The Fruit of the Spirit: Love by Owen Cooper

The Fruit of the Spirit: LOVE

When I was in college, I had a friend who loved to play this game with songs. Everyone would agree on a word, like “truck” for example, and then we would take turns trying to think of songs with the word “truck” in it. If you couldn’t think of a word, you were out. The last person left would win, and then we’d pick a new word. I remember the time we did the word “love.” That game lasted for 3 days!

How many songs do you know with the word “love”? Lost love, found love, new love, or true love is the topic of most songs. How many catchy “love” quotes do you know? (“Love makes the world go ‘round.” “Love is blind.”)

It’s true that love is all around us, but where does this desire for love, to be loved, and to feel loved come from? The Greek word for love in the New Testament is agape. The Zondervan NIV concordance says that the word agape “in the New Testament [is] usually the active love of God for his Son and his people, and the active love his people are to have for God, each other, and even enemies.”

So the love we are to have for each other and even the love that we give back to God is modeled for us by God Himself! He shows us how to love by how He loves His own Son, Jesus. And He shows us how to love by how He displays His love toward us. And how does He do that?

“God demonstrates his own love for us in this: While we were still sinners, Christ died for us.” (Romans 5:8) This then, truly is an active love. This is not a passive, feel-good-about-myself kind of love. This is a love with teeth.

Read 1 Corinthians 13 below.

1If I speak in the tongues[a] of men and of angels, but have not love, I am only a resounding gong or a clanging cymbal. 2If I have the gift of prophecy and can fathom all mysteries and all knowledge, and if I have a faith that can move mountains, but have not love, I am nothing. 3If I give all I possess to the poor and surrender my body to the flames,[b] but have not love, I gain nothing.
4Love is patient, love is kind. It does not envy, it does not boast, it is not proud. 5It is not rude, it is not self-seeking, it is not easily angered, it keeps no record of wrongs. 6Love does not delight in evil but rejoices with the truth. 7It always protects, always trusts, always hopes, always perseveres.
8Love never fails. But where there are prophecies, they will cease; where there are tongues, they will be stilled; where there is knowledge, it will pass away. 9For we know in part and we prophesy in part, 10but when perfection comes, the imperfect disappears. 11When I was a child, I talked like a child, I thought like a child, I reasoned like a child. When I became a man, I put childish ways behind me. 12Now we see but a poor reflection as in a mirror; then we shall see face to face. Now I know in part; then I shall know fully, even as I am fully known.
13And now these three remain: faith, hope and love. But the greatest of these is love.
I guarantee you that if you google the word love, you will find all sorts of “love,” but most of it will not look anything like what we just read in 1 Corinthians 13 above. Why do human attempts at love fall so short and become so broken? How can we possibly display the agape, God kind of love?

1 Corinthians 13 describes the ideal love, the perfect love. Surely we can’t do that! That’s where our passage about the Fruit of the Spirit in Galatians helps us. Here’s what it says right before and right after listing the fruit of the Spirit:

“For the sinful nature desires what is contrary to the Spirit, and the Spirit what is contrary to the sinful nature. They are in conflict with each other, so that you do not do what you want. But if you are led by the Spirit, you are not under law.” (Galatians 5:17-18) “Since we live by the Spirit, let us keep in step with the Spirit.” (Galatians 5:25)

So it is not our human frail love we have to count on, but through the Holy Spirit of God, we can love like God loves- even better, we can love with God’s love!

“And so we know and rely on the love God has for us. God is love. Whoever lives in love lives in God, and God in him. In this way, love is made complete among us…We love because He first loved us.” (1 John 4:16-17a, 19)

Questions for Reflection:
1. Where have you seen agape love at its best?
2. When have you tried to love someone without God’s help?
3. How can you show agape love to those around you?
4. How does God show you that he loves you?
5. How do you show God that you love Him?