The Fruit of the Spirit Is Love
Andrew Murray
I want to look at
the fact of a life filled with the Holy Spirit more from the practical side,
and to show how this life will show itself in our daily walk and conduct.
Under the Old
Testament you know the Holy Spirit often came upon men as a divine Spirit of
revelation to reveal the mysteries of God, or for power to do the work of God.
But He did not then dwell in them. Now, many just want the Old Testament gift
of power for work, but know very little of the New Testament gift of the
indwelling Spirit, animating and renewing the whole life. When God gives the
Holy Spirit, His great object is the formation of a holy character. It is a
gift of a holy mind and spiritual disposition, and what we need above
everything else, is to say:
"I must have
the Holy Spirit sanctifying my whole inner life if I am really to live for
God's glory."
You might say that
when Christ promised the Spirit to the disciples, He did so that they might
have power to be witnesses. True, but then they received the Holy Ghost in such
heavenly power and reality that He took possession of their whole being at once
and so fitted them as holy men for doing the work with power as they had to do
it. Christ spoke of power to the disciples, but it was the Spirit filling their
whole being that worked the power.
I wish now to dwell
upon the passage found in Galatians 5:22:
"The fruit of the Spirit is love."
We read that
"Love is the fulfilling of the law," and my desire is to speak on
love as a fruit of the Spirit with a twofold object. One is that this word may
be a searchlight in our hearts, and give us a test by which to try all our
thoughts about the Holy Spirit and all our experience of the holy life. Let us
try ourselves by this word. Has this been our daily habit, to seek the being
filled with the Holy Spirit as the Spirit of love? "The fruit of the
Spirit is love." Has it been our experience that the more we have of the
Holy Spirit the more loving we become? In claiming the Holy Spirit we should
make this the first object of our expectation. The Holy Spirit comes as a
Spirit of love.
Oh, if this were
true in the Church of Christ how different her state would be! May God help us
to get hold of this simple, heavenly truth that the fruit of the Spirit is a
love which appears in the life, and that just as the Holy Spirit gets real
possession of the life, the heart will be filled with real, divine, universal
love.
One of the great
causes why God cannot bless His Church is the want of love. When the body
is divided, there cannot be strength. In the time of their great religious
wars, when Holland stood out so nobly against Spain, one of their mottoes was:
"Unity gives strength." It is only when God's people stand as one
body, one before God in the fellowship of love, one toward another in deep
affection, one before the world in a love that the world can see-it is only
then that they will have power to secure the blessing which they ask of God.
Remember that if a vessel that ought to be one whole is cracked into many
pieces, it cannot be filled. You can take a potsherd, one part of a vessel, and
dip out a little water into that, but if you want the vessel full, the vessel
must be whole. That is literally true of Christ's Church, and if there is one
thing we must pray for still, it is this: Lord, melt us together into one by
the power of the Holy Spirit; let the Holy Spirit, who at Pentecost made them
all of one heart and one soul, do His blessed work among us. Praise God, we can
love each other in a divine love, for "the fruit of the Spirit is
love." Give yourselves up to love, and the Holy Spirit will come; receive
the Spirit, and He will teach you to love more.
God Is Love
Now, why is it that
the fruit of the Spirit is love? Because God is love.
And what does that
mean?
It is the very
nature and being of God to delight in communicating Himself. God has no
selfishness, God keeps nothing to Himself. God's nature is to be always giving.
In the sun and the moon and the stars, in every flower you see it, in every
bird in the air, in every fish, in the sea. God communicates life to His
creatures. And the angels around His throne, the seraphim and cherumbim (sic)
who are flames of fire-whence have they their glory? It is because God is love,
and He imparts to them of His brightness and His blessedness. And we, His
redeemed children-God delights to pour His love into us. And why? Because, as I
said, God keeps nothing for Himself. From eternity God had His only begotten
Son, and the Father gave Him all things, and nothing that God had was kept
back. "God is love."
One of the old
Church fathers said that we cannot better understand the Trinity than as a
revelation of divine love-the Father, the loving One, the Fountain of love; the
Son, the beloved one, the Reservoir of love, in whom the love was poured out;
and the Spirit, the living love that united both and then overflowed into this
world. The Spirit of Pentecost, the Spirit of the Father, and the Spirit of the
Son is love. And when the Holy Spirit comes to us and to other men, will He be
less a Spirit of love than He is in God? It cannot be; He cannot change His
nature. The Spirit of God is love, and "the fruit of the Spirit is
love."
