Love

We often hear about the "fruits" of the Spirit, but did you know it is not ‘fruits’, but the "fruit" of the Spirit. The more we become like Christ, letting the Holy Spirit mold us and melt us, we will begin to demonstrate the Spirit’s ‘fruit’. This fruit comes with several manifestations; it is like a cluster of grapes, the fruit of the vine. For the next few weeks I am going to look at each ‘grape’ and how they fit to make a whole fruit, a healthy, Christ-like Child of God.

The Spirit Himself produces wonderful results in our lives as we obey Him. There are 9 qualities that are the natural product of the Holy Spirit, and these are listed in Galatians 5:22,23: love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, humility, and self control.

As we look at each of these qualities, or ‘grapes’, that makes up the Fruit of the Spirit, we see they could be put into three categories: Attitude, Action and Application. The three under ‘Attitude’: are love, joy, and peace. Love, being the first one would make it appear to be the most important one. Even though love is an ‘attitude’, it is also an action word. Jesus is our example, as He ‘loved’. When Jesus described ‘love’ in action, He said "Greater love has no one that this, that one lay down his life for his friends" (John 15:13).

Here is what Paul had to say about love, from I Corinthians 13: "Though I speak with the tongues of men and of angels, and have not ‘love’, I become as sounding brass, or a tinkling cymbal. And though I have the gift of prophecy, and understand all mysteries, and all knowledge; and though I have all faith, so that I could remove mountains, and have not ‘love’, I am nothing. And though I bestow all my goods to feed the poor, and though I give my body to be burned, and have not ‘love,’ it profiteth me nothing." And then in verse 13 he says: "And now abideth faith, hope, and ‘love’, these three; but the greatest of these is ‘love.’

An Attribute of God is ‘Love’. And because He is God, He is "All Love" just as he is ALL of any one of His attributes. God cannot be some of anything; He is ALL of each one of His attributes. The Holy Spirit, then, is ‘All Love’ and will produce ‘love’ in God’s children. God shares some of His attributes with us, and Love is one of these. This love which God shares with us is called ‘agape’ in the Greek. It is a God-given love and other believers in Christ will recognize us by our love.

"By this shall all men know that you are my disciples, if you have love one to another."
(John 13:35)