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Fruit of The Spirit

But the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, forbearance, kindness, goodness, faithfulness,

Galatians 5:22

“The fruit is designated as the fruit of the Spirit. Fruit is something that is produced in us. It is not of ourselves. In ourselves we are only flesh. The flesh produces nothing but more flesh. The flesh profits nothing. Martin Luther declared that “nothing” is not a “little something”.

Like begets like. The product comes from the producer. The progeny recapitulates the ontogeny. Only the Holy Spirit can conceive and bear the fruit of the Spirit… Spiritual love is wrought by God. We are able to love Him because He first loved us and because it is His love that is shed abroad in our hearts. This love transcends natural affection. It flows from a heart that has been changed by God the Holy Spirit.  Fruit of the Spirit, R.C. Sproul

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To Know Love

Whoever does not love does not know God, because God is love.

1 John 4:8

“Wasn’t it Alexander the Great who had a soldier who bore his name who was unfaithful in duty and demonstrated cowardice? And Alexander called him in and said, “Either change your behavior or change your name.” And I think that’s, in a sense, what John is saying here. If you’re going to call yourself a Christian, if you’re going to say you are God’s and you belong to God and you truly are His, then conduct yourself as He would, with love.” John MacArthur

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Love In Action

Dear children, let us not love with words or speech but with actions and in truth.

1 John 3:18

“He not only created you with care but redeemed you in love.  And because He gives you both earthly and eternal life, He has a right to work through you as His ambassador, for His glory.”  God’s Purpose For Your Life, Charles Stanley

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Love Comes From God

Dear friends, let us love one another, for love comes from God. Everyone who loves has been born of God and knows God.

1 John 4:7

“No one is beyond the reach of God’s love. Jesus made this clear by saving people like a greedy, dishonest tax collector, a criminal on the cross next to Him, and Saul—a persecutor of His church. God’s love isn’t dispensed according to how good we’ve been. On that basis, no one could be saved. 

Divine love can’t be fully comprehended by the human mind, but it can nonetheless be ours through faith in Jesus Christ. And from the moment a person receives that love, he or she will forever live under its protective canopy. ” Charles Stanley

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Love One Another

A new command I give you: Love one another. As I have loved you, so you must love one another.

John 13:34

“If there is anything in us, it is not our own; it is a gift of God.  But if it is a gift of God, then it is entirely a debt one owes to love, that is, to the law of Christ.  And if it is a debt owed to love, then I must serve others with it, not myself.”  Martin Luther

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Nothing Will Separate Us

Who shall separate us from the love of Christ? Shall trouble or hardship or persecution or famine or nakedness or danger or sword?

Romans 8:35

“Your goal in this life is to make sure you spend eternity with Christ.  Your love, if it could be more than all the love of the angels, would be only Christ’s due.  Look up to Him and show Him your love.  Love and live!  My counsel is that you come, and leave all else, that you let Christ have your whole heart.  Let those who love this present world have it; Christ is the more worthy and noble portion; blessed are those who choose Him.”  Letters of Samuel Rutherford, Samuel Rutherford

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Love Made Complete

No one has ever seen God; but if we love one another, God lives in us and his love is made complete in us.

1 John 4:12

“The Lord wants you to believe that His love for you is steadfast—and that it can ground you in the difficult seasons of life. Are you seeking to grow in your comprehension of His love? The more you dwell on divine grace, the more firmly you’ll stand during trials. Begin by asking God to give you a deeper understanding as you mediate on His love as described in His Word.” Charles Stanley

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Seek & Find

love those who love me, and those who seek me find me.

Proverbs 8:17

“When Christianity says that God loves man, it means that God loves man: not that He has some ‘disinterested’ … concern for our welfare, but that, in awful and surprising truth, we are the objects of His love. You asked for a loving God: you have one. The great spirit you so lightly invoked, the ‘lord of terrible aspect’, is present: not a senile benevolence that drowsily wishes you to be happy in your own way, not the cold philanthropy of a conscientious magistrate, nor the care of a host who feels responsible for the comfort of his guests, but the consuming fire Himself, the Love that made the worlds, persistent as the artist’s love for his work and despotic as a man’s love for a dog, provident and venerable as a father’s love for a child, jealous, inexorable, exacting as love between the sexes. How this should be, I do not know: it passes reason to explain why any creatures, not to say creatures such as we, should have a value so prodigious in their Creator’s eyes. It is certainly a burden of glory not only beyond our deserts but also, except in rare moments of grace, beyond our desiring…” The Problem of Pain, CS Lewis

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Unfailing Love

Turn, Lord, and deliver me; save me because of your unfailing love.

Psalms 6:4

“Best of all, He does it all Himself, personally, not delegating the task of love, but humbling Himself to rescue and preserve His most unworthy servant.  How shall I love Him enough to serve Him sufficiently?  I want to make His name known unto the ends of the earth, but what can my feeble efforts accomplish for Him?  Great Shepherd, add to Your mercies this one: a heart to love You more truly as I ought.”  Charles Spurgeon

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Greater Love…

Greater love has no one than this: to lay down one’s life for one’s friends.

John 15:13

“So, I just don’t get excited about behaviors in and of themselves. If you see somebody laying his life down, that might be a good thing or it might not be a good thing. If you see somebody giving away all of his money to the poor, that might be a good thing. It might not be a good thing. God has to enter in here. How do you feel about God? Why are you doing this? What does it have to do with God? It might be sheer idolatry of the poor. So, I’m just not into behaviors as the goal. I’m into God and how you are passionately engaged with him. And if I see your behavior as expressing that, then I will see that whole and love it and worship him with you for it.” Without Love We Are Nothing, John Piper