If one claims to have holiness but does not manifest divine love, then what he has is not genuine holiness but Pharisaical 'righteousness.' Those on the other hand, who claim to have great love for everybody but who don't live in purity and righteousness, are also deceived into mistaking their wishy-washy sentimentality for divine love.

The Pharisees had a 'righteousness' that was starchy and dry. They were like bony skeletons - hard and repulsive. They had some truth, but all warped and out of proportion.

Jesus had all the truth. He stood for every jot and tittle of the law of God more than the Pharisees did. But He was not just bones. The bones were covered over with flesh, as God intended human beings to be - the Truth was enveloped by Love. He spoke the truth, but He spoke it in love (Ephesians 4:15). His words had authority, but they were gracious too (Luke 4:22, 36).

This is the nature that the Holy Spirit desires to communicate to us and to manifest through us.

God IS Love. It is not that He just acts lovingly. He IS in His very essence LOVE. The glory of God as seen in Jesus, manifests this clearly. Jesus did not just perform acts of love. He went about "doing good" (Acts 10:38). But that was because the love of God flooded His whole being.

Love has its origin, like holiness and humility, in our inner man. It is from the innermost being of the Spirit-filled man that the rivers of life flow (John 7:38, 39). Our thoughts and attitudes (even if never expressed) give an odour to our words and actions and to our personality. And others can easily detect this odour. Words and acts of love count for nothing, if our thoughts and attitudes to others remain selfish and critical. God desires "truth in the innermost being" (Psalms 51:6).

Jesus placed a high value on all human beings and therefore respected all men. It is easy to respect the godly and the cultured and the intelligent. We can even think that we have attained to great heights when we love all our fellow-believers in Christ. But the glory of God was seen in Jesus' love for all men. Jesus never despised anyone for his poverty, ignorance, ugliness or lack of culture. He specifically stated that the whole world and all that it contained was not as valuable as one human soul (Mark 8:36). That was how He valued men. And so He delighted in all men. He saw men deceived and bound by Satan; and He longed to set them free.

Jesus saw that people were far more important than things. He loved men so greatly that He identified completely with them, and made them feel wanted. He shared their burdens and had words of kindness for the downtrodden, and words of encouragement for those defeated in life's battles. Never would He consider any human being as worthless. They may be crude or coarse, but they were still people who needed to be redeemed.

Things, on the other hand, mattered nothing at all to Him. Material things have no value at all unless they are used for the benefit of others. One can imagine that if a neighbour's child walked into Jesus' carpenter-shop and broke something expensive, it would not have disturbed Jesus in any way, because the child was far more valuable and important than the thing broken. He loved people, not things. Things were to be used to help people.

The Holy Spirit renews our mind so that we might "see things as it were from God's point of view" (Colossians 1:9 - Phillips). To love a person is to see him as God sees him - with compassion.

God rejoices over His people with singing (Zephaniah 3:17). And since Jesus was filled with the Spirit of God, He shared His Father's joy over His children. So too will it be with all whose minds are renewed to look at people from God's point of view. The thoughts that Jesus thought of other people were always and consistently thoughts of love - never thoughts of criticism for their awkwardness or their crudeness. People were therefore able to detect the sweet fragrance of His spirit, "and the common people heard Him gladly" (Mark 12:37 - KJV). This is the love that God floods our heart with when we are filled with the Holy Spirit (Romans 5:5).