the capacity to enjoy him as such. That capacity means we too must be lovable and adorable, otherwise, we could not truly appreciate this about him.

When we are truly loved and adored we reciprocate. It is the way He designed us and how we are hard wired. If we do not reciprocate we have not yet truly experienced his love and adoration. 
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¹in fact, we can not be truly lovely as we are designed to be until we experience the love of God who is the Source of love. 

To say it another way, we were never designed to initiate love for God but to be the recipients of his love and to respond to His love and love him in return i.e. we are love responders, not love generators. To say it another way, we are like God -- in His image -- but we are not God. 

²What was lost was our actual loving and adoring of God, not our capacity to love and adore Him. So for all practical intents and purposes, we might as well have lost the capacity to love and adore God. However, if the capacity had been completely annihilated we could (and would) never respond to God when he reveals his love and adoration to and for us. 

Celebrating our design and our Designer

The creative efforts of people may be carried out for the wrong reason (i.e. to exalt and advance self not God) but the fruit of those efforts is still evidence of the image of God within us all. For this reason we can (and should) fully appreciate the results of those efforts for what they are; evidence of the majesty, wonder and creativity of God within each of us, his image-bearers. 

Our creative abilities show us something significant for both God and us. Something that can be legitimately appreciated and admired (even the ability to design and construct the Tower of Babel gives evidence of the image of God within us).

Nevertheless, if these efforts are not carried out in an attempt to honor the one in whose image we are designed, they ultimately are all for naught i.e. they will have no eternal value.

We can and should celebrate humanity's design and our ability to create, but in doing so we must recognize the Creator (the giver of our abilities) and our utmost Designer is the ultimate reason for our celebration.

A divided nation

Why is our *nation so divided? What are the factors? Some are external and objective (i.e. there are outside forces deliberately attempting to "divide and conquer" us [though some would say this is conspiracy theory]) but whatever external influences there are, these outside factors could not have influence or take hold if there were not subjective issues first. The following addresses the subjective.

Ultimately, the solution to our national woes is not political but spiritual.

For example, the government can put forth the right policy but if the individual hearts of men and women are not submitted to truth (or **recognize there is such a thing as objective truth and morality), right policy will not change their hearts (or their minds). They may comply but only to avoid the consequences, not because they agree.

Right policy only addresses external behavior, not the internal desire to live truthfully with integrity or even the recognition of an objective moral standard.

Without an objective standard such as loving God equal to his loveliness and treating others as you wish to be treated, you only have "every man for himself" with a commitment to doing what is right "in their own eyes" - i.e. your "moral" standard is your subjective values/beliefs and unchecked desires.

Should we engage in the political process and seek to implement right policy? Absolutely! But we must also recognize, given man's natural bent away from God, that until the hearts of individual men and women change right policy will only be looked at by many as an obstruction to happiness, not a means to it. 

We should be praying for our nation as much, if not more than we seek to promote right policy. Why? Because ultimately, only God can make a nation good. 

For more on the importance of praying for our nation click here.

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*Though I have America primarily in mind, the same need for spiritual focus applies to any country or group. 

**In order for unity to occur in a society or a nation (or any other social unit such as a company, a family, marriage or a church) there must be a commitment to the same primary values. In order for this to occur there must be the recognition that there is such a thing as absolute objective truth; that our values are not simply subjective; that there is such a thing as objective and absolute good and bad values. If they are only subjective, who decides what (or whose) values take priority over another i.e. there must be either an outside arbitrator or an objective standard. 

For a further discussion on the importance of values in the sociopolitical realm click here. 

God's wrath...reasonable or unreasonable?

The wrath of God seems unreasonable and unfair unless and until we understand how great God is and how infinitely short we come in giving God his just and due honor i.e. the recognition of His greatness and the full extent of our rebellion in not recognizing it. 

It is only as we come to see how infinitely great God is, and ²wrestle with the depth and extent of our rebellion to Him by refusing to recognize it, that we see how just God's wrath is. The more we do, the more clear this becomes. 

But if God is so great, why are we not struck down on the spot for our rebellious disregard for His infinite greatness? If God's majesty is that great and our rebellious refusal to acknowledge it/Him is that pervasive, shouldn't we be? 

We assume God's ³lack of ⁵action means our rebellion must not be that big a deal. When in reality, it is only because of His kindness and mercy we are not destroyed, not because our rebellion is insignificant. 

