Fruit of the Spirit…love

“Love means never having to say you are sorry.” The famous line from the movie Love Story. If you were alive in 1970 you probably either wept or yawned your way through this film about a young couple from different worlds. He the rich boy, by the name of Oliver and she a baker’s daughter named Jennifer. They meet in college and are quickly attracted to one another. The story takes the normal twists and turns, as the rich kid’s father cannot accept that his son has fallen in love with a girl so below his station. But love prevails even as Ollie is dis-owned by his father, they marry.

Struggling through, Jenny works as a teacher to help her husband to get his law degree. Once he graduates with honors immediately firms are offering him good paying positions. All seems so wonderful, love will prevail.

But soon it is learned that Jenny has leukemia and as Ollie seeks to find ways to pay for her treatments, he turns to his father. More plot twists and turns but the final scene has Jenny passing away, as Ollie looks on. Enter the now grieving father, who can only apologize to his son. All comes to a Hollywood type climax with Ollie, saying the line once spoken by Jenny to him after he reacted to her in anger and tried to apologize. Now the son says to his father, “Love means never having to say you are sorry.” Fade to black.

Love, Hollywood style. Many of us have watched it and too many of us have accepted it as truth. When it is not being packaged by script writers, then it is being lamented or praised in song. In fact, I found a blog page by the name of “Toronto mike” that lists 1187 love songs, I bet there were some sleepless nights listing all of those! When it comes to movies, well the best list I found had over 1000 titles but could not claim to be complete.

So, if we watched every one of those movies and listened to every song, would we know what love is? If not, then maybe we could go on to read the 242 books listed by “Goodreads” as the top good reads about love. We would have to be experts by then, right? My advice is don’t waste your time. I have one book that will do much better and I am sorry to say it didn’t crack the list of top 242 best reads, the Bible.

According to the King James Version stats I could find, the word love appears 131 times in the Old Testament and 179 in the New. That sure doesn’t seem to compare with the numbers we have just been looking at. Maybe the concept of love in not important. Maybe God doesn’t understand love as well as we claim to. The fact is, the Apostle John say he not only totally understands it He actually is love itself, “…God is love, and whoever abides in love abides in God and God abides in him.” (1 John 4: 16b)

If this is true why are we so lost when it comes to expressing love in our movies, our songs and even our lives. Maybe it has something to do with the last part of that verse. It says “…whoever abides in love abides in God…” and if you do so “…God abides in him.” To live in love, we need to live in God and then he will live in us. But to completely understand that we need to back up a verse, “Whoever confesses that Jesus is the Son of God, God abides in him and he in God.” (1 John 4:15) True love, what the Bible calls agape love, is shown in Jesus Christ. When we accept Him then we can partake in the pure love that is from and is God Himself. God’s love is not stuff of movie and song. It is the real thing!

And we come to know that love when we see the extent that God has gone to save us. “God so loved the world that He gave his only Son, that everyone who believes in Him shall not perish but have eternal life. God did not send His Son into this world to condemn the world but to save the world through Him.” (John 3:16-17) But is knowing this enough?

We can see the love of God as shown in the life, death, and resurrection of Jesus. But it is not enough. Jesus said, “If anyone loves me, he will obey my teaching. My Father will love them, and we will come to make our home with them.” (John 14:23) It seems contradictory to love as we portray it to be based on obedience but not when we understand the triune God’s form of love. The son obedient to the Father, The Holy Spirit obedient to the Son and the Father willingly sacrifice His beloved Son. Each willing to serve the other. Love in its purest form.

Ok then, can we hope to have this kind of love? Not alone. Jesus promised us the Holy Spirit and about that Apostle Paul speaks of the fruit of the Spirit in Galatians 5: 22-23. On top of the list of gifts the Spirit offers to us is, love. The thing is that these fruits have been misunderstood as characteristics that believers can manufacture in their lives. But remember they are called “Fruits” which mean they can grow in us but not by our own striving but by the power of the Holy Spirit. The fruit of love may be the best example. We cannot produce the type of love God desires without the leading and the strength of the Holy Spirit. It takes surrender and prayer. But the cool thing is we can have real love that changes our lives. It is the real “Love Story” and it is found in the cross of Jesus Christ.

There most certainly have been a ton of movies and songs written about love. But one song I know might express a love that is beyond our ballads and show us love in its essence, called: “How deep the Father’s Love for Us” by Stuart Townsend, let me end this with one verse:

How deep the Father’s love for us,
How vast beyond all measure
That He should give His only Son
To make a wretch His treasure
How great the pain of searing loss-
As wounds which mar the Chosen One
Bring many sons to glory.

That is the love that saved a wretch like me. May today I share it with you.

Blessings John
9/25/17