The Fruit of the Spirit 7 (What Love Is)

In today's article, I will introduce the first Characteristic of the fruit of the Spirit, which is Love. Love seems to me as the first layer of the fruit where other characteristics are embedded. 


“But the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, longsuffering, kindness, goodness, faithfulness” Galatians 5:22.‬ ‭‬‬ 


As I have shared in the previous article, “for us to be able to express all of these characteristics, we need to consider the man Jesus; how He lived among men, how He carried Himself and how He related to people and His environment.” That is what I will be sharing as we look into Love. 

To start with on this subject, I love to share from 1 John 4:7-10 


I so much love reading John's Epistle and his gospel because there is this familiar word he uses, which is the word ‘beloved.’ This word surfaced many times in His writing. So anytime you see the word ‘beloved,’ it is to inform you that “it is God who loves you.” 

Even though everyone around you might have forsaken you, or you may even feel that you have not loved yourself that much. But God is saying, “It is I who has loved you.” If God, the author of life, loves you, then whoever rejects you should not weigh you down. The message is, “It is God that has loved you.” 

Now going into the passage of the scripture, John continued to inform us about God's love. He said, “Let us love one another, for (because) God is of love.” That tells us that ‘Love’ can only be traced to God. He further said, “Love is of God.” That is, God is the owner of Love. No one is entitled to define or give you love. 

John continued His argument and said, “Anyone that loves is born of God and knows God.” So, the fact that God's love dwells in you proves that Christ has regenerated you by His Spirit. Have you been regenerated? 

Love is not what we naturally possess. But when a man is regenerated—born again, Jesus comes to dwell inside alongside His divine love. Yeah! Now, regenerated men don't need to struggle to love again. Howbeit, if a natural man tries to exhibit love, He will still fall short of this divine love that Jesus embodies and gives. 

Furthermore, the Apostle said, “he who loves is born of God and knows God.” The only reason we—believers have not been loving others just as God loves us is because of our ignorance of God's love. Divine love flows from a robust sense and awareness of God's love for us. When we have an understanding of God's love, it will compel our hearts to love men just as Jesus does. 

GOD IS LOVE! 


God is fundamentally and essentially love. He is the definition of love, and He alone is entitled to define love. Society tries to give us a clue about what love is. But they don't have rights because they don't know it. It didn't originate from any other apart from God. 

However, we have not seen the Father in His light and glory. Hence, we would not have been able to know about His love if not that He demonstrated it for us through His Son, Jesus. God made His love visible by giving us His only-begotten Son to substitute for our sins. What Love! 

The definition of Divine Love is in verse 10 of John chapter 4: Love has given Himself up to be the propitiation for the sin of another. “But Christ proved God’s passionate love for us by dying in our place while we were still lost and ungodly!” (Romans 5:8 TPT). We are unlovable by every standard, yet Christ proved He loved us. He paid the ultimate price for our sins and trespasses. Oh! His love is for the unlovable. 

I love how the Old King James version starts 1 John 4:10, which says, “Herein is love …” Love, in its highest ideal, is herein. That means “love was all on God's side, none on ours.” It has to be God that loves you. Else, you cannot be aware of what love is. It is not that we loved God—though so altogether worthy of love; yet He loved us—though so entirely unworthy of love. 

Now I have received His love. Have you? So then, we ought to know about this supernatural and divine love we have received to walk in it. That is what I will be sharing in the subsequent articles. 

In conclusion, do you know about the love of Jesus? Do you know He loves you with eternal love? You must know this to walk and manifest in His divine love.

Yours in Christ,
Ayoola Fakeye

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

THE VICTOR’S MENTALITY 17 (Knowing Jesus Is Knowing Truth)

Calvary greetings, my beloved readers! Today, we’ll continue exploring the armor of God, focusing on the belt of truth, which we began discussing last time. This armor equips us to stand against the wiles of the evil one. We’ve shared quite a bit about the belt of truth already, so to catch up, please check out our blog site for the full teaching . Here’s our key text:“Stand therefore, having girded your waist with truth, having put on the breastplate of righteousness,” (Ephesians 6:14 NKJV) One thing I don’t want us to forget is that truth is how God sees things. That’s the truth! For our belief system to be firmly rooted in Christ, we need to see things the way God sees them. So, today, we’ll dive into how to see things as God does. This is foundational to cultivating a victor’s mentality. Let me start by declaring that Jesus is the truth:“Jesus said to him, ‘I am the way, the truth, and the life. No one comes to the Father except through Me.’” (John 14:6 NKJV). No one—living or dead...
Read more

THE VICTOR'S MENTALITY 9 (The devil is a Liar)

  In this article, I will begin sharing about the second phase of our series: understanding who our opposition is. We’ve already explored the first phase, which focused on the type of strength we have and its source. Let’s revisit our reference text:   "Put on the whole armour of God, that you may be able to stand against the wiles of the devil" (Ephesians 6:11 NKJV)  It is crucial to know who our opposition is—the one who does everything possible to hinder you from walking in everyday victory. Many grace-based believers argue that it’s unnecessary to talk about the devil. Sure, we are not devil-conscious, but as ministers, there’s nothing wrong with presenting the devil the way Jesus and His Apostles did. My issue is with those who attribute to the devil what he does not possess. Nowhere in Scripture do Jesus or the Apostles describe the devil as having any power or authority. If we can see the devil as the Bible presents him, that alone is the victor’s mentality. Th...
Read more

THE VICTOR’S MENTALITY 20 (Knowing Jesus Is Knowing Truth 4)

By God’s grace, in today’s article, we’ll finish what we started about knowing Jesus intimately in the Scriptures. We’ve already discussed three ways to see Jesus intimately through the Scriptures: • Photographically in the Gospels • Doctrinally in the Epistles • Prophetically in the Old Testament By God’s grace, I’ll share two more in this article. You can check the previous article to get the full experience of what we’ve taught. Another way we must know Jesus, who is the truth, is: 4. Experientially in the Believer’s Life We need to understand that knowing and seeing Jesus goes beyond theological or intellectual knowledge; the aim must be to know Jesus personally and experientially. That’s what I intend to share with you in today’s write-up and this is the aim of the Scriptures. We’ve talked about knowing Jesus through the Gospels, Epistles, and Old Testament—all to these is to an end that it leads us to a living relationship with the person of Christ. To have an experiential relat...
Read more