2Pe 3:4  They will say, “Where is the promise of his coming? For ever since the fathers fell asleep, all things are continuing as they were from the beginning of creation.”... 

9 The Lord is not slow to fulfill his promise as some count slowness, but is patient toward you, not wishing that any should perish, but that all should reach repentance.

His patience and goodness are why we are not struck down. ¹Ironically, His patience, goodness, and mercy are a significant part of what makes God so great. He is great not only in power and righteousness but in grace, mercy, and patience toward us in our rebellion. 

The suffering of Christ...a key reminder of our true condition

The reason the humbling, rejection, suffering, and death of Christ is so offensive too many is it screams out that our rebellion towards God is so great and offensive that it required Christ, the flawless Son of the Fathers infinite love, to go through all the emotional, spiritual and physical pain He did to restore us back to his Father. Because of our rebellion, we down play and even mock Christ's suffering. 

The dishonor our rebellion brought -- and brings -- to God and Christ, with the resultant harm it causes others is genuine, not ethereal, or without consequence. Disregard for who He is and all He did is real with very real consequences. 

To assert that God's anger at rebellious unbelief is overly harsh is to minimize the pain it causes ⁴others as well as the dishonor it brings to God. It can not be casually or simply dismissed or ignored. God is too great, and we as his image-bearers are too significant for Him to ignore the harm our unbelief causes others. Christ's willingness to suffer and go through a brutal death for us is our greatest proof. 

It is only when we wrestle with the extent of our own personal rebellion that we see how great it truly is and begin to fully appreciate the extent, necessity, and significance of what Christ went through to restore us. 

As well, the more we grasp the extent of what Christ went through, do we begin to see how far short we come in giving him his just and due honor. 

For a further discussion on the necessity of God's judgment, click here. 

For a discussion on what makes hell, hell click here. 

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¹the unexpected irony is the greatness of our rebellion is seen clearest against the backdrop of God's love and mercy which is the primary expression of that greatness. The greatness of God is expressed not only in his power but in his humility by His willingness to suffer on our behalf. The more we see the greatness of God through the emptying of Christ's rightful glory, the more we realize how far short we come in properly recognizing and acknowledging that greatness.

For a further discussion of the humility of God, click here. 

²our wrestling only comes over time through persistent pursuit of God. There are no shortcuts. It is something we must go through/experience ourselves, not simply grasp in our heads through the experience and stories of others. The greater and longer our persistence in pursuing God, the more we wrestle and see, through first-hand experience, the depth of our rebellion. 

However, time alone does not bring about the needed development of faith but only when coupled with an earnest pursuit of God i.e. time enables our spiritual advancement quantitatively but is not required to experience it qualitatively. To say it another way, the more (quantitatively) we engage God, the greater the quality of our walk with God can be. 

This truth is captured and illustrated well in the struggle of Jacob when he wrestled with God the night before he faced the wrath of his brother Esau. 

Gen 32:24  And Jacob was left alone. And a man wrestled with him until the breaking of the day. 25  When the man saw that he did not prevail against Jacob, he touched his hip socket, and Jacob's hip was put out of joint as he wrestled with him. 26  Then he said, “Let me go, for the day has broken.” But Jacob said, “I will not let you go unless you bless me.” 27  And he said to him, “What is your name?” And he said, “Jacob.” 28  Then he said, “Your name shall no longer be called Jacob, but Israel, for you have striven with God and with men, and have prevailed.” 29  Then Jacob asked him, “Please tell me your name.” But he said, “Why is it that you ask my name?” And there he blessed him.   

30 So Jacob called the name of the place Peniel (the face of God), saying, “For I have seen God face to face, and yet my life has been delivered.” 31  The sun rose upon him as he passed Penuel, limping because of his hip. 32  Therefore to this day the people of Israel do not eat the sinew of the thigh that is on the hip socket, because he touched the socket of Jacob's hip on the sinew of the thigh. 

This event resulted in two permanent changes to Jacob... 

A change in his identity (he was no longer Jacob the clever and self-reliant "heel-grabber" or "supplanter" but Israel, the Prince of God) 

and 

A physical change (see vs 25, 31 above) was a reminder of his dependence on God. 

This was also experienced and expressed by Job after a period of intense suffering. 

