LOVE: The First Fruit
Overview: The Fruit of the Spirit
Galatians 5:22-23: “22 But the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, longsuffering, gentleness, goodness, faith, 23 Meekness, temperance: against such there is no law.”
Fruit is that which originates or comes from something. It is an effect. A result. Fruit is profit from something. It can also refer to the fruit of trees and vines, and the fruit of one’s loins (our progeny or posterity).
Fruit as defined as the fruit of trees and vines gives us the picture of feeding people. The fruit of the spirit in our lives is meant to be sustenance for others. We are a tree or a vine that others should be able to come to and pick from and receive nourishment, pleasure, and strength.
Fruit as defined as the fruit of one’s loins speaks of those things that are produced from our lives that live on after we are gone. When we look at the fruit of the spirit this way, then we are all mothers. We all have the ability to produce something like us, and if we are walking in the 9 fruits, then we will not just produce fruit that will last, but that which we produce will produce others.
Fruit as profit means I have sowed a seed and my investment has paid off. Walking in the 9 fruit means profit, growth, and increase in our lives.
The 1st definition of fruit was “that which originates from something.” You can’t get fruit without a seed, right, and the seed can’t grow without water.
John 12:24 says, “Very truly I tell you, unless a kernel of wheat falls to the ground and dies, it remains only a single seed. But if it dies, it produces many seeds.” We are the “many” seeds produced from the death of Jesus.
Holy Spirit is symbolized in scripture as many things. We have to see this portion of the God head symbolically, because there is very little information about Him otherwise. The workings of the Holy Spirit are invisible, glorious, and within. He never tells us about Himself. He comes to glorify Jesus—helping us to see Jesus more, to understand Jesus better, to respond to Jesus more obediently, and to love Jesus with a deeper heart of commitment. So the symbols of the Holy Spirit become essential to our gaining an understanding of what He’s like. Two of the symbols of Holy Spirit is Him coming as rain and as a river.
The Holy Spirit Comes as Rain: Rain has a dual implication. First as refreshing where there has been dryness and barrenness (Joel 2:23-29). Second, as restoration where there has been loss (Isa. 28:11-12). Let’s look at that for a minute. We’ve accepted Jesus. We’ve become one of the many seeds produced from His life and death. Now we go thru life, and many times in life we will go thru a dry and barren place. We need rain so that the fruit of the spirit don’t become dry and barren in us. When we experience deep loss that just wants to abide forever because it’s so tragic, we need rain so that we can be restored. We are the “many seeds” of Jesus and we often need refreshing and restoration as we try to walk in the fruit of the spirit every day. Needing to be refreshed doesn’t mean that we have backslid or sinned. When the lawn endures a hot day, it dries up and needs the refreshing of rain. The Holy Spirit, coming as rain, comes to bring refreshing and restoration.
I LOVE that the Fruit of the Spirit are called Fruit of the Spirit. They are the results of Him in our lives. We get these fruit because of Him, and we get to keep them because He makes it possible with His refreshing and restoring rain.
The Holy Spirit Comes as Rivers: Holy Spirit is manifest in rivers in order that the rain not only be a refreshing upon you, but also that the Lord would make you an overflowing tributary of His Holy Spirit fullness, life, and love to others. The Lord wants people to get in touch with who He is, and that takes people who will let the rivers of living water be awakened in them and then gush out of their lives
Without Jesus and Holy Spirit, a person cannot walk in the “fruit of the spirit” successfully. You have to accept Jesus to become one of the
“many seeds” He produced from His death, and you have to let Holy Spirit do His job of restoration and refreshing so that you can stay strong in your walk. Without these two ingredients, you might be a good person doing good things, but the fruit you produce is temporary. With these two ingredients, you become a supernatural being doing supernatural things producing fruit that endures.
Galatians 5:22-23: “22 But the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, longsuffering, gentleness, goodness, faith, 23 Meekness, temperance: against such there is no law.”
The Fruit of the Spirit identify us as children of God. They are our identifying markers. They are what we can point to and say, “see, I’m a child of God.” I will love you even when you hurt me, I will have joy and peace, even when the storms try to overtake me, I will walk in longsuffering, even when others want to take a short cut and rush the process. I will be gentle and good, even when the world treats me rough and wrong. I will walk by faith, and not be fooled by how things appear. I am not weak, but my power is under control (meekness). I will pursue self-control even if I fail, even when over indulgence is applauded. I know when my friend Binta is in church because she has this yell that no one else in church has. It lets me know that something is happening. It identifies her. It’s clear and it’s obvious. The fruit of the spirit should be just as obvious in our lives. In the coming weeks, we will be able to see which ones need refreshing and restoration so that we can walk complete in life, in our full identity as His children.