Mankind Needs Love
Why is that so?
That was the one great need of mankind, that was the thing which Christ's
redemption came to accomplish: to restore love to this world.
When man sinned,
why was it that he sinned? Selfishness triumphed-he sought self instead of God.
And just look! Adam at once begins to accuse the woman of having led him
astray. Love to God had gone, love to man was lost. Look again: of the first
two children of Adam the one becomes a murderer of his brother.
Does not that teach
us that sin had robbed the world of love? Ah! what a proof the history of the
world has been of love having been lost! There may have been beautiful examples
of love even among the heathen, but only as a little remnant of what was lost.
One of the worst things sin did for man was to make him selfish, for
selfishness cannot love.
The Lord Jesus
Christ came down from Heaven as the Son of God's love. "God so loved the
world that He gave His only begotten Son." God's Son came to show what
love is, and He lived a life of love here upon earth in fellowship with His
disciples, in compassion over the poor and miserable, in love even to His
enemies, and He died the death of love. And when He went to Heaven, whom did He
send down? The Spirit of love, to come and banish selfishness and envy and
pride, and bring the love of God into the hearts of men. "The fruit of the
Spirit is love."
And what was the
preparation for the promise of the Holy Spirit? You know that promise as found
in the fourteenth chapter of John's Gospel. But remember what precedes in the
thirteenth chapter. Before Christ promised the Holy Spirit, He gave a new
commandment, and about that new commandment He said wonderful things. One thing
was: "Even as I have loved you, so love ye one another," To them His
dying love was to be the only law of their conduct and intercourse with each
other. What a message to those fishermen, to those men full of pride and
selfishness! "Learn to love each other," said Christ, "as I have
loved you." And by the grace of God they did it. When Pentecost came, they
were of one heart and one soul. Christ did it for them.
And now He calls us
to dwell and to walk in love. He demands that though a man hate you, still you
love him. True love cannot be conquered by anything in Heaven or upon the
earth. The more hatred there is, the more love triumphs through it all and
shows its true nature. This is the love that Christ commanded His disciples to
exercise.
What more did He
say? "By this shall all men know that ye are my disciples, if ye have love
one to another."
You all know what
it is to wear a badge. And Christ said to His disciples in effect: "I give
you a badge, and that badge is love. That is to be your mark. It is the only
thing in Heaven or on earth by which men can know me."
Do we not begin to
fear that love has fled from the earth? That if we were to ask the world:
"Have you seen us wear the badge of love?" the world would say:
"No; what we have heard of the Church of Christ is that there is not a
place where there is no quarreling and separation." Let us ask God with
one heart that we may wear the badge of Jesus' love. God is able to give it.
Love Conquers Selfishness
"The fruit of
the Spirit is love." Why? Because nothing but love can expel and conquer
our selfishness.
Self is the great
curse, whether in its relation to God, or to our fellow-men in general, or to
fellow-Christians, thinking of ourselves and seeking our own. Self is our
greatest curse. But, praise God, Christ came to redeem us from self. We
sometimes talk about deliverance from the self-life-and thank God for every
word that can be said about it to help us-but I am afraid some people think
deliverance from the self-life means that now they are going to have no longer
any trouble in serving God; and they forget that deliverance from self-life
means to be a vessel overflowing with love to everybody all the day.
And there you have
the reason why many people pray for the power of the Holy Ghost, and they get
something, but oh, so little! because they prayed for power for work, and power
for blessing, but they have not prayed for power for full deliverance from self.
That means not only the righteous self in intercourse with God, but the
unloving self in intercourse with men. And there is deliverance. "The
fruit of the Spirit is love." I bring you the glorious promise of Christ
that He is able to fill our hearts with love.
A great many of us
try hard at times to love. We try to force ourselves to love, and I do not say
that is wrong; it is better than nothing. But the end of it is always very sad.
"I fail continually," such as one must confess. And what is the reason?
The reason is simply this: Because they have never learned to believe and
accept the truth that the Holy Spirit can pour God's love into their heart.
