Fruit of the Spirit: Love

As we explore the specific Fruit of the Spirit, I must emphasize their order in scripture. As with all things in His Word, even the order in which the fruit are listed has purpose. Starting with love communicates the foundational truth that God is love. Jesus’s ministry, life, death, resurrection, etc. all center around His love. The Good News (or Gospel) is all about love. Love is the answer. Love is a choice. Love is a response.

And now, dear lady, I am not writing you a new command but one we have had from the beginning. I ask that we love one another. And this is love: that we walk in obedience to his commands. As you have heard from the beginning, his command is that you walk in love.

2 JOHN 1:5-6 NIV

While this sounds simple and redundant for those of us who’ve been going to church for years, let’s not miss the power of this love! Especially since ‘love’ is such an overused word! We love our new shoes, our favorite book, our friend, our children, our husband, and our God. So for clarity, let’s talk about the different types of love.

We have what we call ‘friend love’ or ‘PHILOS’. Yes, this is how Philadelphia got its name as the ‘city of brotherly love’. You’ll see this kind of love when reading about the churches in Act 2 and in Galations 6:10 – ‘Therefore, as we have opportunity, let us do good to all people, especially to those who belong to the family of believers.’ The Holy Barre community has allowed so many of us to experience this type of love in action. Showing up for each other and doing life together in authentic relationships! Truly a gift!

Then there is ‘romantic love’ or ‘EROS’. This is a little deeper, more intimate love that can be expressed physically, mentally, and emotionally. God’s design for this kind of love allows marriage to be the closest thing we have on earth to the spiritual relationship of Jesus and His church. Of course since marriage unites two imperfect, sinful people, it’s super messy, and I’m begging you not to compare your husband to Jesus! But if we approach this ‘EROS’ love through a lens of holy adoration, intimacy, forgiveness, and service, the result can be quite beautiful with the help of Christ and the Holy Spirit! Connection and communication are key, and my husband and I have found benefit in going to marriage counseling as well as receiving a weekly email from the Gottman Institute – click here to sign up!

One unique aspect of ‘EROS’ is the gift of intimacy. This includes physical closeness as well as intimate conversations, revealing our deepest and most vulnerable desires, dreams, and disappointments. I realize intimacy may be a hot topic and one that can stir up a lot of pain and shame. Yet I pray regardless of your past, your future is filled with beauty and life in the bedroom. And I pray the Lord brings restoration and intimacy into your marriage in light of ‘eros love’. These words by Beth Moore always get my attention.

Physical love or sexual intercourse is to marriage what prayer is to our spiritual life.

Every single day I pray to thrill to his touch.

– LIVING BEYOND YOURSELF, BETH MOORE

There’s plenty of baggage even within the church about sex and marriage. Pleasing your husband can often be presented as a wife’s duty rather than a joy. Or there is little discussion about it at all, and we’re just supposed to figure it out on our own. I’ve been there and I’m guessing many of you have as well. Yet it breaks my heart how the enemy uses our insecurities, culture, friendships, and even past hurts to distort the gift God intended for sex. So I’m praying with you for freedom in the bedroom!

And if you want to spice things up, certain barre moves make for a fun connection! I pray barre expands your confidence and physical intimacy! Barre for the Bedroom, anyone? (Yes, I went there . . . I’d rather we talk about sex in biblical community instead of getting our knowledge from movies or online articles.)

Now to the best kind – AGAPE love. This is the love of God. The 1 Corinthians 13 kind of love. The love WE ARE INCAPABLE OF! Our action is to respond to this type of amazing love! ‘Agape is expressed through me when I surrender to the empowerment and temperament of the Holy Spirit.’ – Beth Moore. This is sacrificial love . . . ‘offer your bodies as a living sacrifice’. (Romans 12:1) ‘Love the Lord your God with ALL your heart, ALL your soul, ALL your strength, and ALL your mind. [Then] love your neighbor as yourself!’ (Matthew 22:37-39) I added the ‘then’ because pure love is an overflow of His love in us!

We often discuss love in terms of giving, serving, helping, showing love to others. But I’m learning how we RECEIVE love may be even more valuable than how we GIVE love. Let’s stop to answer two important questions:

• Do you believe your God love you with an ‘AGAPE’ kind of love? Do you receive it?

Because the truth is, if you can’t answer ‘yes’ to these, freedom in Christ is going to be fleeting. I’m guessing your husband doesn’t tell you he loves you constantly nor does he compliment your effort, body, love, etc daily. So why do we fill in the gaps or create a story in our heads that he must then not appreciate us, must not be attracted to us, or must not love us.

What if we daily loved our husbands in a way that we fully believed they loved us, just as we are today, with an EROS kind of love, empowered by the AGAPE love overflowing within us from the Holy Spirit? What if we loved our friends and family with a PHILO love, empowered by His AGAPE love?

Even more, why do we struggle to accept and live in God’s unconditional, abundant, everlasting love? Why do we cling to shame, hang on to hurt, attempt to control, give grace to others but not ourselves, strive to follow all the ‘rules of righteousness’, and keep score of our behavior, our husband’s, and others?

We have a tough time believing in this AGAPE love because God’s love surpasses knowledge and understanding (Eph 3:19). We truly can’t grasp it fully! This is where surrender and sacrifice come in. But just as love is a choice, we just chose to believe in love and trust Him! So let’s grab hold of faith, believe God’s telling the truth, trust Him in love, and move forward with His Spirit of Love filling our hearts, souls, strength, and minds.

I pray that out of his glorious riches he may strengthen you with power through his Spirit in your inner being, so that Christ may dwell in your hearts through faith. And I pray that you, being rooted and established in love, may have power, together with all the Lord’s holy people, to grasp how wide and long and high and deep is the love of Christ, and to know this love that surpasses knowledge—that you may be filled to the measure of all the fullness of God.

EPHESIANS 3:16-19 NIV

Lord, consume us with your love. Reveal its power in this season and allow us to grow and thrive like never before. Free us from our own insecurities, pain, abuse, control, etc that hinder Your love! Fill us with your love so we overflow and produce abundant fruit bearing Your name!

Dear friends, since God so loved us, we also ought to love one another. No one has ever seen God; but if we love one another, God lives in us and his love is made complete in us. . . And so we know and rely on the love God has for us. God is love. Whoever lives in love lives in God, and God in them. . . Our love for others is our grateful response to the love God first demonstrated to us.

I John 4:11-12, 16, 19 NIV