Fruit: Agape Love

“For this is how God loved the world: He gave his one and only Son, so that everyone who believes in him will not perish but have eternal life.” John 3:16.

Love is the universal theme in the Bible because love is God. So, to think of love being the fruit of the spirit, it automatically registers in my mind that I am developing, through the Holy Spirit, the same likeness and essence of Christ. A.W. Tozer gives an eloquent portrayal of God’s love when he states, “God’s love is not something God has, and which may grow or diminish or cease to be. His love is the way God is, and when He loves He is simply being himself” (The Knowledge of the Holy, Pg. 26). I think it’s challenging for humans to conceptualize the reality that God is love. For human’s love is an attribute; It’s a quality or characteristic we ascribe to. That is why it’s a fruit that has to be developed through God’s spirit. The Bible says that we who live by the spirit eagerly wait by faith to receive the righteousness God has promised to us. God’s love and righteousness are synonyms because he is Holy. So, by waiting faithfully in obedience, we will receive God himself, meaning his presence which is his love in our lives.

It’s challenging for me to formulate the words to express the love of God. But what I will say is this: God provides all those who believe in him the grace to experience a love that is unconditional, sacrificial, faithful, pure, and Holy. He gives us the volition to choose what we will believe and follow. To fully understand God’s love, we must dwell in him and live life consistently inviting him in to walk with us, like Enoch (Genesis 5:21-24). The fruit of God’s Spirit: love can only be found and built through Christ. The Bible says we have to let the Holy Spirit guide our lives and its only through God’s Spirit that the fruit can be produced. So, the agape love that God wants to develop in us has to be done in and only through first releasing yourself to God and fully immersing your entire being in complete obedience to him, so that fruit can be properly developed. Andrew Murry voiced that it is in that which the obedience of His people has produced that God delights to dwell, and He crowns the obedient with his favor and His presence (A life of Obedience, pg. 13).

God created our world. He’s given us a choice if we want to love him, ourselves, and our neighbor. He desires for our hearts to seek him and keep him first. He wants us to be like him. God cares how we treat one another. The Bible says if we sin, how does that affect God?... No, your sins affect only people like yourself (Job 35:6-8). This is why it’s vital to choose love because the choices we make truly hurt one another. God desires for the world he created and the people in it to treat each other the way he originally orchestrated. That is why he sent Jesus to die on the Cross. Through Christ, God is recreating the Garden of Eden. While we are still on earth and still have time, allow God’s spirit the cultivate in us all that God is. Put on love and be who you know God has called you to be and if you haven’t received the revelation of who you are called to be, then pray. But what we do know is God is calling us to love. God is calling us to develop the fruit of the Spirit and only through his Holy Spirit we can receive his unconditional love. My hope and prayer in writing this blog is to plant a seed of hope and desire in your heart to seek God’s love in a deeper way; to thirst for his presence. Ask God for whatever you need, seek his face and not his hand. Pray that God will fill your heart with his love and wait on him faithfully.

Amen.