This week’s update is written by Holy Barre Instructor Candace Woolard and begins with content from a previous post in January 2023. Enjoy!
But the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, self-control; against such things there is no law.
Galatians 5:22-23 ESV
Hope you all had a wonderful Valentine’s Day! As we continue to celebrate all kinds of love and move into the season of Lent, we pray HIS LOVE remains the most life-giving force in your life!
“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.
There are 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
Then there is ‘romantic love’ or ‘EROS’. This is a little deeper, more intimate love that can be expressed physically, mentally, and emotionally.
The best kind AGAPE love. This is the love of God. The 1 Corinthians 13 kind of love. It’s the love WE ARE INCAPABLE OF! Our action is to respond to this type of amazing love! We have a tough time believing in this agape love because God’s love surpasses knowledge and understanding (Eph 3:19). But just as love is a choice, we just chose to believe in love!”
The greatest love ever shown was demonstrated at the cross, as Jesus died with prayers of forgiveness on His lips.
He is our Savior, our Redeemer, our King. His love fulfills us, ensures us, and motivates us to serve. His love is our life’s pursuit, our goal and our reward. There is no greater love.
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
Prayer
(taken from the Pause App’s 30 Days to Resilient)
Jesus, come into all of my emotions around the story of love in my life. Come into my ability to receive love, to believe your love for me. I need your healing presence in the function of love within me; come and unite yourself with me here, in the place of love. I ask you, Holy Spirit, for a revelation of the love of God for me.
I am known.
I am wanted.
I am chosen.
I am understood.
I am deeply and completely loved.
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
Burning Bright! 