Charity (God’s kind of love) suffereth long, and is kind: love envieth not; love vaunteth not itself------------love never faileth.
- - 1 Corinthians 13: 4-8
Jesus lived and walked in love. He did not seek to do his own will, but the will of his Father. He lived to give himself away for you and me. On earth he lived in total victory, No one could take his life, He laid his life down, defeating satan and destroyed his works. Everywhere Jesus went, he showed compassion towards people. He made the blind see, the deaf hear and the lame walk. He cast out demons and raised the dead. He made people know the love of God. In John 14:12 Jesus said, we will do greater works than these.
To effectively walk in love toward others, we must first believe God loves us. (1John 4:15, 16, 21) We should be firmly rooted and grounded in God’s love which is good, trustworthy and strong, that keeps us safe from harm in every situation. We should rest securely in the fact that, no matter what anyone else may say or do to us, we are forever loved by God. We can then say as the Apostle John did, “I know and believe the love God has for me”. God’s love will become a reality in our life and we will find that God’s love is not only coming to us, its flowing through us and we will be living the life of love.
The Word of God reveals clearly what love is - love is keeping the commandments of God and knowing and obeying His Word, (John 14:21, John 15:12) The Key to the manifest presence of God is the key of love. When we live the life of love by faith in Jesus, we will know the joy of the Lord. His presence brings fullness of joy. (Psalm16:11) The Love of God and His joy will give us happiness and make everything we do pleasurable.
(1.Cor 13:4-8) is the most popular chapter in the Bible. Love to others is measured not only by our actions but by our motives. The motive of love must be pure, in obedience to the One who is love –JESUS. Walking in love is hard when we try to do it on our own, it becomes impossible, but by the Spirit of God who lives in us, He makes us able. As we trust in Him, His own love will actually flow through us and overcome every challenge, every situation, hurt and offense.
When we were born- again, our spirit was made in the image of God. His divine nature is in us. The fruit of the spirit is His character. Love is the first fruit of the spirit (Gal.5:22, 23) It is the natural outgrowth of the life of God in us. We can see more of the fruit of the Spirit in our lives, as we abide in Jesus, in His Word and in prayer, then His life will flow through us and bear fruit in our life.(John 15:5) The force of His Spirit will cause the love inside us to manifest on the outside. Just as a grape is the natural result of abiding connected to the vine; love is the supernatural result of abiding, connected to Jesus. Jesus is the vine. (John 15:4) The moment a branch is broken off the vine, it begins to die. When we take our focus off Jesus and His Word and begin to look at our adverse circumstances or become too busy or preoccupied with natural earthly things –however important they may seem, we disconnect from vital contact and living communion with the Lord and we begin to wither. Though we still belong to Him and though His life is within us, His energy is not flowing through us, so we cannot produce any fruit. Jesus provides us with the power and life to produce the fruit of the Spirit. God’s Word is the power in us. We must do our part by choosing to yield to that life, by an act of our will, making a decision to obey the voice of the Spirit and act lovingly, even when someone says something hurtful or is irritating and not yield to the irritation of our flesh and say something unkind in return.
As we practise the walk of love by meditating on God’s Word and agreeing with the Word (1 John 3:1) praising and thanking Him, then that which was impossible to our flesh, becomes the natural outflow of our spirits that have been born- again in the image of Jesus. And as we abide daily in fellowship with the LORD, our hearts will be strong and full of the spiritual energy necessary to overrule the flesh and let love flow .We will then be able to make the right choices and Jesus’ love will reach others through us. We are living love letters from God to others. (2Cor.3:2, 3) So we need to let our light shine.