Love – the ultimate Fruit of the Spirit

“Wait a moment!” - you may object. “I thought that fruits of the Spirit were love + joy, peace, longsuffering, gentleness, goodness, faith, meekness, temperance” (Galatians 5:22-23) Right?

Please note that the fruit is in singular!!! Ever noticed that? The final and ultimate fruit of the Spirit is Love! The rest is it’s constituent working parts. So, let me amend the translation: The fruit of the Spirit is Love, which is: joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness and self-control. WOW! That’s exactly what I said this week in my devotional study.

Each individual term reflects shades of Love.

Joy is Rejoicing Love. Geek chara means happiness as divine gift, same word from which we get Grace. The whole Gospel is the Word of Joy. It’s same kind of joy with which the seventy came back after doing wonders in Jesus name (Luke 10:17)

Peace is Reconciling Love. Greek eirene is equivalent for Hebrew shalom. It’s the harmony that God brings in creation from chaos, it’s the climate of the New Jerusalem. This is what Paul is talking about in his letter to Romans 12:16 “live in harmony with one another.”

Patience is Enduring Love. Greek for patience is makrothymia, meaning holding back the thymos, anger, for a long, long time. Just as James puts it “be patient, do not grumble against each other.” (5:7-9)

Kindness is Amiable Love. Greek term chrestotes is always expressed in relationships: being interested in others, giving gifts, showing attention, listening to people, remembering names. Kind of love that the Good Samaritan showed on the Jericho Road. (Luke 10:30-35)

Goodness is Correcting Love. Greek term agathosyne means striving for the standards which God defined as “good.” It’s the attitude of opposition to all forms of evil in our life and in lives of others. Kind of love Jesus showed overturning tables cleansing the Temple (Mark 11:15-17)

Faithfulness is Reliable Love. Greek here is the same as faith – pistis. Love that can be trusted. Remember that parable of the talents (Matthew 25:14-30)? Just as God entrusted his riches to us, so does He expect our trust. Jesus said whoever can be trusted with little can be trusted with much (Luke 16:10-12)

Gentleness is Humble Love. Greek praytes is opposite of argumentative, self-righteous stubbornness. Gentle people submit easily to God and others. True leadership is characterized by gentleness (1^st Timothy 3:3) The kind of leadership shown by Jesus washing disciples feet. It’s carrying each other burdens (Galatians 6:1-3)

Self-control is Disciplined Love. The Greek word egkrateia is semantically related to askeo, meaning sobriety and restraint to the point of ascetism. Paul knew well this discipline as he writes in 1^st Corinthians 9:24-27 “I restrain my body not to be disqualified from the prize.”

So, How Loving are You? The basic condition for the church to be healthy is being loving, which means: rejoicing, reconciling, enduring, amiable, correcting, reliable, humble and disciplined. Welcome to my dream church!

Loving Relationships will “Tell London” that Jesus is coming Soon

This week I had one of those AHA! moments. I was reading during my devotional time 2^nd Peter and these words came flooding at me:

…as His divine power has given to us all things that pertain to life and godliness, through the knowledge of Him who called us by glory and virtue…But also for this very reason, giving all diligence, add to your faith virtue, to virtue knowledge, to knowledge self-control, to self-control perseverance, to perseverance godliness, to godliness brotherly kindness, and to brotherly kindness love. For if these things are yours and abound, you will be neither barren nor unfruitful in the knowledge of our Lord Jesus Christ. But he who lacks these things is shortsighted, even to blindness…

That’s in 2^nd Peter 1:5-9. peter is giving a balanced picture of a believer, balanced picture of a Christian community. Such living offers rewards every moment. Without these virtues – blindness, shortsightedness, cannot see what’s right before you.

The reason I got so excited is that these virtues express the eight quality characteristics that a healthy church must have. We’ve been talking about our church health and improving quality of the eight essential fundamentals:

Loving Relationships, Caring Groups,

Inspiring Worship, Passionate Spirituality,

Evangelism for Needs, Ministry by Gifts,

Empowering Leaders, Functional Structures

The Apostle Peter makes clear that when we grow in these – we become productive, fruitful, we grow!!!

One thing all growing churches have in common – they are Loving Churches! Churches that place highest priority on Loving Relationships improve in every other category. Love is the ultimate goal and destination for every Christian. It is the goal of our church family.

The only way we begin to Tell London, to tell our families, to tell our co-workers, our kids, that Jesus is coming soon – when we love them and wish them to be saved with Jesus. Love will Tell!!!

Traditional Christian churches had entered the Lent season 21^st of February reminding each other of the Suffering of Jesus on our behalf, in preparation for his Sacrifice. The secular world tells us that faith in Jesus maybe historical but is pointless. Most recently James Cameron, (Canadian film director of the “Titanic” fame) says he found Jesus’ family tomb. We could laugh just as God laughs at scoffers (Psalm 2:4), knowing the real truth – the Love of Jesus transforming our lives, ever active today, because Jesus is alive.

What we need is the evidence that the world may see Jesus – and that is possible only when we love one another. (John 13;35) May our Loving Relationships become our identity card.

Love will Tell!