Fruit of the Spirit ~ Love

Today as we begin to explore the fruit of God’s spirit, we need to remember that the underlying principle for this fruit to develop in our lives is to stay connected to God. We’re going to hear this again and again in the weeks to come because the truth is we do not produce this fruit through our own strength and power, this Christ-like character will only develop in us if we abide in Christ and as we allow the word of God to dwell within us. When we do this, however, our lives will produce the fruit of God’s spirit, and our lives will look more and more like the life of Jesus.

Now the first fruit Paul mentions here is love, and it is no accident that love comes first. In many ways love has to be the first fruit because love is the foundation upon which everything else is built. Kindness, goodness, faithfulness and gentleness all flow out of love, both our love for God and our love for others. True joy comes when we understand all that God’s love has done for us, and the peace that it talks about here is a peace that comes when we know God’s love is with us. Love has to come first because all the rest of the fruit flows from love, but it also comes first because first and foremost God is love. Look at 1 John 4:8. If God is love and the spirit of God dwells in our lives and shapes our hearts, then the first thing we are going to become is more loving.

But let’s be clear about what kind of love we are talking about. The word for love that Paul uses here is agape. In Greek, the language of the NT, there are three words most often used for love. There is eros which is the romantic kind of love which is based in our feeling and emotion. There is philia which is brotherly love, and then there is agape which is unconditional love. While both Eros and Philia are based in our emotions, and express the kind of love we have for people we like or those we have a strong attraction to and affection for, agape love has nothing to do with our emotions. Agape love is defined as a love that isn’t directed toward those we like, it gives itself for the welfare of all. Agape love looks for opportunities to do good to everyone. Agape love is unconditional in the sense that does not depend upon how we feel about the persons or the circumstances that surround – agape love simply gives. It’s a love that serves. Now as you can probably guess, the word for love that is used here in Galatians 5 is agape. The kind of love God produces in us is an unconditional love that serves the needs of others – it willingly sacrifices for the well being of others. It makes sense that this is the kind of love that develops within us as we stay connected to God because this is the kind of love that God is. Again, look at 1 John 4:7-13.

The word for love used again and again in this passage to talk about God is agape and we see this agape love in God when we look at the gift of his son Jesus. God loved us so much that he sent his son into this world so that we might live (9) and God sent his son Jesus to be the atoning sacrifice for sin. In other words, God sent Jesus to live for us and die for us so that we might live. Now did we deserve this? No, but God’s love is unconditional and it is this unconditional love that will develop in us as we stay connected to God. I think this is what John is saying when he says that everyone who loves is born of God – in other words we draw our live from God. John goes on to say that if we love one another it’s because God lives in us and his loves is perfected in u (12). Again, the only way we can love is if we are allowing the love of God to dwell within us, and the only way we can sustain this loving attitude that will shape every action of our lives is by staying connected to God, the one who is love.

So God is love, and God is the source of our love, but God is also the motivation for our love, look at 4:11. We don’t love others just because God is producing that quality of character within us; we also choose to love at times because we are thankful for all that God has done for us. In many ways, the first step to becoming more loving is to acknowledge and accept God’s love for us. Knowing that God loves us is the one truth that changes our lives. God’s love can set us free from guilt and shame. God’s love can give shape and purpose to our lives. God’s love gives us an ultimate sense of value and worth. And really, nothing else in our faith makes any sense unless we understand that God loves.
The good news for us is that God’s love for us is agape, which means that it is unconditional and therefore it has nothing to do with our actions, behaviors, or the attitude of our hearts. God loves us when we fail. God loves us when se stumble into sin. God loves us when we walk into sin. It’s not that God likes it when we do that, but God’s love is unconditional so it doesn’t change when we do stumble and fall. God doesn’t love us more when we are good and less when we are bad, God loves us unconditionally and fully each and every day, and accepting that love can change everything.

So no matter who we are today, no matter where we have come from or what we have done, God loves us and there is nothing we can do change that. We can reject God’s love, or we can accept it today and allow it to dwell in our hearts and lives to bring forgiveness and hope and the power we need to love others. If we want to be more loving then we must first accept God’s love for ourselves and then begin to rest and abide everyday in that love.

So God is love, God is the source of love and God is the motivation for our love, but God also gives us the example of what love looks like, look at 1 John 3:16. Jesus laid down his live for us, and there it is – that’s it. That’s agape love. At its core, agape love is sacrificial and it has to be because it is unconditional. We don’t just love others when it is convenient and fits our schedules, we don’t love others when we know we will get something in return and we don’t love others because we like them, we are called to love others all the time – even when it is painful and difficult and requires us to sacrifice.

The author Dave Simmons shows us what this love can look like today in a story he tells about taking his 2 children to Sears one Saturday. His daughter Helen was 8 and his son Brandon was 5 and when the arrived at the mall the children immediately noticed that a petting zoo had been set up in the parking lot. Seeing all the baby animals filled Helen and Brandon with so some much excitement that Dave decided to let them visit the zoo while he went into to look at tools. He gave each of his children a quarter and then went into the store. After a few minutes he realized that his daughter Helen was behind him and at first he thought how great it was that she wanted to spend time with him instead of all the little baby animals, but that thought quickly faded when he saw the look into Helen’s eyes.

When Dave asked his daughter what was wrong, Helen said sadly, "Well, Daddy, the petting zoo cost 50 cents. So, I gave Brandon my quarter." And then she repeated their family motto. The motto of the Simmons family is, "Love is action!”, and for years Helen had heard that motto from her parents and seen it lived out in how they treated each other, but now she was making the family motto her own. Helen had given Brandon her quarter, and as Dave said, no one loved cuddly furry creatures more than Helen.

Dave went on to say, “Now what do you think I did? Well, not what you might think. As soon as I finished my errands, I took Helen to the petting zoo and we stood by the fence and watched Brandon go crazy petting and feeding the animals. Helen stood with her hands and chin resting on the fence and just watched Brandon. I had 50 cents burning a hole in my pocket; I never offered it to Helen, and she never asked me for it, because she knew the whole family motto. It wasn’t just, "Love is action." It was, "Love is sacrificial action!" Love always pays a price. Love always costs something. Love is expensive. Love gives without thinking about any payment or reward. Helen gave her quarter to Brandon and I wanted to follow through with her lesson, Dave said. She knew she had to taste the sacrifice. She wanted to experience the total family motto. Love is sacrificial action.

Now I have to tell you that I really struggled when I read that story because I wanted Helen to be able to play with the animals, and the thought of her with her chin on the fence watching her brother have all the fun just about breaks my heart, but the more I thought about the story the more I realized that what she experienced in that moment was so much more valuable because she was experiencing what it truly means to love someone else. And think about this, as she was expressing the love of God in those moments, we also know she was experiencing the love of God herself because the only way she could have given so freely was because the fruit of God’s spirit was working in her. The only way we can truly love others is if God dwells within us.

The example of God, the example of Jesus and the example of Helen shows us that true agape love is sacrificial because it always places the needs and the lives of others before our own and when we reach out in love to others, it will cost us something – but when we do reach out in love, when we are able to love like Jesus loves – then we know the spirit of God is at work within us and really, what can be more valuable and important and life giving than that.