FRUIT OF THE SPIRIT - LOVE.....Understand and Practice it with ease!

images (X).jpg


  • Love is at the center of all godly relationships!
  • God is absent from any gathering where there is no love

Introduction:

Love is a commonly used word. However its meaning is deeper than many think and can handle.  Theologically, we have four types of love - Eros, Storge, Philos, and Agape. I want to discuss the fourth - the gift of love called - Agape.


Please understand that it is not easy to love or forgive someone who offends you. Many people find it difficult to forgive till now because of the pain they went through, so to actively practice love and forgiveness, the person need to pray for the gift of Love to be deposited in his Spirit-man.


When you desire to love others like Jesus, you MUST go to God in prayer asking for this gift of love, which is the highest kind of love.  It is different from the normal love, which is mostly sensual and gratifying, but the gift of Love is different.


I am looking at  God's kind of love - the Agape love.  This is the love that come from the Holy Spirit.  Agape love is described as the highest, purest, and noblest form of love. It is the unconditional love, the love that will do anything for another regardless of cost. This is the form of love produced by the Holy Spirit.


When this gift arrives into a person's life, he or she loves liberally, without asking too many questions, without discrimination, without expecting anything in return.  Some people are liberal souls and they can love and forgive people freely, but others are not so. If you are not a liberal soul, you must ask in prayer for the gift of Love and it is all yours to operate in. 


This love is unique according to Galatians 5:22, “The fruit of the Holy Spirit is love.” So, it is clear that the Holy Spirit is the one who produces genuine love in the heart. 


In our christian walk, Agape Love is key to fulfilling destiny because faith works through love, and God is love.  We are to love the Lord our God first with all our heart, spirit, soul and strength.  We are also to love our neighbour as ourselves, our enemies, and bless them that curse us, do good to them that hate us, and pray for them which despitefully use us, and persecute us.

So, you see that love is a higher calling of our faith in Christ.  God knows there will be people who will despitefully use you, curse and persecute you, but He says, love them as well.  This is why love is the acid test of our salvation.  

The question therefore is "Have you matured in the faith enough to forgive people willingly, without waiting to hear - I'm sorry ma, sir? Have you known the Lord so much to forebear peoples offense - I mean, when someone deliberately hurts you"?.  

Have you matured enough to accommodate a difficult neighbour, causing you to weep secretly? Do you love God enough to give Him first place in your life, to go out there and talk to people about Jesus? Love is a test of our faith, and shows - whether we know the Lord or not. Love is a proof of spiritual maturity and strength.

What is divine love?
Divine love can be defined as a sincere feeling of affection and care towards a person that is not motivated by what you hope to get in return.  It is loving people as they are, it is loving people unconditionally - Not when they greet you, or when they obey your instructions or carryout your orders.

This is the love God commended to all believers, that will make them perfect as their Father in heaven. This is the love full of charity - good doing and kindness towards others. This is the love that fulfills the Law and proves we are sons/daughters of the Most High God. This is the love you are commanded to exhibit in John 13:34 and finally, this is the love you cannot exhibit by your own strength, but by the Holy Spirit.

Responses of Love:
We knew love from God.  We understand that giving is a major part of response to love because, God loved us and gave His son Jesus to die for our sins. Jesus loved us so much as to endure persecution and suffering till death on the cross to redeem us.  God's love is always till the end of times, He does not stop on the way, no matter the challenges.

The love that will respond to God and people positively and extended to neighbours and our enemies, to the extend of praying and blessing them can curse us, can only come from God as a fruit.  Being a fruit of the Spirit, we will practice this kindness and giving without murmuring or complaining, neither  will we stop being kind on the way due to challenges.

This is the love that comes from the Holy Spirit that is not motivated by reward, it makes it possible for you to love your friends, brothers, relatives and the Needy without expecting anything in return. That is the love that will make a rich man invest in the lives of poor people, elderly, sick people who have nothing to give in return.

Christ Teachings:
When Jesus was teaching the multitude on the Mount, he knew that many of them were showing one form of love or another to people around them, but mostly to their friends and relatives.  Identified enemies were never in the picture - That is a man for you - Man is weak at love because we love hoping to receive love back from the people we love, that okay, but it does not make us any better, compared with unbelievers.