Love
So let’s talk about love. It’s fitting that we talk about the fruit of love first because the other fruit don’t work without it. I would go as far as to say, if you don’t have love, they the other fruit can’t exist.
Agapao
Phileo
Storge
Eros
Definitions of Love:
Agapao (verb) is a special word representing the divine love of God toward His Son, human beings in general, and believers. It is also used to depict the outwardly focused love God expects believers to have for one another. The noun form of Agapao is agape, which is what we are most familiar with.
This special type of Christian love, “whether exercised toward the brethren, or toward men generally, is not an impulse from the feelings, it does not always run with the natural inclinations, nor does it spend itself only upon those for whom some affinity is discovered” ( Vine’s Complete Expository Dictionary of Old and New Testament Words , “Love”).
Reflecting the fact that human marriage is modeled after the divine relationship between Christ and the Church, husbands are told to love their wives with this kind of outgoing, selfless love (Ephesians 5:25-32). This kind of love is perhaps best expressed in Jesus Christ’s statement in John 15:13, “Greater love [ agape ] has no one than this, than to lay down one’s life for his friends.” Jesus Himself perfectly exemplified this kind of love throughout His lifetime, continually giving of Himself and His time and energies to serve others and ultimately offering up His life as a sacrifice for all of humanity. This is the kind of love God wants each of us to exemplify in our lives and particularly in our marriages.
Phileo (verb) means “‘to have ardent affection and feeling’—a type of impulsive love” ( Nelson’s New Illustrated Bible Dictionary , 1995, “Love”). This is the natural, human type of love and affection that we have for a friend and is often defined as “brotherly love.”
In John 21:15-16, Jesus asked Peter if he loved Him with the agapao type of love and Peter responded that he had the normal human phileo type of love for Him. Later, after receiving the Holy Spirit, Peter would be able to genuinely demonstrate agapao -type godly love, serving others throughout his lifetime and making the ultimate sacrifice in martyrdom.
Storge is family love.
Eros (noun) refers to sexual, erotic love or desire. Eros is a love of passion, an overmastering passion that seizes and absorbs itself into the mind. It is a love that is an emotional involvement based on body chemistry. The basic idea of this love is self-satisfaction. Though Eros is directed towards another, it actually has self in mind. For example: “I love you because you make me happy.” The foundation of this type of love is some characteristic in the other person which pleases you. If the characteristic would cease to exist, the reason for the love would be gone, the result being, “I don’t love you anymore. Eros looks for what it can receive. If it does give, it gives in order to receive. Eros would be considered a conditional type of love. Eros is not used in the New Testament nor in the Greek translation of the Old Testament. In a Christian marriage, eros love is combined with agape love and therefore, all the selfishness that can be attributed to eros love is overcome by agape. Eros love is permissible in marriage, and not just for procreation, but is not supposed to overrule agape. So if your husband goes diving and has an accident and becomes a paraplegic and cannot perform eros love at all or at least the way he used to, agape isn’t supposed to be cancelled out. Agape tames Eros.
True love, Agape love, as explained in the Bible, isn’t focused on oneself and one’s feelings or emotions, but is instead outwardly focused on others —wanting to best serve and care for them. True love is beautifully described in 1 Corinthians 13:4-8 (Amplified):
4 Love endures long and is patient and kind; love never is envious nor boils over with jealousy, is not boastful or vainglorious, does not display itself haughtily. 5 It is not conceited (arrogant and inflated with pride); it is not rude (unmannerly) and does not act unbecomingly. Love (God’s love in us) does not insist on its own rights or its own way, for it is not self-seeking; it is not touchy or fretful or resentful; it takes no account of the evil done to it [it pays no attention to a suffered wrong]. 6 It does not rejoice at injustice and unrighteousness, but rejoices when right and truth prevail. 7 Love bears up under anything and everything that comes, is ever ready to believe the best of every person, its hopes are fadeless under all circumstances, and it endures everything [without weakening]. 8 Love never fails [never fades out or becomes obsolete or comes to an end]...
Verse by verse: As we go verse by verse, I want you to think about how these definitions of love are completely contrary to our nature. And, think of some examples of when you did or did not walk in these definitions of love. And, how you could have handled things differently if you did not walk in love.
4 Love endures long and is patient and kind; love never is envious nor boils over with jealousy, is not boastful or vainglorious, does not display itself haughtily.
