| The Fruit Of Love "The fruit of the Spirit is love." Love, in our westernized culture, has become a much belittled and misunderstood word. Yet it is so important and powerful in its influence that it is listed as the first section of the fruit of the Holy Spirit. The fallen nature of mankind has a natural tendency to denigrate and distort love. And not only love, but also all else that is holy and godly. The world that we live in is overflowing with the evidence of this simple truth, a truth that affects all of us as we make our way through our passage on earth. It's not enough to diagnose the ills of the world. Somewhere, somehow, we must become agents of healing as those called to reconcile the world to Christ. It is far too easy to become sterile and surgical in our approach to spiritual life and relegate our faith and relationship with the Lord to some system of church attendance and adherence to whatever form of discipline or doctrine that's prescribed by the church we attend. True Christianity goes beyond mere attendance and adherence. It envelopes and engrosses the whole of life. For many of us, Christianity is little more than a rigor or routine. With this as the primary evidence of our faith, is it any wonder that those in the world around us, those whose lives are already stretched on the unforgiving rack of rigor and routine, fail to see the beauty and freedom in the Life of the One who beacons and calls us to "come unto me all you who are weary and heavy laden, and I will give you rest"? Consider God's Love Toward Us It's easy for us to fall into the trap of the world and to begin thinking like the world. Thinking in worldly terms will always lead us away from God and deeper into paths of thinking and living that are degenerate and derelict. Therefore, we need a source upon which to base our thinking and our living. Without a doubt, and contrary to the thinking of many, this source is the Word of God. Try as we might, we will never find a more reliable source upon which to build our lives. The Word of God cuts against the grain of worldly thinking just as it says in Hebrews 4:12. "Indeed, the word of God is living and active, sharper than any two-edged sword, piercing until it divides soul from spirit, joints from marrow; it is able to judge the thoughts and intentions of the heart." Like a probing instrument, the Word of God reaches inside of us to reveal the darkness that lies within us. Quite honestly, this is where we so easily fall short. We don't want our darkness revealed. This is where the real work lies. Our sinful condition, our spiritually dark nature, is of no surprise to God. Adam's rebellion in the Garden of Eden didn't surprise God. All of the wandering and straying of the human race were foreseen by God before He created the first man and woman. We know this because the Word of God speaks of the Lamb of God (Jesus) who was "slain from the foundation of the world". (Revelation 13:8 A.V.) God's plan all along was to redeem fallen humanity through the love gift of His Son. The golden thread of redemption is woven throughout the Word of God. We find this thread of redemption in the Garden of Eden where God to Satan, "I will put enmity between you and the woman, and between your offspring and hers, he will strike your head, and you will strike his heel." (Genesis 3:15) And we find this golden thread beautifully woven into the words Jesus when he said, "For God so loved the world that he gave his only Son, so that everyone who believes in him may not perish but may have eternal life". (John 3:16) There is a children's chorus that we learned in Sunday School when I was growing up. It says, "For God so loved the world he gave His only Son, to die on Calv'rys tree, from sin to set me free, some day He's coming back, what glory that will be, marvelous His love to me." That's the love of God for us, a love so great that, in spite of our fallen sinful nature, He sent His only Son to die an awful and brutal death on the Cross for our own sins. The Word of God tells us that the sinless Son of God became sin for us sinners and suffered death for our sins so that we might escape the penalty of eternal death and separation from God through our faith in His Son and the sacrifice that He made for us on the Cross. (2 Corinthians 5:21). Consider The Working Of Love In Our Lives As important as it is as an emotion, love is more than an emotion. Love is a way of life that must be cultivated. All of us are groomed by the things of the world. The attitudes and actions of the world have an infectious effect upon us and it's easy to begin mimicking and modeling the world in our lives. The lust of the flesh, lust of the eyes, and the pride of life easily become the things that motivate us in a world that is steeped in greed, selfishness, and anger. Here we need a reliable source upon which to base and build our lives! Here again the probing instrument reaches within us to reveal the darkness that fills the halls and closets of our souls. "If I speak in the tongues of mortals and of angels, but do not have love, I am a noisy gong or a clanging symbol. And if I have prophetic powers, and understand all mysteries and all knowledge, and if I have all faith, so as to remove mountains, but do not have love, I am nothing. If I give away all my possessions, and if I hand over my body so that I may boast, but do not have love, I gain nothing." (1 Corinthians 13:1-3). It would do us, and the world we live in, a good turn if we would take to heart what the Apostle Paul is telling us in these verses. In succinct layman terms, he's telling us that we can have what we think is everything and still have nothing at all unless love is the medium in which everything abides. "Love is patient; love is kind; love is not envious or boastful or arrogant or rude. It does not insist on its own way; it is not irritable or resentful; it does not rejoice in wrong doing, but rejoices in the truth. It bears all things, believes all things, hopes all things, endures all things." (1 Corinthians 13:4-7). Genuine love working in our lives makes us behave toward others in a much different fashion. It moves us to selflessness rather than selfishness and inspires faithfulness in place of faithlessness. Genuine love removes us from the "throne of self" where we like to sit and rule over others and places us in the role of yielded servants where our Lord and Master can effectively use us as models of Him in the world. "Love never ends. But as for prophecies, they will come to an end; as for tongues, they will cease; as for knowledge, it will come to an end. For we know only in part; and we prophesy only in part; but when the complete comes, the partial will come to an end. When I was a child, I spoke like a child, I thought like a child, I reasoned like a child; when I became an adult, I put an end to childish ways. For now we see in a mirror, dimly, but then we will see face to face. Now I know only in part; then I will know fully, even as I have been known. And now faith, hope, and love abide, these three; and the greatest of these is love." (1 Corinthians 13:8-13). Our efforts, humanly speaking, will always be incomplete and inadequate, even our best efforts, inspired and anointed by the Spirit of God. Yet, the Body of Christ continues to suffer the division and fractures caused by men and women of God, who, filled with immature childish zeal, wave their own prophecies and knowledge as standards while they wield authority over any and all who will listen. Love is always the vehicle through which God desires that our faith work. (Galatians 5:6). Prophecy is important. Divine work is important. The moving of the Holy Spirit in our midst is important. Knowledge is important. But the Apostle Paul tells the church in Galatia that everything that we do must be from the singular motive of love. And his discourse to the church in Corinth places love far above the things that most of us walking in church circles value as identifying and validating signs of our calling as Christians and as Christian leaders. It's interesting that, of all the things He could have named as identifying marks, Jesus told his disciples that they would be known by their love for one another. (John 13:35) and furthers this by making it His commandment that we love one another even as He loved us. (John 15:12). Love is both the bedrock, the sure and solid foundation, that upholds us and all that we do in the name of Christ and the fertile, soft and tilled, seed bed out of which all that is holy and righteous springs forth and flourishes. Any foundation, other than love, is only shifting and unstable sand and any work sown, except it be sown in love, is merely a work of straw. When the hard rains and winds of life come, lives, churches, and ministries, that are built on less than the solid foundation of love will, more often than not collapse. Likewise, when the tests and fiery trials of life come, those works that are sown in any other soil than the soil of love, will, more often than not, be burned up and destroyed. This truth is all too evident in our present age. Accompanying it is the harsh reality that, when lives or works collapse because they are devoid of love, numbers of innocent souls are injured and often become spiritually and emotionally disillusioned. So much hardship could be avoided if we would only do what Jesus said when he summed up the Ten Commandments saying, "You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, mind, and soul....and you shall love your neighbor as yourself." ©David Kralik Ministries, Inc. 2002 Email: matthewfivesix@hotmail.com |
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