Another point to be noted in Christ teaching is that God knows that believers will have enemy and persecutors and others that will despitefully use us, yet for us to show we are connected with God as sons and daughters, we should deliberately show love, mercy and kindness to our enemies and those that hate us and many times when we do this, the enemies are shocked and sometimes become at peace with us.

Christ was simply telling us that there is a better love than the love in the world, that better love from from the Holy Spirit - It gives librarily to all and continually.  It overlooks peoples errors and weaknesses, conquering selfishness and fear in the process.  

The body of Christ need this kind of love at this time, more than ever before.  It is this love as a seed of the Holy Ghost that makes a sister or brother to put on bowels of mercy, kindness, and meekness.  It makes the very rich in the house of God to distribute to the needy brethren in love and yet be humble to serve under a poor man in a group in the church of God.

The world need this seed of love inside of them to rescue many who need to forgive others to stay alive. Love is needed to rescue many from their revenge and suicide missions planned against their enemies - those who cheated and deceived them.  This will reduce the countless cases of suicide and mass killing the world is experiencing - all because of lack of love.

Related image  
File

Our relationship with friends, relatives, spouses and neighbours determine happiness and misery people go through in life. Without the love from above, such relationships will could end in sorrow instead of joy. What you will see is greed, selfishness and impatience.  This is the cause of loneliness and many divorce cases today.  

Though people may hate us, despise us and treat us badly, God expects us to respond in love, knowing that our hope of reward in all things is unto Him. Without love in the church of God, the church is divided and prayers are hindered.  Without love at home, deception will rule supreme - You will see the husband deceiving the wife and the wife deceiving the husband, children deceiving their parents and the whole house is full of lies.  When these lies are exposed later in life, then anger, bitterness and mistrust will trouble the home.

Practical ways to show love to people:
1. Love without Dissimulation - Detest evil and do good.  Do good from your heart
2. Love with brotherly affection - Be quick to honour others. Never cheat, lie or defraud people in business or relationship.

3. Practice hospitality - Be willing and happy to entertain strangers and friends alike.  Give whenever you have, share more with people, while remaining humble, giving all praise to the Almighty God.

4. Love without hypocrisy, deceiving yourself, love with pure heart fervently.

5. Love not in word, but in deeds - Be Patient with people, kind,courteous,humble and generous. Do not judge others, love in sincerity, never boastful - always abiding in truth and having the fear of God.

6. Love without fear - 1 John 4:18


What to do:
Beloved, there are three things that will last in this earth - faith, hope and love, but the greatest of them is LOVE.  So, love your neighbour as yourself, children and parents.  It is a proof that you love the Lord and live in obedience to His word. 

We are not to live alone.  Our joy, anger, sorrow and pleasure are the result of our relationship with God and man.  The earlier we discover how to live in harmony with others, the earlier the problems of other people matter to us, the happier we become.  Love is a command you can obey, it is the only thing you owe me  and your community.  It is your only profession!



What did the bible say about loving one another?

Love is the New command - This is His commandment, that we believe in the name of his Son Jesus Christ and love one another, just as he has commanded us. You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your might. The second is this: ‘You shall love your neighbor as yourself.’ There is no other commandment greater than these.”

A new commandment I give to you, that you love one another, just as I have loved you, you also are to love one another.  By this all people will know that you are my disciples, if you have love for one another.” This was Jesus Christ speaking to His disciples, to me and you.

1. If anyone says, “I love God,” and hates his brother, he is a liar; for he who does not love his brother whom he has seen cannot love God whom he has not seen.

2. Jesus Christ says: “If you love me, you will keep my commandments. 

3. Beloved, let us love one another, for love is from God, and whoever loves has been born of God and knows God. Anyone who does not love does not know God, because God is love. In this the love of God was made manifest among us, that God sent his only Son into the world, so that we might live through him. In this is love, not that we have loved God but that he loved us and sent his Son to be the propitiation for our sins.

4. Beloved, if God so loved us, we also ought to love one another. Live in harmony with one another. Do not be haughty, but associate with the lowly. Never be wise in your own sight.

5. Owe no one anything, except to love each other, for the one who loves another has fulfilled the law.  let us not love in word or talk but in deed and in truth and through love serve one another.  Above all, keep loving one another earnestly, since love covers a multitude of sins.

