The Fruit of the Spirit - Love – The Greatest Fruit (Daily Devotional)

Greetings and welcome to Living Supernaturally. Thank you so much for giving us this opportunity to come your way, to share a few moments in God's word and prayer. This week, we'll be talking about the fruit of the Spirit and gain a few interesting insights on what it means for you and I as believers to walk by the fruit of the Spirit. Today, we will begin with the fruit of love. 1 John chapter 4 and verse 19, ‘We love because He first loved us.’ Love is often described in the scripture as the highest fruit of the Spirit. It is the essence of God's nature and the fulfillment of His commandments. When Paul writes in Galatians chapter 5, verses 22 and 23, "But the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, and self-control." Love is placed first because it is from this fruit that all other virtues flow out of. Biblical love which is agape is unconditional, sacrificial and selfless. It is more than just an emotion; it is a choice to seek the good of others. God's love was demonstrated through Christ Jesus who gave His life for us while we were yet sinners. But the question is why is love foundational? It defines God's character. The Bible states that God is love and making love the ultimate metric is our connection to Him. It drives other fruits. Joy is love rejoicing. Patience is love enduring and kindness is love in action. It fulfills the greatest commandment. Jesus taught that love your God and love your neighbor summarize all biblical laws. It uses this Greek concept of ‘agape’ which is an unconditional, sacrificial, choice driven love. It outlasts all virtues as recorded in 1 Corinthians chapter 13, verse 13, ‘While all scriptural gifts will pass away, faith, hope, and love remain. And the greatest of this is love.’ Let's look at a few examples from scriptures. In the Old Testament, Boaz went beyond legal requirements to ensure the safety and sustenance of Ruth, a foreigner and an outsider. This acts as a shadow of the ultimate redeemer, the love for protection. In 1st Samuel chapter 25, Abigail used wisdom, generosity, and humility to intercept David's army, preventing a bloodbath and saving her entire household. In Luke chapter 15, the father of the prodigal son, Jesus portrays this beautiful story of how a son went away, squandered all his money, but came back and the father ran to him, embraced his rebellious son, restoring him fully and restored him to the house itself. In John chapter 13, Jesus washes His disciples’ feet, on the night that He was going to be betrayed, Jesus took the place of a lowest servant to wash His disciples’ feet, including Judas's chariot. This is radical love. Biblical love is unconditional, sacrificial, and selfless. It is more than just an emotion. It is a choice to seek the good of others. As followers of Christ, we are called to love wholeheartedly and love our neighbors as ourselves. May love be the foundation of our lives and every fruit that grows in our lives. Let's pray, Father, we thank you for your word and we thank you for that agape love that you have bestowed upon each one of us and we pray that we will begin to walk in this God kind of love, sacrificial, selfless, and unconditional. Teach us Lord and may we grow in the fruit of love to build your kingdom, in Jesus’ name we pray, Amen.
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Daily devotions to strengthen your faith each day. Daily Devotional for Spirit filled living. Each daily devotion is about five minutes in duration. These daily devotionals are centered around a weekly theme. So there are seven daily devotions that focus on the theme and bring you insight, understanding and revelation from the Bible. Each week's theme is listed as a series. So you can listen to the current week's devotions or go to any previous theme/series that speaks to your present need (https://apcwo.org/resources/daily-devotions ). Also available free sermons (https://apcwo.org/sermons), and free Christian books (https://apcwo.org/books) to nourish and strengthen your faith.