The first Fruit of the Spirit is Love. There must be a reason that this is the first fruit. It seems to me that without love, it is very difficult to live with joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness and self-control. Love is the foundation and core of the spirit within us.
Psychologists and researchers have attempted to define different types of love with differing views of exactly how many types of love exist. The three that show up consistently are:
- Eros - the love shared by a husband and wife, the ideal person in our lives
- Philos - the type of love shared by friends
- Agape - self-less and unconditional love
Depending on which translation you read, the word love shows up between 250-500 times in the bible. One of my favorites is in 1 Corinthians 13:4-7 as it provides an excellent definition of love that applies in all relationships.
4 Love is patient and kind. Love is not jealous or boastful or proud 5 or rude. It does not demand its own way. It is not irritable, and it keeps no record of being wronged. 6 It does not rejoice about injustice but rejoices whenever the truth wins out. 7 Love never gives up, never loses faith, is always hopeful, and endures through every circumstance. 1 Corinthians 13: 4-7 (NLT)
The foundation and creator of love is God. God IS love. How can we possibly know, feel or understand real love without God? We cannot truly love another without first loving God and then loving ourselves as a child of God.
Loving One Another - 7 Dear friends, let us continue to love one another, for love comes from God. Anyone who loves is a child of God and knows God. 8 But anyone who does not love does not know God, for God is love. 9 God showed how much he loved us by sending his one and only Son into the world so that we might have eternal life through him. 10 This is real love—not that we loved God, but that he loved us and sent his Son as a sacrifice to take away our sins. 11 Dear friends, since God loved us that much, we surely ought to love each other. 12 No one has ever seen God. But if we love each other, God lives in us, and his love is brought to full expression in us. 13 And God has given us his Spirit as proof that we live in him and he in us. 1 John 4:7-13 (NLT)
The worst thing in the world is for anyone to feel unloved and worthless. God loves us, so we know how to love each other. God loves us unconditionally and all of the time. He may be disappointed in our behaviors from time to time, but he never stops loving us and he never gives up on us. In fact, God loves us so much that he sacrificed his only son, so that we may have eternal life. What greater love is there?
13 Three things will last forever—faith, hope, and love—and the greatest of these is love. Corinthians 13:13
13 Three things will last forever—faith, hope, and love—and the greatest of these is love. Corinthians 13:13
I love God, I love myself, I love my husband and I love you! God loves you! Pass it on!
PS - A good book for relationships is called the Five Languages of Love, by Gary Chapman. Check it out.
No comments:
Post a Comment