Job 42:1  Then Job answered the LORD and said: 2  “I know that you can do all things, and that no purpose of yours can be thwarted. 3  ‘Who is this that hides counsel without knowledge?’ Therefore I have uttered what I did not understand, things too wonderful for me, which I did not know. Job 4  ‘Hear, and I will speak; I will question you, and you make it known to me.’ 5  I had heard of you by the hearing of the ear, but now my eye sees you; 6  therefore I despise myself, and repent in dust and ashes.” 

And of course the experience of Joseph also from the time of boasting about his vision as a cocky adolescent until he was reunited with his brothers and father as an adult with a family of his own. 

³I find it interesting whenever a nation experiences some kind of great calamity (such as hurricanes or other natural disasters) that we begin to hear whispers that this is evidence of God's judgment. It's as if we have this intuitive or instinctive sense we are not giving God his due honor and are therefore under his just judgment. 

⁴Downplaying the harm our wrongdoing brings to others is the fruit of this view. This results in greater sympathy for the offender than the offended; the opposite of what it should be. 

⁵The reality is God did take action by sending his Son to take on the consequences of our rebellion. His long-suffering is such that we have the opportunity to receive his gift of forgiveness and the righteousness necessary to enter his presence. These are offered to us freely so we might be restored to God.

Spirit driven

How do we know if a deed is Spirit driven/empowered? 

If it is done to bring honor (glory) to God out of love for and trust in God, i.e. if it is from (caused by), through, and to Him, it is Spirit driven as a response to God's first treating us with love, honor, value. 

Operating in the Spirit is the interaction (reciprocation) between the source of love (God) and the recipient (us). He (the source) is lovely and trustworthy (and has already fully proven his love in giving us Christ). His great love that was poured out on us in and through Christ (without our doing anything to provoke/cause it), awoke our hearts to love, calling (wooing) us to love, trust and follow him in response. Obedience is the fruit of God's love poured out on us through Christ.

A truly good deed must always start with God, i.e. there must be a lovely and trustworthy object (God) in which the subject (us) can place their love and trust. 

Why? 

1. Without a worthy object, there can be (and is) no love and trust in and by us. 

2. There is nothing more worthy of our complete love and trust other than the infinitely lovely and trustworthy. Only an infinitely lovely object can evoke and draw infinite love out of us.  

3. God is the source/cause of love, not us.

4. By design we receive and respond to love, not initiate it i.e. as God-like creatures (in his image) we are created for love and hard-wired to respond to love. When loved sacrificially, we respond with love.

It (a deed) also must end with God. That which is Spirit driven is also God-focused (targeted). God is not only the cause/source of love, He's also the end/object of it i.e. all that we do is done for the glory of God.

God is both the beginning/cause (the Alpha) and end (Omega) of all our actions/deeds. 

This means we are all about "showing him off" to others. To say it another way, if you are truly God-focused (all about advancing his honor/worth/glory) you are Spirit-driven.

But it doesn't stop here 

This is only where it starts. God is the cause and end of our actions, but to know this fully (for it to be perfected/completed), we must act on who he is for us by faith. Our faith must be perfected/ matured (just as Christ also learned obedience through His own struggles). 

To see, enter into and experience him as lovely and trustworthy in ever-increasing degrees, we must pursue him as such, i.e. by faith. Our (subjective) experience of him as a being that is loving and trustworthy (objectively) is contingent upon our actions, i.e. that he is loving and trustworthy. This goes beyond the proof of God's love already shown by his past sacrifice and involves our present engagement, ongoing experience, and participation in that love.

This doesn't mean he loves us more when we obey him, it means we enter more fully into that infinite, ¹unobstructed love he has already totally and fully secured for us in Christ. A love He had for us long before we ever lifted a finger for his sake (Rom 5:8). 

True faith always results in acting upon what we believe. As James said, "...Show me your faith apart from your works, and I will show you my faith by my works..." There must be movement towards (attraction to and affection for) the object of love, otherwise, our knowledge of God is only in our heads and not in our hearts. 

If there is no attraction, affection, and resulting action, there is no real and true love, i.e. we really don't know his love for us. If we did, we would (and will) act accordingly. 

To truly know his love is to be moved to love him in return, i.e. moved to action-obedience. It is not possible to truly know we are loved by God and not be moved to love him back.

