The Fruit of the Spirit is Love ...

To say that this world has a poor understanding of what love is would seem to be a gross understatement. With marriages breaking up all around us, the message seems to be that love rarely lasts a lifetime. The problem is that love is often viewed as a feeling. However, when things get rough, wedding vows are quickly forgotten. When they said, “for better or for worse,” they merely meant, “for better.” That’s not God’s kind of love. In fact, I don’t think that is love at all. It may be lust, it may be warm tinglies, but it’s not love.

True love is far more than a feeling. And, it’s something that we can only fully understand once we have embraced (or been embraced by) the love of God. I love the scene from the movie, Fireproof, where Caleb (played by Kirk Cameron) exclaims in frustration, “How am I supposed to show love to somebody over and over and over who constantly rejects me?” In response, his father touching and then leaning up against a cross, says, “That’s a good question.” In the movie, Caleb gets the point, and finds out what true love is. Only then, is he able to truly love his wife. Finally, he found out what agape love was and is.

That is the kind of love (self-giving and unconditional) that we are to have for one another. That kind of love comes from God.

Here are a few verses that remind us of what true love is:

1 John 3:16 By this we know love, that he laid down his life for us, and we ought to lay down our lives for the brothers.
1 John 4:9 In this the love of God was made manifest among us, that God sent his only Son into the world, so that we might live through him.
1 John 4:19 We love because he first loved us.

This kind of love points others toward the Savior. This kind of love weathers the storms of life and does, indeed, last a lifetime. May this be the kind of love we show toward one another.

In His grip,
Pastor Decker