Fruit of the Spirit: Love – Walking in Love

Galatians 5:22-25, “But the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, longsuffering, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, self-control. Against such there is no law. And those who are Christ’s have crucified the flesh with its passions and desires. If we live in the Spirit, let us also walk in the Spirit.”

             For us to bear fruit, we must abide in Christ. For us to bear the fruit of love, we must abide in Christ. So, what is love? Love is the foundational fruit. If we walk in love, we will walk in the rest of the fruits. If we understand love, we will understand the whole gospel. We cannot walk in faith without love, we cannot walk in righteousness without love, we cannot pray and worship without love. Love is central to everything Gospel. If we understand love, we will understand the bible. That is why it is the first fruit listed.

Why is love so significant?

 1 John 4:7-9, “Beloved, let us love one another, for love is of God; and everyone who loves is born of God and knows God. He who does not love does not know God, for God is love.”

             God is love! He does not have love, He is Love. Understanding that statement will help you understand why God behaves the way He does.

 v.8, “He who does not love does not know God…”

             This is such a profound statement. If you do not love, you do not know God. We sing about wanting to know God, we pray about wanting to know God, and we even fast with the desire of wanting to know God, and here is the answer: “8 He who does not love does not know God…” If you want to know God, walk in love. In 1 John 3, the Lord is even more direct.

 1 John 3:10-15, “In this the children of God and the children of the devil are manifest: Whoever does not practice righteousness is not of God, nor is he who does not love his brother. For this is the message that you heard from the beginning, that we should love one another, not as Cain who was of the wicked one and murdered his brother. And why did he murder him? Because his works were evil and his brother’s righteous. Do not marvel, my brethren, if the world hates you. We know that we have passed from death to life, because we love the brethren. He who does not love his brother abides in death. Whoever hates his brother is a murderer, and you know that no murderer has eternal life abiding in him.

             If you do not love your brother, you are a murderer!! Wow! Those are some strong statements. Let’s correctly divide these statements. A brother or a sister is someone you are fellowshipping with. Loving your brother or sister does not mean you have to be doormat to them. I sometimes think because we ‘love’ someone we are afraid to share the truth with them because we might hurt them. We sometimes are afraid to disagree with someone because we ‘love’ them. Walking in love is telling the truth and being honest, and if they disagree with you that’s ok. All you can do is love them, if they choose not to respond in like manner then there is nothing you can do about.

 Romans 12:18, “ If it is possible, as much as depends on you, live peaceably with all men.”

             If it is possible, live peaceably. Sometimes it is not, and that’s ok. There are some people you cannot live peaceably with and that is ok. When it comes to walking in love them main thing you should be focusing on is, how do you respond. How do you respond when someone is being rude? How do you respond when someone is blatantly disrespecting you? How do you respond when someone does not value you?

1 John 3:14, “We know that we have passed from death to life, because we love the brethren. He who does not love his brother abides in death.”

            The proof of us passing from death to life is when we walk in love. You prove that you are a Christian by walking in love. This word abide is the same one that we talked about last week. This verse is black and white. If we abide in Christ, we will walk in love, if we abide in death we will not walk in love. Another way of saying abiding in death is abiding in the flesh. When we abide in the flesh, we are focused on our selfish desires and selfish gains. Galatians 5 tells us the fruits of flesh.

Galatians 5:19-21, “Now the works of the flesh are evident, which are: adultery, fornication, uncleanness, lewdness, idolatry, sorcery, hatred, contentions, jealousies, outbursts of wrath, selfish ambitions, dissensions, heresies, envy, murders, drunkenness, revelries, and the like; of which I tell you beforehand, just as I also told you in time past, that those who practice such things will not inherit the kingdom of God.”

            Are we going to abide in Christ and walk in love or are we going to abide in the flesh and walk in self?

Deuteronomy 30:19, “I call heaven and earth as witnesses today against you, that I have set before you life and death, blessing and cursing; therefore choose life…”

            If we put that in context of what we are talking about we can rewrite this passage and say:

I call heaven and earth as witnesses today against you, that I have set before you abiding in Christ and abiding in the flesh, blessing and cursing; therefore choose abiding in Christ.

            If we want to walk in love, we must abide in Christ. The beauty of God is that He will never ask you to do something that he has not equipped you to do. He gives us the ability to walk in love, then commands us to walk in love.

Romans 5:5, “Now hope does not disappoint, because the love of God has been poured out in our hearts by the Holy Spirit who was given to us.”

            The Holy Spirit has poured the love of God in our hearts. His love has been poured into our hearts. We have the capacity to love like God does. The only way we can love like God does, is when we abide in Jesus Christ. Outside of Jesus, we cannot walk in love. Outside of Christ we cannot love like He does.

            We have seen in 1 John that God is love.

1 John 5:1, “Whoever believes that Jesus is the Christ is born of God…”

            How believe in Jesus? Then we are born of God. So, I can say, we are born of love. This revelation changed how I looked at 1 Corinthians 13. I started declaring this truth on my life every night before I went to bed. 1 Corinthians 13:4-8:

o   I suffer long.

o   I am kind.

o   I do not envy.

o   I do not parade.

o   I am not puffed up.

o   I do not behave rudely.

o   I do not seek my own.

o   I am not provoked.

o   I think no evil.

o   I do not rejoice in iniquity, but I rejoice in the truth.

o   I bear all things, I believe all things, I hope all things, and I endure all things.

o   I never fail.

 When I started walking in this truth, everything changed in my life.