1Jn_4:8  Anyone who does not love does not know God, because God is love. (i.e. it is impossible to know the God of love and not be moved to love) 9 In this the love of God was made manifest among us, that God sent (God's love for us moved him to act/send) his only Son into the world, so that we might live through him. 10 In this is love, not that we have loved God but that he loved us and sent his Son to be the propitiation for our sins. 

1Jn_4:19  We love because he first loved us (and only because he first loved us). 

1Jn_5:2  By this we know that we love the children of God, when we love God and obey his commandments. 

1Jn_5:3  For this is the love of God, that we keep his commandments. And his commandments are not burdensome.

Jas 1:22 But be doers of the word, and not hearers only, deceiving yourselves.23 For if anyone is a hearer of the word and not a doer, he is like a man who looks intently at his natural face in a mirror. 24 For he looks at himself and goes away and at once forgets what he was like. 25 But the one who looks into the perfect law, the law of liberty, and perseveres, being no hearer who forgets but a doer who acts, he will be blessed in his doing...

2:14 What good is it, my brothers, if someone says he has faith but does not have works? Can that faith save him?...

18 But someone will say, “You have faith and I have works.” Show me your faith apart from your works, and I will show you my faith by my works. 19 You believe that God is one; you do well. Even the demons believe—and shudder! 20 Do you want to be shown, you foolish person, that faith apart from works is useless? 21 Was not Abraham our father justified by works when he offered up his son Isaac on the altar? 22 You see that faith was active along with his works, and faith was completed by his works; 23 and the Scripture was fulfilled that says, “Abraham believed God, and it was counted to him as righteousness”—and he was called a friend of God. 24 You see that a person is justified by works and not by faith alone. 25 And in the same way was not also Rahab the prostitute justified by works when she received the messengers and sent them out by another way? 26 For as the body apart from the spirit is dead, so also faith apart from works is dead. - James a disciple of Christ. 

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¹Unobstructed only on His side of the relationship. There is nothing that hinders or stops His love for us as His child in Christ, but there is plenty on our side that prevents us from fully entering into and experiencing that love. 

For a discussion on the difference between being spirit driven vs works driven click here.

For a discussion on being loved VS experiencing his love click here.

For a discussion on becoming who we already are in Christ click here.

The life love and Spirit of God

God's life consists of the Father and Son blissfully existing (abiding together) in a relationship of infinite overflowing love.

The life of God is the love God has (experiences) eternally as the Father and Son affectionately behold and enjoy the infinite glory, beauty and worth of the other in, by and through the Spirit.

This is referred to by some as the beatific vision.

The life, love, and Spirit of God go hand in hand, if not one and the same. 

Wherever the life of God is present so is the love and Spirit of God 

and 

Wherever the love of God is present so is the Spirit and life of God 

and 

Wherever the Spirit of God is present so is the life and love of God.

For...

God is love 1 John 4:8

God is life 1Jn 5:20  John 14:6-9

God is Spirit John 4:24

The life of God is the dynamic energy of God that moves him to action. 

The love of God is the holy affection that God has within his being as Father and Son, that emanates outward toward others.

The Spirit of God is that distinct being that is the manifestation of the fullness of God's life and love.

Everything regarding the Spirit has to do with affections (emotion e.g. passion, love, and joy) which move him to action (willing, choosing).

The essence of God's being is infinite worth, beauty, and glory. It is the joyful beholding of these qualities within and between the Father and the Son that generates and sends forth the love, life, and eternal Spirit of God. The Spirit of God is the overflow of his love and life to us.

Walking in the Spirit is our believing this very same love that God has for and within himself is fully ours (in and through Christ); then receiving, participating in and responding back to God in love by faith (faithfulness/obedience), and out to our fellow image-bearers (other God-like beings) thereby bringing him honor in and by displaying his glory, beauty, and worth to others.

When we come into God's presence through Christ via his Spirit, we are made fully alive. Why? Because our life consists of being valued/loved (just as God's does). When we are finally in God's direct and unobstructed presence (face to face) we will experience our greatest sense of love/value because He is most lovely and valuable. 

We are able to enter into and enjoy this overflowing God of love, joy, and bliss because we were made to i.e. we are like God - in his image.  

For more on the empowering of the Spirit click here

For more on how our love is a response to God's love, click here.