"Every day counts when we are devoted to God!" -Elizabeth George (A Woman After God's Own Heart)

Jesus was forsaken so we would never be. -Dr. John Barnett

Daily Scripture Verse

"Cast your cares on the Lord and He will sustain you; He will never let the righteous fall." -Psalm 55:22

Thursday, March 01, 2007

Fruit Of The Spirit- Love (Part One)

“But the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, and self control. Against such there is no law.” -Galatians 5:22-23

This blog post will be about the first fruit of the Spirit...love.
The type of love this verse is talking about is the love that Jesus has for us, and the love that we should have for those around us. I’ll be basing this post on 1 Corinthians 13.

Verse 1- “If I speak in the tongues of men and of angels, but have not love, I am only a resounding gong or clanging cymbal.”

Many Christians disagree on what speaking in tongues means. From my personal study, I believe speaking in tongues means speaking in a language that you have not learned.

“When the day of Pentecost came, they were all together in one place. Suddenly a sound like the blowing of a violent wind came from heaven and filled the whole house where they were sitting. They saw what seemed to be tongues of fire that separated and came to rest on each of them. All of them were filled with the Holy Spirit and began to speak in other tongues as the Spirit enabled them.” –Acts 2:1-4

The word “tongues” is a Greek word that can be translated in two different ways.
1. glossa—means languages
2. dialektos—means dialects

So in 1 Corinthians 13:1 “tongues” could be replaced with the word languages, or dialects.

We can talk all we want, but if we aren’t speaking in love we’re just making a bunch of noise. And in the end we’re most likely going to annoy someone.

Have you ever heard a gong or cymbal being hit over and over again? If you haven’t I’ll tell you this...it gets annoying after about a minute. This is how we will be if we don’t have love, or speak in love.

Proverbs 15:1a- “A gentle answer turns away wrath...”

Verse 2- “If I have the gift of prophecy and can fathom all mysteries and all knowledge, and if I have faith that can move mountains, but have not love, I am nothing.”

We can be as wise as Solomon in all his splendor, and have faith like Abraham. But if we don’t have love; we are nothing, and the things we do amount to absolutely nothing.

Verse 3- “If I give all I possess to the poor and surrender my body to the flames, but have not love, I gain nothing.”

I know a lot of Roman Catholics (basically my dad’s entire family) who would give to the poor, but usually they don’t do it out of love. So what do they do it for?

Well, they might do it for two reasons...

1. They might get something out of it
2. They believe it’s the right thing to do

Now, both of these reasons are pretty self-explanatory, but let’s focus on the second reason for a few moments.

A lot of people (not just Roman Catholics) believe they should give to the poor because it’s the right thing to do. They feel obligated to do something good.

Now, I’m not saying that we shouldn’t give to the poor, and help them out when we can. As a follower of Jesus Christ, we are actually commanded throughout the Bible to help those in need. But that’s a whole different subject that I’ll have to talk about some other day.

Many “religious” people help the poor because they think it might get them into Heaven.
This type of thinking is wrong. Only saving faith will get you into Heaven.
(Check out James 2: 14-16 for the last two paragraphs.)

If we don’t act in love when we do something (whether it be giving to the poor, or helping your mom around the house; we gain nothing...

TO BE CONTINUED...

8 comments:

Anonymous said...

And on top of that, not only are we obeying God when we do things out of love, we also feel a much greater satisfaction than if we had done it grudgingly.

Anonymous said...

I perfectly agree.
My mom has this book she's selling called "A Gentle heart." It's an E-book she's been selling for quite some time now.
Gentleness is love, so if we do not have love in us, we are bound to not have gentleness either. Which brings me to something else... Everything is controlled my love. Because without love, we have none of the fruits of the spirit.

Moriah said...

To Daisy: "Gentleness is love, so if we do not have love in us, we are bound to not have gentleness either. Which brings me to something else... Everything is controlled my love. Because without love, we have none of the fruits of the spirit."
You are exactly right!

Anonymous said...

very encouraging post. keep up the good work and a great reminder. i shouldn't ignore this..u know the part where it talks about prophecy and talking a lot and yet having no love..i definitely don't want to sound that way, but how can I be loving, but firm in the way I share the gospel. I mean God is God of love, but also of God of wrath towards those who don't believe, right? this is what is confusing me.

Anonymous said...

hey moriah,
i have a question for you and a statement. is it wrong to want to know more about what is really going on? isn't it important. personally; i believe that it is. Christians in America need to wake up to the fact that secular humanism is here and it is invading our children's minds and feeding lies to them. I go to public school. i know what is going on and it's not pretty, but when i tried explaining to the Stubbs about my feelings; they misunderstood. I guess i made it sound like i was freaked out about a conspiracy. we are not supposed to fear, but we should be aware of what is going on. Secular humanism must be stopped. i don't want to be quiet anymore about the world is really trying to do. we can't take the back seat on this. we have to fight back. so yeah..long statement..sorry

your friend,
amy

Moriah said...

To Amy: As to your first comment... Ron M. talked about this at Awana last night. Remember?
As to your second comment... No, I don't think it's wrong to want to know what going on in the world. In fact I would say it's wise to do that. (We don't want to be dumb Christians so to speak):) But you can't let it get to you too much to were it makes you so mad and depressed that you no longer look to God who is the Author and Finisher of our faith.
And don't worry about long comments; I don't mind. ;)
I'll call you later on tonight.

Anonymous said...

Hi, found lots of stuff in this blog really helpful, but thought what you said about how we can't feed the 5000 and raise the dead was not biblical. John 14.12 says that if we believe we can do even greater things. I know the point you were trying to make, but i know of testimonies where people have been raised from the dead, and healings go on daily. Thanks for a really inspiring insight into love though. Keep blessing others.

Moriah said...

To Rachel: Yes. I know exactly what you mean. On another blog that I had written several years years ago, a girl told me the same thing, and I realized that she was right just as you are. I wrote this blog a long time ago, and at the time I didn't realize what the Bible said in John 14:12 or Phil. 4:13. I'd have to say that I've grown a lot in the Lord since the time that I wrote this blog.