Galatians 5:22-25 But the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy,
peace, longsuffering, gentleness, goodness, faith, Meekness, temperance:
against such there is no law. And they that are Christ's have crucified the
flesh with the affections and lusts. If we live in the Spirit, let us also walk
in the Spirit.
Trivia – How many times does the word LOVE appear in the Bible? 169 times
The first fruit of the Spirit is love. Love speaks of relationship. In order for love to be cultivated in our lives, we must understand that it is two-fold. Our love must be developed vertically with God before it can be developed horizontally with those around us. When our relationship with God is right, our relationships with others will flow in His divine love.
In this Lesson we will study developing love for God.
Matthew 22:35-40 Then one of them, which was a lawyer, asked him a question, tempting him, and saying, Master, which is the great commandment in the law?
Jesus said unto him, Thou shalt love the Lord thy God with all thy heart, and with all thy soul, and with all thy mind. This is the first and great commandment. And the second is like unto it, Thou shalt love thy neighbor as thyself. On these two commandments hang all the law and the prophets.
In this scripture, Jesus was asked which of the commandments was the greatest. His answer was to love God. Secondly it was to love others as ourselves. This message was so important that He said that ALL THE LAW AND PROPHETS hang on this truth.
Here the word love in the Greek is agapao. It is defined in SeedMaster’s electronic lexicon as “to welcome, to entertain, to be fond of, to love dearly, to be well pleased, to be contented at or with” Thayer’s Lexicon stats that it is to “have preference for, regard the welfare of.” He then states “When used of love to God or Christ, the word involves the idea of affectionate reverence, prompt obedience and grateful recognition of benefits received.
--Therefore the entire purpose of the Cross was to bring us into a love, intimate and reverent relationship with Father God. On this truth – all the Word hangs.--
Matthew 7:22-23 - Many will say to me in that day, Lord, Lord, have we not prophesied in thy name? and in thy name have cast out devils? and in thy name done many wonderful works? And then will I profess unto them, I never knew you: depart from me, ye that work iniquity.
The Greek word here for “knew” is ginosko (gin-onc’-ko). This word means “to learn to know, come to know, to become well acquainted with.” It is also a Jewish idiom for the most intimate relationship that can exist between a husband and wife. THREFORE IT IS NOT A SURFACE KNOWLEDGE It is an extremely intimate relationship.
This verse gives a very important warning; it is not what we do that makes us acceptable in the Kingdom (i.e. we cannot earn a place with God). Works without relationship can send one to Hell. The works that we do for God must spring out of the relationship. Let’s look at it this way:
WRONG: My works for God ensure my relationship with God.
RIGHT: My relationship with God promotes and empowers my works for God
a. To receive forgiveness from God: :There are two areas that this can cover. The first is not allowing sin to come between us and God. When we sin, we need to run to Jesus to forgive us. This relationship with God must become so precious that we will not let anything hinder this ongoing fellowship.
The second area is to receive his
forgiveness. Many will ask God a
thousand times to forgive them. But they
do not believe they are worthy to receive it.
Thus they never do. The truth is
that none of us are worthy to receive God's forgiveness. That is why Jesus went to the cross. When we refuse to receive His forgiveness and
forgive ourselves we reject His love and the price He paid for us to receive
that forgiveness at
b. To forgive God: before you get upset. Let me state that God is perfect, He cannot sin or make a mistakes. Unfortunately our understanding of God and His ways are incomplete. Every day God is blamed for things He did not do. Every earthquake, tornado and war is blamed on God. So many times, we reap in our lives the things we have sown and then say "Why did God let this happen to me?" We need to confess before Him that we have blamed Him for things He did not do and then forgive Him. Unforgiveness for a perceived wrong makes a wall in relationships as surely as unforgiveness for a real wrong.
c. Relationship = Time: In Ministry, it is so easy to be too busy doing Ministry for God that we never have time to spend with God. Any time you neglect the relationship intimacy will suffer. Whenever a husband and wife get so busy that they cannot spend time together intimacy is lost. It is the same with our relationship with God. It must become so precious that we invest time and energy into developing a deeper, more intimate relationship with Him.
We initially received love as a gift from God. But to develop the fruit of God for God, we must plant, water, cultivate and nurture the relationship. When we get to heaven and stand before Him it should be a comforting and holy thing. Why? Because we developed a lifelong intimate friendship with Him while here on Earth.
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