WHAT IS LOVE AS A FRUIT OF THE SPIRIT.

GALATIANS 5:22-23 

 Today we will be talking about Love which is the First Fruit Of The Spirit, Greatest Of All and the Greatest Commandment that Jesus gave to us.Love God and love each other as He loves us.Jn 13:34.

From the creation of the world, through love, for the protection of the Israelites because of love, to the sending of a Saviour out of love, for Jesus sacrifice in love.

 We’re talking about “Agape” love which is a divine affection, as opposed to “Phileo” which is more a friendship type of love and “Eros”, which is a romantic, or sensual love.So as we look at this Agape love, the first thing I would like to show you is that this kind of:

Love is from God, we don’t have this kind of love if we don’t know God and have his Spirit in us. If we are abiding in love, keeping it always in the forefront of all our interactions and choices, we are abiding in God. God wants us to believe and abide in him, but certainly He would not require us to believe in Him to be able to use us to love others.

So really this message is to let us (Christians) know that if we are not loving, we are not in God, they do not know God, we are not allowing His nature to abide in us, even if we profess belief in Jesus Christ.

• Love is Bears all things (1Co 13:7, Ps 118)

1Cor 13: 7 Love bears all things, believes all things, hopes all things, endures all things.

From Psalm 118

1 Oh give thanks to the LORD, for he is good;

for his steadfast love endures forever! 2 Let Israel say,

"His steadfast love endures forever." 3 Let the house of Aaron say,

"His steadfast love endures forever." 4 Let those who fear the LORD say,

"His steadfast love endures forever."

29 Oh give thanks to the LORD, for he is good;

for his steadfast love endures forever!

The love that is from God never ends. Could you imagine if it did? Humans would have been obliterated eons ago. God bears with us, he believes in us, he hopes with us, and he endures our constant disobedience and wandering away from him. We are the prodigals.

This love is not dependent on other’s behaviour, it is unconditional for the person, but may not be accepting of sinful behaviour. Unconditional love means you love the person, but still confront the behaviour. That is why God’s love sometimes looks harsh, but the motive is always our good.

I always shake my head when I hear couples split up because they are not in love anymore. What does that have to do with anything? What does in love mean? I think it means my selfish desires are getting met - Eros love. When we fall out of love it means we’re bored with the person. That’s not love, real love cannot be shaken, you cannot stop loving if it is real agape love, the essential nature of this love is that it is endless and it takes sacrifice.

▪︎ Love is also Sacrificial (Eph 5:25, Ro 5:8, Jn 15:13)

Yes these are related, but here we are specifically talking about behaviour. We can consider others more significant than ourselves, but if we don’t show it in our behaviour, it’s lost.

Eph 5: 25 Husbands, love your wives, as Christ loved the church and gave himself up for her

Ro 5: 8but God shows his love for us in that while we were still sinners, Christ died for us.

John 15:13: “Greater love has no one than this, that someone lay down his life for a friend.

Love always requires sacrifice, whether it be giving up our time, interests, or to the far extreme, our lives or at least some organs. If you say you love someone, but have never given up something for them, chances are it’s not real love. More likely they are probably really loving you.

But there is another aspect to this that the church should feel very guilty about. That being loving those people who are hard to love. This may be the biggest sacrifice. It’s easy to love those who are attractive and likeable, who are on our side, but what about our enemies, the poor, the uneducated, the handicapped and mentally ill. How many of these people are in our churches. Why do you think that is? Maybe we need to sacrifice our comfort and our attitudes to make these people feel loved. It’s not easy, and only the Spirit can make it happen. That is why love is called a fruit or a gift.

Basically love never gives up on anybody, no matter what they do, no matter what we feel. … ..

In Conclusion:

Love as a fruit of the Spirit is a verb. It’s not a feeling, and much like faith, if only expressed in words it’s essentially meaningless. Though we like to hear the words “I love you” they mean nothing if not accompanied by loving action, in fact many abused children have a very distorted view of love when their abuse was committed under the words of love.

1Jn 4: 7Beloved, let us love one another, for love is from God, and whoever loves has been born of God and knows God. 8 Anyone who does not love does not know God, because God is love.