The number one Fruit of the Spirit

If we do not have love we have nothing not even faith.

• Love (Greek: agape, Latin: caritas)

The first fruit of the Spirit is LOVE. Love is the chief distinguishing mark of a child of God. If we have faith and can move mountains, it we have no love then we are nothing.

First of all, love is primary in the Christian faith.  It occupies a place of importance that it shares with nothing else.  Ultimately, all that really matters in the Christian life, Paul says, is faith expressing itself through love.  External ordinances and rituals are of secondary importance.  The centre of your whole faith is expressed through love.

Love is more powerful and greater than everything else.  Without love we can not grow spiritually.  When we allow the Spirit to work in our lives then the very first evidence of His presence is agape love.  This is not a give-and-take kind of love, a love that is reciprocal; it is a love that descends from above ans is showered in the disagreeable.  Christians who dwell deeply in God find that they are changed from people who just love occasionally, when it is convenient, to people whose controlling purpose is love.  Love becomes the compelling motive and force in their lives.

This the apostle begins with, it being the fulfilling of the law, the bond of perfectness, and without which a profession of religion is insignificant; it may be understood of love to God, of which every man’s heart is destitute, being enmity against God, until regenerated by the Spirit of God; when he sheds abroad the love of God in the heart, and which is the ground and reason of any man’s truly loving God: and also of love to Christ, which the natural man feels nothing of till the spirit of wisdom and revelation, in the knowledge of Christ, opens his eyes to see the loveliness of his person, the suitableness of his grace, righteousness, and fullness, and the necessity of looking to him for life and salvation; and likewise of love to the saints, which a carnal man is a stranger to, until he is renewed by the Holy Ghost, who in regenerating him teaches him to love the brethren; and which is the evidence of his having passed from death to life, through the mighty power of his grace. Moreover, love to the house and worship of God, to the truths and ordinances of the Gospel, all which men have naturally an aversion to, may be included in this first fruit of the Spirit: the next follows, which is Joy.