The Fruit of the Spirit (Love)

“But if you love those who love you, what credit is that to you? For even sinners love those who love them. And if you do good to those who do good to you, what credit is that to you? For even sinners do the same. And if you lend to those from whom you hope to receive back, what credit is that to you? For even sinners lend to sinners to receive as much back. But love your enemies, do good, and lend, hoping for nothing in return; and your reward will be great, and you will be sons of the Most High. For He is kind to the unthankful and evil. Therefore be merciful, just as your Father also is merciful.”

There are so many little nuggets that we can grasp by these verses of Scripture written by Luke. The Lord is giving us an illustration and a direct contrast: if you love someone that loves you back, how can that be a difficult thing to do? Should we receive credit for that? As human beings it is our nature to show kindheartedness, compassion, and consideration to those that do the same for us.

But, what about the people that are nasty, vile, rude, and just straight up disrespectful to you? How are you treating them? The Lord is letting us know in these passages exactly how we are to treat our enemies. We are supposed to show them the fruit of kindness and love without expecting it in return. We are supposed to be representatives of the Lord, so when people see us they should be able to see the image of Christ within us.

Can you imagine how much of an impact you would have on a person that is being rude and disrespectful towards you but you choose to show them the love of Christ? Whether they were to admit it or not, they would view you differently than others. I have seen it first hand in my life.

I had a co-worker that was mean as mean can get, she was the epitome of what hateful looked like. She made my job environment a difficult one to work in. The Lord was definitely using her as a test to see if the “old” me was going to peak its nasty head. I’ll have to admit that there were a couple of times that I almost went there, but I didn’t.

I gave her a Bible, shared my faith with her, and prayed for her. The Lord was doing a work in her through me, but I could’ve ruined that if I had chosen to fight fire with fire. The last day I worked there, she cried when I left and I knew then exactly what it meant to love on someone that didn’t know how to love me back!

It is only by the power of the Holy Spirit living on the inside of me that I was able to radiate love instead of retaliating. That is one example of how this fruit of the Spirit will begin to grow on the inside of your heart. When you digest the Word of God and it gets into your spirit, you will begin to completely transform. That doesn’t mean that you will not get tested.

Often times, the Lord will put you into certain scenarios to see if there is anything that needs to be filtered out. He is consistently pruning and shaping us to be more and more like Christ. The thing is you have to be willing to let the Holy Spirit lead, guide, and convict you when He needs to.