Love does not lose heart, but patiently perseveres and bravely endures misfortunes and troubles and offenses and injuries. Love is slow to vengeance, slow to anger, slow to punish.
How is that completely contrary to our nature?
Love is virtuous, pleasant, benevolent, mild not harsh.Love is not envious, does not hate. Love doesn’t even get indignant.
Love does boast, but not about oneself; about others Love does not engage in self display.
5 It is not conceited (arrogant and inflated with pride); it is not rude (unmannerly) and does not act unbecomingly. Love (God’s love in us) does not insist on its own rights or its own way, for it is not self-seeking; it is not touchy or fretful or resentful; it takes no account of the evil done to it [it pays no attention to a suffered wrong].
The King James version of verse 5 says “love does not behave unseemly.” The word unseemly (improper, unladylike, unworthy) comes from the Greek word “deformed.” There’s a show on television called Grimm, based on the Brothers Grimm fairytales. Anyway, there are people on the show called Vesin, and they have the ability to have human form and some type of other form when they are angry or threatened. SHOW PICS. I immediately thought of this when I found out that unseemly means deformed. This is what we look like when we are not behaving in love. Without love, this is what we look like to the world.
Love takes no account of the evil done to it. Sounds like turn the other cheek to me. Love says, “even though you have wronged me, I am not going to get you back. Instead, I am going to love you, which leaves me open to having my other cheek slapped, but that’s ok, because love pays no attention to a suffered wrong.
Love keeps no record of wrong. This blew me away. To keep no record of wrong means you do not ascribe “Wrongness” to what someone does. Jesus exemplified this when He said to the Father at His crucifixion, “forgive them for they know not what they do.” He ascribed innocence to them. They knew darn well what they were doing! They were pounding nails into an innocent man and hanging him on a cross to suffer for hours before he died. They did all this with eyes wide open, and Jesus knew it, yet He ascribed innocence to them. He was basically saying to the father, “don’t hold them to account for this, don’t put it on their record in the book of life, don’t charge them, let it go.”
Imagine a 5 year old playing with her father’s gun and she shoots and kills her 4 year old friend. That 5 year old is innocent. She didn’t know what she was doing. That is how God wants us to look at the people who wrong us. No matter the horror of the wrong. Keep no record of it. Forgive them. John 20:22-23 in the MSG says, “22 Then he took a deep breath and breathed into them. "Receive the Holy Spirit," he said. 23 "If you forgive someone's sins, they're gone for good. If you don't forgive sins, what are you going to do with them?" If love holds no record of wrong, then what does God mean with Rev 3:19, Heb 12:5, and Prov 3:12? Those are all verses that talk about how God chastens, rebukes, or corrects those He loves.
Your interpretation of these verses may directly correlate with your view of God. Do you see Him as Aslan or The Punisher? What would you rather believe about our Father?
THOSE WHO THINK OF OUR FATHER AS ASLAN:
Rebuke: to show one his fault, convince
Chasten: to train, instruct, or cause to learn, instruction which aims at increasing virtue
Correct: to show to be right (prodigal son)
THOSE WHO THINK OF OUR FATHER AS THE PUNISHER
Rebuke: convict, expose, to punish, shame
Chasten: to correct by the affliction of evils and calamities, to chastise with blows, to whip
Correct: judge, chide (John 5:22,45)
6 It does not rejoice at injustice and unrighteousness, but rejoices when right and truth prevail.
I love President Obama. I love what he means to my people, I love his integrity and charisma, I love how he loves his family. I do not love every decision he made while in office. As a Christian, there were certain things he did and said that I could not rejoice over because they were not right. As much as I wanted to support him in all things, love says, “not in all things.”
Now, I’m not picking on him. The same can be said for President Bush and our current president, Donald Trump. Love means taking a stand, even when it hurts or makes you unpopular.
7 Love bears up under anything and everything that comes, is ever ready to believe the best of every person, its hopes are fadeless under all circumstances, and it endures everything [without weakening].
Love is EVER READY to believe the best of every person. Because loves hopes are fadeless under all circumstances, even when that person lets you down, you stand EVER READY to believe the best of them again, and again, and again. This means that every time they go to jail or to rehab, you believe and hope and portray to them that it’s their last time. That’s hard when you have been disappointed again and again, but love is not for the faint of heart. Love is hard, and it requires Jesus & Holy Spirit to walk in it.
I LOVE the definition of love that say “love bears up under anything and everything that comes.” To bear means to protect by covering, to preserve, to keep secret, to hide and conceal the errors and faults of others. It also means to keep off something which threatens. It comes from the Greek word for roof (found in Mark 2:4 and I Peter 4:8). Love is a place that offers shelter, not exposure. Love covers. Love springs no leaks. Love is safe.
