Love and the Fruit of the Spirit

The first Fruit of the Spirit is love.  Love is a complex word–a characteristic, an emotion, a choice.

So, what to write about?

In my research on love, it made perfect sense to refer to one of my favorite chapters in the Bible: 1 Corinthians 13.  You can read familiar verses over and over again, and one day reading over them just like every other time, you read something totally different.  You have an epiphany, an understanding.  This is one that came to me a few years ago.

Take a look at 1 Cor 13:4-7:

“Love suffers long and is kind; love does not envy; love does not parade itself, is not puffed up; does not behave rudely, does not seek its own, is not provoked, thinks no evil; does not rejoice in iniquity, but rejoices in the truth; bears all things, believes all things, hopes all things, endures all things.”

It’s all very familiar, right?

Now, check out Galatians 5:22-23, our Fruit of the Spirit verse:

“But the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, longsuffering, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, self-control. Against such there is no law.”

And look what happens when I combine the two:

“Love is patient (patience), love is kind (kindness). It does not envy (goodness), it does not boast, it is not proud (gentleness). It is not rude , it is not self-seeking(self-control), it is not easily angered (peace), it keeps no record of wrongs. Love does not delight in evil but rejoices with the truth (joy). It always protects, always trusts, always hopes, always perseveres (faithfulness).” 1 Corinthians 13:4-7

Did you just get shivers?  Yeah, me too.

Love is the basis for everything.  It molds how we interact, the choices we make, who we are.  It is the root of everything in this life…and in the next.  John 3:16 (yet another all too familiar verse) tells us how God so LOVED the world.  It is out of love that God makes His decisions concerning us.

When we love the Lord and His people—Christians or not—with the kind of love described in 1 Cor 13, all the Fruit of the Spirit are cultivated.  All of the fruit grow just a bit more.  This is why love is the most important, why it is the main theme of the Bible.

So, take some time to think about the people in your life—your family, friends, neighbors, even the postman—what are you doing to show them love?