Steadfast, Immovable, Abounding

This is the first installment in my series of posts about the fruit of the Spirit.

“The fruit of the Spirit begins with love. Joy is love exulting; peace is love in repose; longsuffering is love on trial; gentleness is love in society; goodness is love in action; faith is love on the battlefield; meekness is love at school; and temperance is love in training.”

Dwight L. Moody

Ever since creation, Satan has attempted to teach the world how to explain away the Creator. From Eden to the 21^st century, humanity has become more and more convinced that it doesn’t need God. Every action, every truth, every beautiful thing designed to point to God has been destroyed and replaced with an ill-fitting substitute—a substitute that doesn’t need an intelligent designer. Even science, screaming the existence of God from the nucleus of a cell to the Milky Way galaxy, has been manipulated to make Him seem unnecessary.

Yet I believe there is one truth the world has no excuse for: self-sacrificial love. The world’s idea of love (an emotional response) can, of course, be explained. An expert would say that neuron firing in the brain is responsible for the emotion we call love. But one cannot explain a love in which the individual freely gives itself up for the sake of another. Without God, the universe is nothing more than a “survival of the fittest” nightmare. Many might disagree with this statement, but the existence of God is required for the existence of a moral law. If there is no God, then we have no reason to be loving, compassionate, or just. The world becomes a place where our top priority is to serve ourselves and there is no room in that world for self-sacrifice. That is, however, how the Bible describes God’s love for us and the love we should have for Him. Romans 5:7,8 says: “For one will hardly die for a righteous man; though perhaps for the good man someone would dare even to die. But God demonstrates His own love toward us, in that while we were yet sinners, Christ died for us.” It is wonderfully incomprehensible that Jesus’ love for us is so great that He, who deserved no punishment, endured death for our sake.

1 Corinthians 13, probably the most well-known passage about love in the Bible, has a lot to say which goes against the grain of the world’s ideology about love. In verses 4-7, Paul writes: “Love is patient, love is kind and is not jealous; love does not brag and is not arrogant, does not act unbecomingly; it does not seek its own, is not provoked, does not take into account a wrong suffered, does not rejoice in unrighteousness, but rejoices with the truth; bears all things, believes all things, hopes all things, endures all things.” And in verse 13, “But now faith, hope, love, abide these three; but the greatest of these is love.” The prominent theme I see in this description is unselfishness. Biblical love cares so much for the good of someone else, it sacrifices its own desires for the sake of the recipient. This is mind-boggling to a world whose shallow love is all about self-centeredness—satisfying our own desires and feeding our own ego. The world’s version of God is nothing more than a genie whose purpose is to check off our wish list like a department-store Santa Claus. So loving this “god” is nothing like loving the Lord your God “with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your might” (Deuteronomy 6:5). This kind of love would face death rather than denial.

It might seem easy to love the God who saved you with this kind of love. But what about the other fallen human beings in our lives? Jesus says in Matthew 5:33,34: “‘You have heard that it was said, “You shall love your neighbor and hate your enemy.” But I say to you, love your enemies and pray for those who persecute you.’” Once again, this love is in direct opposition to the world’s ideology. To love our enemies is unthinkable to the fallen mindset. Yet that is what we are explicitly told to do. Jesus leaves no room for excuses. But the amazing thing is, when we self-sacrificially love those who wound us and perhaps even mock our faith, the world cannot help but notice. People are so used to selfish love that they cannot imagine Christians loving their enemies enough to die in their place. Yet that is exactly what Jesus did. Before we surrender ourselves to Him, we are enemies of God. Jesus loved us so much, even in our brokenness, that He died so we would live. The world can offer no answer, no excuse, for that kind of love—and it is that kind of love to which we are called.