Jesus asked us to love one another as He has loved us. He asked believers. We cannot expect unbelieves to act in a way so we can love them as a reaction. We have to love them as an action; a first action towards them based on a response to God’s first action love towards us. We are not asked to love with no foundation, God’s love is the foundation for our love toward others. Love itself is not an act or action that requires movement in the flesh, but acts are born out of love that expresses the love. God so loved the world, and the act that accompanied the love is He gave His only begotten Son. Love is Spirit, and in the Spirit there is first action that expresses the love and the flesh reacts to the spiritual action by loving one another.
The Spirit (love) was sent, the Spirit came when He was sent. He, the Holy Spirit, grows love up in us, who are attached to (dwell in) Jesus, and Has Jesus (the word) dwelling in us by the indwelling of the Holy Spirit. Those are actions in the Spirit that cause a reaction in the flesh. The reactions are the acts of love born out God’s love towards us. We refer to the acts born out of love as good works. Good works are post salvation acts of love toward others as a response to God’s love given to us while we are yet sinners and at enmity with God. Grace, through faith in the name of Jesus as the Son of God and our Savior, is our peace treaty with God; not turning God’s heart to us, but our heart to God.
If repentance (turning to God in mind, body, and spirit) is a requirement of salvation, then it is grace. Grace is the reason we can turn back to God no longer at enmity with Him. Grace is a direct result of Jesus Christ’s acts on the earth, and resurrection on the earth and back into heaven. His acts came as a direct result of God, “so loving the world.” The spiritual acts of the man Jesus were a direct result of love moving Him to act in the physical. Jesus was moved by the love of the Father into performing good work in the earth. Jesus had no need to repent, having no sin, until He took on the sins of the world as an action born out of love. His calling out to the Father from the cross was a physical reaction to being burdened with our sins, and an act of repentance washing away our sins.
If producing the fruit of the Spirit is a requirement of salvation then the producing of the fruit is part of grace. The Father prunes the branches that produce and cuts away the ones that don’t produce. So production is a requirement of abiding in Christ Jesus and as such is part of grace. Salvation is by grace alone, or it is not. The pouring out of the Holy Spirit was in response to the sacrifice of Jesus Christ, and as such is part of the grace purchased for us and freely given to us. Why was it freely given to us? Because God so loved the world; not because the world was so great, but because God is love. All the acts of God were, are, and will be because of love, because He is love.
Salvation is an act of God and not an act of the ones being saved. The one being saved reacts from a place of salvation by loving one another. Our good works are the result of God’s good works He has already performed. What about our hope of a future that God is creating for us? Wow! God has more planned for us. An eternal life in His image and likeness. But knowing His plan for us God created us in His image and likeness. God is bringing us back to what we already are because of the good works He has already performed. Talk about back to the future. In reality all the good works of God go before us, so what was already done is in our future unfolding every day as we walk in the new day God has created. God knows the beginning from the end, because He has already performed the good works in our tomorrow.