The emotional mark of born again people is that they love as Jesus loved with the love that God gives them to share. First John 4:7 says, “Beloved, let us love one another, for love is from God, and whoever loves has been born of God and knows God.”
Because God is love, born again people are connected to the source of all true love. Like water flows down from the snow melting on a mountain to water the valley below, so love flows down from God’s heart to bring life to His people.
Subsequently, they have the capacity, if they choose to walk in obedience, to love God, their spouse, their children, their friends, their neighbors, and even their enemies. In my pastoral work, I have seen even acrimonious, adulterous couples, in the process of filing for divorce, become Christians. They have gone on to live new lives of hatred for their sin out of love for God. They became able to love their spouse with a love that they confessed flowed through them from God. They have not only remained married, but have also built happy, holy, and healthy marriages on the foundation of regenerating love.
The truth is that, apart from a deep work of the Holy Spirit, we are each emotionally unhealthy and in great need of being born again so that the emotional change process can begin.
How have you seen love increase in your life since being born again?