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The Fruit of the Spirit! Love! (Part 3)

‘The fruit of the Spirit is
love, joy, peace, longsuffering, kindness, goodness, faithfulness,
gentleness and self-control.’
(Galatians 5:22-23 in the Holy Bible)

I think that every person by the time they are adults are experts on the subject of Love!

Experts on:
Lost love,
Love in dreams,
Love stories,
Love betrayed,
Fancy of love,
Love known,
Love unknown,
Missed love,
Love songs,
Faked love,
Words of love,
Poems about love,
Love shared,
Sacrificial love,
Love until death does us part,
Pledged love,
Love vows,
Love hoped for,
Disappointed love,
Love fulfilled,
Caring with love,
Forgiving love,
Love letters,
Love expressed,
Kiss of love,
Giving love,
Making love,
Love notes,
Look of love,
Love felt,
Mistaken love,
Lost love,
God’s love,
Love God,
Love of Jesus,
You don’t love me,
Love food,
Love things,
I love you,
I never loved you,
Love one another,
If you love me’

On and on I could go. In one or more of the above points almost all of us consider ourselves experts. So what can I add to your knowledge of the subject?
This column is different in that I want you just to ponder your life experiences with love and see what you have learned. I am sure many will see areas that need change. Now consider what the Bible says.

The Bible speaks hundreds of time about the subject of love. Thousands of books, poems and songs have been written on the subject. Millions of sermons have been preached on the subject. I am sure there is little that anyone can add to the subject.

I just looked up the subject of ‘love’ on my Google search and it found the word ‘love’ on 73 million different sites! This is a popular subject. In the Bible ‘love’ is listed about 550 times.

I will just give a few Bible references below and let you ponder them.

He who does not love does not know God, for God is love. In this the love of God was manifested toward us, that God has sent His only begotten Son into the world, that we might live through Him. In this is love, not that we loved God, but that He loved us and sent His Son to be the propitiation for our sins. Beloved, if God so loved us, we also ought to love one another.
(1 John 4:8-11 in the Holy Bible)

God is love, and he who abides in love abides in God, and God in him.
(1 John 4:16 in the Holy Bible)

For God so loved the world that He gave His only begotten Son, that whoever believes in Him should not perish but have everlasting life. For God did not send His Son into the world to condemn the world, but that the world through Him might be saved.
(John 3:16-17 in the Holy Bible)

A new commandment I give to you, that you love one another; as I have loved you, that you also love one another.
(John 13:34-35 in the Holy Bible)

Jesus said to him, “‘you shall love the LORD your God with all your heart, with all your soul, and with all your mind.’ This is the first and great commandment. And the second is like it: ‘You shall love your neighbor as yourself.’ On these two commandments hang all the Law and the Prophets.”
(Matthew 22:37-40 in the Holy Bible)

But whoever has this world’s goods, and sees his brother in need, and shuts up his heart from him, how does the love of God abide in him?
My little children let us not love in word or in tongue, but in deed and in truth.
(1 John 3:17-19 in the Holy Bible)

May each of us love the Lord with all our hearts and our neighbor as our self. Then may we step to an even higher level and “love one another’ as Jesus has loved us!

Lets fall in love with Jesus and love as Jesus loved and loves. Let’s express this love as we love one another and obey Jesus in all things.

How do you get love? Ask God to give you this gift. God is love. The Holy Spirit will produce love in you. This is a glorious fruit of the Spirit. Now go live in Love.

Pilgrim followers of Jesus,

Arthur and Denise Blessitt
Luke 18:1