That blessed text; often it has been limited!-"The love of God is shed
abroad in our hearts." It has often been understood in this sense: It
means the love of God to me. oh, what a limitation! That is only the beginning.
The love of God is always the love of God in its entirety, in its fullness as
an indwelling power, a love of God to me that leaps back to Him in love, and
overflows to my fellow-men in love-God's love to me, and my love to God, and my
love to my fellow-men. The three are one; you cannot separate them.
Do believe that the
love of God can be shed abroad in your heart and mine so that we can love all
the day.
"Ah!" you
say, "how little I have understood that!"
Why is a lamb
always gentle? Because that is its nature. Does it cost the lamb any trouble to
be gentle? No. Why not? It is so beautiful and gentle. Has a lamb to study to
be gentle? No. Why does that come so easy? It is its nature. And a wolf-why
does it cost a wolf no trouble to be cruel, and to put its fangs into the poor
lamb or sheep? Because that is its nature. It has not to summon up its courage;
the wolf-nature is there.
And how can I learn
to love? Never until the Spirit of God fills my heart with God's love, and I
begin to long for God's love in a very different sense from which I have sought
it so selfishly, as a comfort and a joy and a happiness and a pleasure to myself;
never until I begin to learn that "God is love," and to claim it, and
receive it as an indwelling power for self-sacrifice; never until I begin to
see that my glory, my blessedness, is to be like God and like Christ, in giving
up everything in myself for my fellow-men. May God teach us that! Oh, the
divine blessedness of the love with which the Holy Spirit can fill our hearts!
"The fruit of the Spirit is love."
Love Is God's Gift
Once again I ask,
Why must this be so? And my answer is: Without this we cannot live the daily
life of love.
How often, when we
speak about the consecrated life, we have to speak about temper, and some
people have sometimes said:
"You make too
much of temper."
I do not think we
can make too much of it. Think for a moment of a clock and of what its hands
mean. The hands tell me what is within the clock, and if I see that the hands
stand still, or that the hands point wrong, or that the clock is slow or fast,
I say that something inside the clock is not working properly. And temper is
just like the revelation that the clock gives of what is within. Temper is a
proof whether the love of Christ is filling the heart, or not. How many there
are who find it easier in church, or in prayer-meeting, or in work for the
Lord-diligent, earnest work-to be holy and happy than in the daily life with
wife and children and servant; easier to be holy and happy outside the home
than in it! Where is the love of God? In Christ. God has prepared for us a
wonderful redemption in Christ, and He longs to make something supernatural of
us. Have we learned to long for it, and ask for it, and expect it in its
fullness?
Then there is
the tongue! We sometimes speak of the tongue when we talk of the
better life, and the restful life, but just think what liberty many Christians
give to their tongues. They say:
"I have a
right to think what I like."
When they speak
about each other, when they speak about their neighbors, when they speak about
other Christians, how often there are sharp remarks! God keep me from saying
anything that would be unloving; God shut my mouth if I am not to speak in
tender love. But what I am saying is a fact. How often there are found among
Christians who are banded together in work, sharp criticism, sharp judgment,
hasty opinion, unloving words, secret contempt of each other, secret
condemnation of each other! Oh, just as a mother's love covers her children and
delights in them and has the tenderest compassion with their foibles or
failures, so there ought to be in the heart of every believer a motherly love
toward every brother and sister in Christ. Have you aimed at that? Have you
sought it? Have you ever pleaded for it? Jesus Christ said: "As I have
loved you... love one another." And He did not put that among the other
commandments, but He said in effect:
"That is a new
commandment, the one commandment: Love one another as I have loved you."
It is in our daily
life and conduct that the fruit of the Spirit is love. From that there comes
all the graces and virtues in which love is manifested: joy, peace,
longsuffering, gentleness, goodness; no sharpness or hardness in your tone, no
unkindness or selfishness; meekness before God and man. You see that all these
are the gentler virtues. I have often thought as I read those words in
Colossians, "Put on therefore as the elect of God, holy and beloved,
bowels of mercies, kindness, humbleness of mind, meekness, longsuffering,"
that if we had written, we should have put in the foreground the manly virtues,
such as zeal, courage and diligence; but we need to see how the gentler, the
most womanly virtues are specially connected with dependence upon the Holy
Spirit. These are indeed heavenly graces. They never were found in the heathen
world. Christ was needed to come from Heaven to teach us. Your blessedness is
longsuffering, meekness, kindness; your glory is humility before God. The fruit
of the Spirit that He brought from Heaven out of the heart of the crucified
Christ, and that He gives in our heart, is first and foremost-love.
