The first segment of the fruit of the spirit outlined in Galatians 5 is love. Really, the Christian life is all about love. Nothing is more important than that we love each other. Paul told the Corinthians the greatest of these is love! He then goes on say that love is the still more excellent way (1 Cor. 12.31).
I have heard many Christians say “such and such is really spiritual” but what they mean is that person is a little weird, a little strange, a little odd. When we talk about a spiritual experience, we are normally talking about miracles and signs and wonders. But being a spiritual person is being a loving person, and the most spiritual experience you will ever experience is watching someone love someone else who is not easy to love.
Remember God is love, so love is the most godly we can be! Love is the head of the list of the fruit of the spirit, and when you have love, the other eight in the list will always be around! Love starts this list because it is the foundation of it all.
Now we do not have the right to define love the way we want to. From the world singing songs about “love” that have nothing to do with Biblical love at all, to Christians using the word “love” to avoid responsibility or honour, we do not have the right to define love. We must let the Bible define love. Love is dying for a sinner. Love is giving up your only Son. Love is not selfish, love is not conditional. Love is patient. Love is kind.
Now the more you look at love, and I encourage you to read 1 Corinthians 13 and all of 1 John, the more you will stand at the shore and go – I cannot get into that ocean, I cannot possibly love people the way God loves me. I cannot do it. But the starting point of love is that God has loved us so much He has through the death and resurrection of Jesus Christ transformed out spirits so the fruit of our spirit is love. Your spirit is love just like God is love, it’s made of the same stuff – love. You are one spirit with Christ, and that spirit is made of love. Just as Jesus is, so are you in the world – love. The love of God has been shed abroad in your heart by the Holy Spirit.
I don’t care how you feel or what you think, the truth is that if you are born again there is love in your spirit. Your spirit is actually made of love. If you feel love, there is love. If you don’t feel love, there is still love. It has nothing to do with feelings, it is the truth.
Love is not a feeling, although it can provoke many different feelings. Love is the spiritual and supernatural power to put others needs and desires and well-being above our own. It is in you, and your job is to let it out!
If we are not living in love, we are wasting our lives.
Look at 1 Corinthians 13.1-7 in the Message:
If I speak with human eloquence and angelic ecstasy but don’t love, I’m nothing but the creaking of a rusty gate.
2 If I speak God’s Word with power, revealing all his mysteries and making everything plain as day, and if I have faith that says to a mountain, “Jump,” and it jumps, but I don’t love, I’m nothing.
3-7 If I give everything I own to the poor and even go to the stake to be burned as a martyr, but I don’t love, I’ve gotten nowhere. So, no matter what I say, what I believe, and what I do, I’m bankrupt without love.
Love never gives up.
Love cares more for others than for self.
Love doesn’t want what it doesn’t have.
Love doesn’t strut,
Doesn’t have a swelled head,
Doesn’t force itself on others,
Isn’t always “me first,”
Doesn’t fly off the handle,
Doesn’t keep score of the sins of others,
Doesn’t revel when others grovel,
Takes pleasure in the flowering of truth,
Puts up with anything,
Trusts God always,
Always looks for the best,
Never looks back,
But keeps going to the end.
You must be able to see from this that love is the beginning of it all. Love is the most important part. Love is the bottom line. Nothing matters without love at the centre. When we are not letting the love inside us out, your tongues is just white noise, your prophetic words are pathetic words and your mountain moving isn’t worth a penny.
But again, and I have to emphasise this as there are enemies of the cross in the church redefining love to mean leave me alone and let me do what I want, never judge or have standards, and that’s not love – no love never gives up, love cares for others more than for itself. We need to read these words and ask – are we loving the Biblical way. You know you can take 1 Corinthians 13 and turn it into declarations – you can say “I keep going to the end, I always look for the best” and speak it by faith and start to see it manifest. Sometimes when you make declarations like that, you suddenly need to repent and then you do, and God loves you, and you pick yourself up and keep declaring and move forward!
Making changes is part of walking in love. Because we live in a fallen world with demons in it while our spirit is trapped in our flesh suit, all of us have unloving habits and issues we need to address. I never grew up with godly parents who knew the Word, so I had to instill this into myself. Some of us were raised to hold offense, to seek revenge, to be selfish and be critical and rude and superior to others! You have to decide that will not be the normal for your life. You are born again and have the Holy Spirit inside you.
When you notice you are out of the path of love, and not letting the love inside you out, make a change. I had to start really from square one as no one taught me this as a child. Now, praise God, it was different for our children, we were teaching them this as toddlers! And I recommend all parents do the same – show your children how to be loving, live loving in front of them, and if you miss it apologize to them.
Go and read 1 Cor. 13.4-8 in a translation you like, and personalize it. I am patient, I am kind, I am not envious… and start changing your experience of love today.
Next week, I am going to teach you how to deal with love’s greatest enemy!
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