I think of Noah’s sons. Two of them loved him, they covered his nakedness; one exposed him.
If I know that one of my sisters in Christ struggles with pornography, do I call a prayer meeting to “pray” for her struggle, or do I cover her in prayer and keep my mouth shut? We really do talk to much as Christians. 1 Thessalonians 4:11 tells us to study to be quiet. This means we are to make a practice of prudence (wisdom and common sense) and discretion (speaking in such a way as to avoid causing offense or revealing private information).
If your sister is suicidal or homicidal, then by all means, tell someone. If your sister started drinking again after 20 years of sobriety, shut up and pray and love her.
8 Love never fails [never fades out or becomes obsolete or comes to an end]...
To fail means to fall out of, to fall down from, to descend, to fall off. It means to lose. To fall from a position. To fall powerless. To be without effect.
Love NEVER fails.
Why? Because GOD IS LOVE. He cannot fall, lose, or be powerless or without effect.
AND, because He is in us and we are in Him thru Jesus Christ, WE ARE LOVE, and so we cannot fall, lose, or be powerless or without effect.
When it feels like love puts you on the losing end, remember that. Love NEVER FAILS. Eventually, the tide turns, and you see how the love decision was the right one after all.
(King James Version: 4 Charity suffereth long, and is kind; charity envieth not; charity vaunteth not itself, is not puffed up, 5 Doth not behave itself unseemly, seeketh not her own, is not easily provoked, thinketh no evil; 6 Rejoiceth not in iniquity, but rejoiceth in the truth; 7 Beareth all things, believeth all things, hopeth all things, endureth all things. 8 Charity never faileth: but whether there be prophecies, they shall fail; whether there be tongues, they shall cease; whether there be knowledge, it shall vanish away).
So, here are some other things I have learned about love:
However God expects us to love, He holds himself to the same. John 4:19 says that we love because He first loved us. All those definitions of love are how God loves us, and this gives us the ability to love others the same way.
We cannot love others in a way that is different from how God loves us. If we receive unconditional love from the Father, we cannot dish out conditional love to others.
Speaking of unconditional love, did you know that our behavior cannot manipulate God or dictate to Him whether to love us? He just does. Despite us, He loves us. That is how we are to love others, refusing to be manipulated by their behavior. Their behavior doesn’t matter when it comes to love. Look at the mom who has a son that is a child molester. She will visit him faithfully in jail until the day he or she dies. The world would say that his actions didn’t warrant love. Love says different, God says different.
Loving the way God loves us makes us vulnerable, yet it is the greatest power we possess. We have to remember that our identity is in God. We are seated with Him in Christ in heavenly places. Loving people, no matter what consequences we endure because of it, does not strip us of that identity. Love may cause us bodily or emotional harm, but it cannot harm our inner man which is the only part of us that lasts. So, technically, we cannot be truly harmed, and if the threat is gone, then we can love more easily. The same goes for the ideals we stand on. When people disagree with us, it’s very easy to withhold love, but in reality, if your ideals are God’s ideals, then no matter what the opinions of other’s are, you cannot lose. And since you cannot lose, then love.
The same God who tells us to love our enemies and our neighbors, tells us to hate our mother and father, and sister and brother – Luke 14:26. How does that add up? I learned from Ted Dekker that the word “hate” means “to let go of all attachment to and expectation of.”
Let’s listen to it in the MSG: "Anyone who comes to me but refuses to let go of father, mother, spouse, children, brothers, sisters - yes, even one's own self! - can't be my disciple.
Listen to what the Matthew Henry Commentary on this verse says: “Not that their persons must be in any degree hated, but our comfort and satisfaction in them must be lost and swallowed up in our love to Christ. When our duty to our parents comes in competition with our evident duty to Christ, we must give Christ the preference. If we must either deny Christ or be banished from our families and relations (as many of the primitive Christians were), we must rather lose their society than His favour.”
All of our expectations of others will be broken at some point, right? People are going to let us down and hurt us. When this happens, we get angry, and love is usually the last thing on our minds. If we let go of that expectation before it is broken, if we hate, we are better able to hold on to our identity in Christ and love people rather than respond to our disappointment in them.
Let’s end with some characteristics of people who love, based on the definition of love:
Patient under stress
Kind at all times
Generous not envious
Humble, not self- promoting
Never rude
Do not manipulate by using shame
Not irritable or easily offended
Celebrates honesty
Do not focus on what is flawed
Loyal to the end