On our own, we don’t know how to love.
It’s easy to bristle against a statement like that. We don’t know how to love? Might as well say we don’t know how to breathe or how to blink. Of course we know how to love. What about the love of a mother for her children? The love of husband for his wife? The love of a soldier for his country? Everything around us tells us that love is one of the most fundamental human emotions.
Except … it isn’t.
The love that is produced by the Spirit is more than just an emotion, and most important, it’s not human.
This love is also an action, and it’s divine.
“Beloved,” wrote the apostle John, “let us love one another, for love is of God; and everyone who loves is born of God and knows God. He who does not love does not know God, for God is love” (1 John 4:7-8, emphasis added throughout).
Before the first man drew his first breath—before the first star twinkled in the inky expanse of space—there was God, and God was love.
“We love Him,” said John, “because He first loved us” (1 John 4:19).
In English, the word love is more flexible than an Olympic gymnast. We can love our country enough to die for it … and we can also love a cheeseburger. They’re clearly two different sentiments, and yet we use the same word to describe both.
The Greeks had several words that express different aspects of what we lump together as love in English. The specific word for love used by Paul and John in the verses we’ve looked at is not as flexible as the English word. John said that “everyone who loves is born of God,” but it’s pretty obvious that loving a cheeseburger doesn’t somehow make us born of God. Our English word doesn’t do the concept justice, so we’ll have to turn to the Bible for a clearer definition.
The Greek word Paul and John used to write about love in these verses is agape. It doesn’t show up much in other ancient Greek writings, but it does show up more than 100 times in the pages of the New Testament. By looking at those verses in context, we can build a working definition of what biblical agape really means—and why it’s part of the fruit of the Spirit.
Toward the end of His human life, Jesus told His disciples, “As the Father loved Me, I also have loved you; abide in My love. If you keep My commandments, you will abide in My love, just as I have kept My Father’s commandments and abide in His love” (John 15:9-10).
If you keep My commandments. Continuing in God’s love is contingent on whether we’re actually doing the things He told us to do.
Paul explained further: “He who loves another has fulfilled the law. For the commandments, ‘You shall not commit adultery,’ ‘You shall not murder,’ ‘You shall not steal,’ ‘You shall not bear false witness,’ ‘You shall not covet,’ and if there is any other commandment, are all summed up in this saying, namely, ‘You shall love your neighbor as yourself.’ Love does no harm to a neighbor; therefore love is the fulfillment of the law” (Romans 13:8-10).
Some people think Paul was replacing God’s law with love, but the truth is quite the opposite. God’s law helps us define what love is—and what it isn’t. If you love your neighbor as yourself, you’re not going to have an affair with your neighbor’s spouse. You’re not going to kill your neighbor. You’re not going to steal from or lie to your neighbor, and you’re not going to covet the things your neighbor has.
Because you love your neighbor, you aren’t going to do the things God’s law prohibits—“therefore love is the fulfillment of the law.”
And that in itself tells us something important. Godly love is more than a feeling or an emotion—it’s a commanded action. It’s a decision we’re each capable of making regardless of how we might feel in the moment.
To show love to our neighbors, we seek their good by obeying God’s laws. And by the same token, “loving God means keeping his commandments” (1 John 5:3, New Living Translation).
Love—agape—is an aligning of ourselves with God. It’s desiring what God desires. It’s valuing what He values. It’s thinking the way He thinks. And on our own, that’s something we don’t know how to do.
God’s love is unnatural. It’s supernatural. It flies in the face of human instincts, and without God’s Spirit in our lives, it’s not something we can fully develop or even understand.
Here’s what Paul said about that love: “For scarcely for a righteous man will one die; yet perhaps for a good man someone would even dare to die. But God demonstrates His own love toward us, in that while we were still sinners, Christ died for us” (Romans 5:7-8).
While we were still sinners. While our lives were still forfeit. While we had nothing of value to bring to the equation, the Son of God—the immortal, eternal Son of God—took on a fragile human body and died a gruesome death on a wooden stake.
For us.
In our place.
That’s what love looks like in action. “For if when we were enemies we were reconciled to God through the death of His Son, much more, having been reconciled, we shall be saved by His life. And not only that, but we also rejoice in God through our Lord Jesus Christ, through whom we have now received the reconciliation” (verses 10-11).
Godly love transforms us from enemies of God into children of God. Godly love gives us a reason to rejoice when we don’t deserve it and offers us reconciliation when there is no possible way for us to earn it.
It’s also the mark of a true Christian. The love that we receive from God through Christ ought to transform us from the inside out. Jesus told His disciples, “A new commandment I give to you, that you love one another; as I have loved you, that you also love one another. By this all will know that you are My disciples, if you have love for one another” (John 13:34-35).
The love of God is life-changing, and we have access to it through the sacrifice of Jesus Christ and through the Spirit of God. The more godly love takes root in us, the more we can extend it to others, loving each other as Christ loved us.
The fruit of the Spirit starts here, with love. It’s the first aspect Paul listed, and it’s the foundation for everything that follows. Until we begin to understand and reflect godly love—until we strive to align ourselves with the source of that love—the rest of the fruit of the Spirit will be forever out of our reach.
“Therefore if there is any consolation in Christ, if any comfort of love, if any fellowship of the Spirit, if any affection and mercy, fulfill my joy by being like-minded, having the same love, being of one accord, of one mind. Let nothing be done through selfish ambition or conceit, but in lowliness of mind let each esteem others better than himself. Let each of you look out not only for his own interests, but also for the interests of others” (Philippians 2:1-4).
That’s asking a lot. Frankly, in terms of our own humanity, it’s asking the impossible. Unity? Humility? Altruism? These things are difficult enough on an individual level, but to ask an entire group to operate according to the same mind and the same love?
On our own, we can’t do that. We’d all have conflicting principles and motivations. But that’s the whole point of the fruit of the Spirit—with God, we can. When we let the Spirit of God guide and direct us, this is the kind of impossible fruit we’ll begin growing in our lives.
It won’t be easy. It won’t always be intuitive. But it will be possible. Little by little, we’ll develop more and more of God’s character as it becomes part of who we are.
Love lays that foundation. As we align ourselves with God, we open the door to developing all the aspects of the fruit of the Spirit that would otherwise be beyond our reach—joy, peace, longsuffering, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness and self-control all become attainable if we start with a foundation of true, godly love.
