Love is consequent

Love is consequent upon God’s unfathomable love and infinite mercy towards us.  For Paul this was foundational:
I live by faith in the Son of God, who loved me and gave Himself for me. (Galatians 2:20)

The result of the transforming, sanctifying ministry of the Holy Spirit in our lives is just this: that we are enabled to love one another with the same kind of love that God loves us.

Paul profiled this kind of love in 1 Corinthians 13; it is a love that “seeks not its own”.

–all from Timothy George

It cannot be overemphasized that for the Christian, love has already been given him.  In the new birth he has already been “created after God,” “he has been raised to newness of life.”  Hence sanctification is not imposing a new conduct on an individual, it is providing a climate, or an environment in which the newly planted seed will germinate and appear.  –John Sanderson

and finally, JI Packer: Regeneration is birth; sanctification is growth. In regeneration, God implants desires that were not there before: desire for God, for holiness, and for the hallowing and glorifying of God’s name in this world; desire to pray, worship, love, serve, honor, and please God; desire to show love and bring benefit to others. In sanctification, the Holy Spirit “works in you to will and to act” according to God’s purpose; what he does is prompt you to “work out your salvation” (i.e., express it in action) by fulfilling these new desires (Phil. 2:12-13). Christians become increasingly Christlike as the moral profile of Jesus (the “fruit of the Spirit”) is progressively formed in them (2 Cor. 3:18; Gal. 4:19; 5:22-25). Paul’s use of glory in 2 Corinthians 3:18 shows that for him sanctification of character is glorification begun. Then the physical transformation that gives us a body like Christ’s, one that will match our totally transformed character and be a perfect means of expressing it, will be glorification completed (Phil. 3:20-21; 1 Cor. 15:49-53).