You know what John says: "No man hath seen God at any time. If we love one another, God dwelleth in us." That is, I cannot see God, but as a compensation I can see my brother, and if I love him, God dwells in me. Is that really true? That I cannot see God, but I must love my brother, and God will dwell in me? Loving my brother is the way to real fellowship with God. You know what John further says in that most solemn test, "If a man say, I love God, and hateth his brother, he is a liar; for he that loveth not his brother whom he hath seen, how can he love God whom he hath not seen?" (I John 4:20). There is a brother, a most unlovable man. He worries you every time you meet him. He is of the very opposite disposition to yours. You are a careful businessman, and you have to do with him in your business. He is most untidy, unbusiness-like. You say:
"I cannot love
him."
Oh, friend, you
have not learned the lesson that Christ wanted to teach above everything. Let a
man be what he will, you are to love him. Love is to be the fruit of the Spirit
all the day and every day. Yes, listen! if a man loves not his brother whom he
hath seen-if you don't love that unlovable man whom you have seen, how can you
love God whom you have not seen? You can deceive yourself with beautiful
thoughts about loving God. You must prove your love to God by your love to your
brother; that is the one standard by which God will judge your love to Him. If
the love of God is in your heart you will love your brother. The fruit of the
Spirit is love.
And what is the
reason that God's Holy Spirit cannot come in power? Is it not possible?
You remember the
comparison I used in speaking of the vessel. I can dip a little water into a
potsherd, a bit of a vessel; but if a vessel is to be full, it must be
unbroken. And the children of God, wherever they come together, to whatever
church or mission or society they belong, must love each other intensely, or
the Spirit of God cannot do His work. We talk about grieving the Spirit of God
by worldliness and ritualism and formality and error and indifference, but, I
tell you, the one thing above everything that grieves God's Spirit is this want
of love. Let every heart search itself, and ask that God may search it.
Our Love Shows God's Power
Why are we taught
that "the fruit of the Spirit is love"? Because the Spirit of God has
come to make our daily life an exhibition of divine power and a revelation of
what God can do for His children.
In the second and
the fourth chapters of Acts we read that the disciples were of one heart and of
one soul. During the three years they had walked with Christ they never had
been in that spirit. All Christ's teaching could not make them of one heart and
one soul. But the Holy Spirit came from Heaven and shed the love of God in
their hearts, and they were of one heart and one soul. The same Holy Spirit
that brought the love of Heaven into their hearts must fill us too. Nothing
less will do. Even as Christ did, one might preach love for three years with
the tongue of an angel, but that would not teach any man to love unless the
power of the Holy Spirit should come upon him to bring the love of Heaven into
his heart.
Think of the church
at large. What divisions! Think of the different bodies. Take the question of
holiness, take the question of the cleansing blood, take the question of the
baptism of the Spirit-what differences are caused among dear believers by such questions!
That there are differences of opinion does not trouble me. We do not have the
same constitution and temperament and mind. But how often hate, bitterness,
contempt, separation, unlovingness are caused by the holiest truths of God's
Word! Our doctrines, our creeds, have been more important than love. We often
think we are valiant for the truth and we forget God's command to speak the
truth in love. And it was so in the time of the Reformation between the
Lutheran and Calvinistic churches. What bitterness there was than in regard to
the Holy Supper, which was meant to be the bond of union among all believers!
And so, down the ages, the very dearest truths of God have become mountains
that have separated us.
If we want to pray
in power, and if we want to expect the Holy Spirit to come down in power, and
if we want indeed that God shall pour out His Spirit, we must enter into a
covenant with God that we love one another with a heavenly love.
Are you ready for
that? Only that is true love that is large enough to take in all God's
children, the most unloving and unlovable, and unworthy, and unbearable, and
trying. If my vow-absolute surrender to God-was true, then it must mean
absolute surrender to the divine love to fill me; to be a servant of love to
love every child of God around me. "The fruit of the Spirit is love."