6. If you speak in the tongues of men and of angels, but have not love, you are  a noisy gong or a clanging cymbal. And if you have prophetic powers, and understand all mysteries and all knowledge, and if you have all faith, so as to remove mountains, but have not love, you are nothing. If you give away all you have, and if you deliver up my body to be burned, but have not love, you gain nothing. Love is patient and kind; love does not envy or boast; it is not arrogant or rude. It does not insist on its own way, it is not irritable.

7. But love your enemies, and do good, and lend, expecting nothing in return, and your reward will be great, and you will be sons of the Most High, for he is kind to the ungrateful and the evil.

8. You shall not take vengeance or bear a grudge against the sons of your own people, but you shall love your neighbor as yourself: I am the Lord.

9. But if anyone has the world's goods and sees his brother in need, yet closes his heart against him, how does God's love abide in him?  With all humility and gentleness, with patience, bearing with one another in love,

10. Greater love has no one than this, that someone lay down his life for his friends.

11. Bear one another's burdens, and so fulfill the law of Christ. Show hospitality to one another without grumbling.

12. Be kind to one another, tenderhearted, forgiving one another, as God in Christ forgave you.  Now concerning brotherly love you have no need for anyone to write to you, for you yourselves have been taught by God to love one another.

13. These things I command you, so that you will love one another. let us consider how to stir up one another to love and good works.  Love does no wrong to a neighbor; therefore love is the fulfilling of the law.

14. Do nothing from rivalry or conceit, but in humility count others more significant than yourselves.

15. Love is patient and kind; love does not envy or boast; it is not arrogant or rude. It does not insist on its own way; it is not irritable or resentful; it does not rejoice at wrongdoing, but rejoices with the truth. Love bears all things, believes all things, hopes all things, endures all things. Love never ends. As for prophecies, they will pass away; as for tongues, they will cease; as for knowledge, it will pass away.

16. See that no one repays anyone evil for evil, but always seek to do good to one another and to everyone. 

Love for Believers - Brethren
1. Let there be no division in the body, but that the members may have the same care for one another.

2. “So whatever you wish that others would do to you, do also to them, for this is the Law and the Prophets.

3. Likewise, you who are younger, be subject to the elders. Clothe yourselves, all of you, with humility toward one another, for “God opposes the proud but gives grace to the humble.”

4. Do not lie to one another, seeing that you have put off the old self with its practices.

5. “Whoever has two tunics is to share with him who has none, and whoever has food is to do likewise.” 

6. Not neglecting to meet together, as is the habit of some, but encouraging one another, and all the more as you see the Day drawing near.

7. Everyone who believes that Jesus is the Christ has been born of God, and everyone who loves the Father loves whoever has been born of him.

8. However, let each one of you love his wife as himself, and let the wife see that she respects her husband.

9. Do not speak evil against one another, brothers. The one who speaks against a brother or judges his brother, speaks evil against the law and judges the law. But if you judge the law, you are not a doer of the law but a judge. And above all these put on love, which binds everything together in perfect harmony.

10. Therefore let us not pass judgment on one another any longer, but rather decide never to put a stumbling block or hindrance in the way of a brother.

11. Let us continue submitting to one another out of reverence for Christ.  Let us not become conceited, provoking one another, envying one another.

12. Bearing with one another and, if one has a complaint against another, forgiving each other; as the Lord has forgiven you, so you also must forgive.  And this commandment we have from him: whoever loves God must also love his brother.

13. But the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, self-control; against such things there is no law.

14. If I then, your Lord and Teacher, have washed your feet, you also ought to wash one another's feet.

15. Do not grumble against one another, brothers, so that you may not be judged; behold, the Judge is standing at the door.

16. Complete my joy by being of the same mind, having the same love, being in full accord and of one mind.

17. Therefore, confess your sins to one another and pray for one another, that you may be healed. The prayer of a righteous person has great power as it is working - James 5:16 


Friends, one day death will come and the question is "Where will you spent eternity - in heaven or hell". This is the time to work out your salvation...Now is the acceptable time.

Repent of your sins and serve the Lord.


FIRE...

Post a Comment

Previous Post Next Post