Do You Have Love?

As the Holy Spirit works in our lives, He begins to uncomplicate us, filling us with love for others and forgetfulness of self. Today, Sinclair Ferguson articulates the simplicity and centrality of love in the Christian life.

Yesterday, we began some reflections on what Paul calls the fruit of the Spirit, and I said I would read them out each day this week. Galatians 5: “The fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, self-control.”

Fruit grows on trees, but we might say, in this instance, fruit grows in threes, because these nine fruit of the Spirit seem to divide into three sections. The first three are love, joy, and peace—a trilogy—and this isn’t the only place that Paul mentions them together.

You might immediately think of Romans 5:1–11: Since we’ve been justified by faith, we have peace with God. And we have joy in the hope of His glory, and even in times of suffering, and all because of the way God has demonstrated His love towards us and poured out that love into our hearts by the Holy Spirit.

What’s interesting about these three being mentioned in Romans 5 is that the order there—peace, joy, love—is different. Here the order is love, joy, peace. I wonder why that is? I suspect it’s because in Romans 5, Paul is talking about the roots of our own Christian experience. We have peace with God, and that leads us to rejoice. And as we rejoice, our hearts are filled with the love of God for us poured out into us by the Holy Spirit. But in Galatians, Paul is speaking about the fruit that flows from these roots. So, when the Spirit unites us to the Lord Jesus Christ, we are at peace with God, we begin to rejoice, and our hearts are filled with love.

And the New Testament places massive emphasis on the importance of love. We learn that from the Lord Jesus in John 13:34: “This is my commandment, that you love one another.” And then in John 15:9: “As the Father has loved me, so have I loved you.” Paul devotes a whole chapter in 1 Corinthians 13 to explaining why love is the greatest. Or, who can forget the Apostle John saying that love is from God, and whoever loves with that kind of love has been born of God and knows God.

But what is love? Well, at the end of the day, it’s not emotion so much as forgetting about ourselves and living for others—being like Jesus in that way in our devotion and care. And yes, if you want to go into detail, it’s all the things Paul says it is in 1 Corinthians 13. It’s being patient and kind, and not envying or boasting, not being arrogant or rude. It’s being taken up with devotion to others. And that’s why it doesn’t insist on its own way. It’s not irritable or resentful. It doesn’t rejoice at wrongdoing, but rejoices with the truth. It bears all things, believes all things, hopes all things, and endures all things.

None of these things is actually complicated, is it? But the problem is, we are desperately complicated by our sin. But when the Spirit begins to work in us, He uncomplicates us—begins to fill us with love for others and forgetfulness of self.

I can’t help thinking about a comment that Peter the Venerable, the abbot of the great monastery of Cluny in the medieval days, once made about his much more famous friend, Bernard of Clairvaux. “Bernard,” he said to him, “You do all the difficult and complicated things well. But you’re failing in the simple thing. You don’t love.” I must say when I read these words first, they were like an arrow in my heart—doing the difficult things, but not doing the simple thing well.

I wonder if that’s true of you? Perhaps you almost pride yourself in doing the difficult things well. But have you been uncomplicated by the Lord Jesus? Are you doing the simple thing? Do you have love?