Oh, God did
something wonderful when He gave Christ, at His right hand, the Holy Spirit to
come down out of the heart of the Father and His everlasting love. And how we
have degraded the Holy Spirit into a mere power by which we have to do our
work! God forgive us! Oh, that the Holy Spirit might be held in honor as a
power to fill us with the very life and nature of God and of Christ!
Christian Work Requires Love
"The fruit of
the Spirit is love." I ask once again, Why is it so? And the answer
comes: That is the only power in which Christians really can do their
work.
Yes, it is that we
need. We want not only love that is to bind us to each other, but we want a
divine love in our work for the lost around us. Oh, do we not often undertake a
great deal of work, just as men undertake work of philanthropy, from a natural spirit
of compassion for our fellow-men? Do we not often undertake Christian work
because our minister or friend calls us to it? And do we not often perform
Christian work with a certain zeal but without having had a baptism of love?
People often ask:
"What is the baptism of fire?"
I have answered
more than once: I know no fire like the fire of God, the fire of everlasting
love that consumed the sacrifice on Calvary. The baptism of love is what the
Church needs, and to get that we must begin at once to get down upon our faces
before God in confession, and plead:
"Lord, let
love from Heaven flow down into my heart. I am giving up my life to pray and
live as one who has given himself up for the everlasting love to dwell in and
fill him."
Ah, yes, if the
love of God were in our hearts, what a difference it would make! There are
hundreds of believers who say:
"I work for
Christ, and I feel I could work much harder, but I have not the gift. I do not
know how or where to begin. I do not know what I can do."
Brother, sister,
ask God to baptize you with the Spirit of love, and love will find its way.
Love is a fire that will burn through every difficulty. You may be a shy,
hesitating man, who cannot speak well, but love can burn through everything.
God fill us with love! We need it for our work.
You have read many
a touching story of love expressed, and you have said, How beautiful! I heard
one not long ago. A lady had been asked to speak at a Rescue Home where there
were a number of poor women. As she arrived there and got to the window with the
matron, she saw outside a wretched object sitting, and asked:
"Who is
that?"
The matron
answered: "She has been into the house thirty or forty times, and she has
always gone away again. Nothing can be done with her, she is so low and
hard."
But the lady said:
"She must come in."
The matron then
said: "We have been waiting for you, and the company is assembled, and you
have only an hour for the address."
The lady replied:
"No, this is of more importance"; and she went outside where the
woman was sitting and said:
"My sister,
what is the matter?"
"I am not your
sister," was the reply.
Then the lady laid
her hand on her, and said: "Yes, I am your sister, and I love you";
and so she spoke until the heart of the poor woman was touched.
The conversation
lasted some time, and the company were waiting patiently. Ultimately the lady
brought the woman into the room. There was the poor wretched, degraded
creature, full of shame. She would not sit on a chair, but sat down on a stool
beside the speaker's seat, and she let her lean against her, with her arms
around the poor woman's neck, while she spoke to the assembled people. And that
love touched the woman's heart; she had found one who really loved her, and
that love gave access to the love of Jesus.
Praise God! there
is love upon earth in the hearts of God's children; but oh, that there were
more!
O God, baptize our
ministers with a tender love, and our missionaries, and our colporters, and our
Bible-readers, and our workers, and our young men's and young women's
associations. Oh, that God would begin with us now, and baptize us with
heavenly love!
Love Inspires Intercession
Once again. It
is only love that can fit us for the work of intercession.
I have said that
love must fit us for our work. Do you know what the hardest and the most
important work is that has to be done for this sinful world? It is the work of
intercession, the work of going to God and taking time to lay hold on Him.
A man may be an
earnest Christian, an earnest minister, and a man may do good, but alas! how
often he has to confess that he knows but little of what it is to tarry with
God. May God give us the great gift of an intercessory spirit, a spirit of
prayer and supplication! Let me ask you in the name of Jesus not to let a day
pass without praying for all saints, and for all God's people.
I find there are
Christians who think little of that. I find there are prayer unions where they
pray for the members, and not for all believers. I pray you, take time to pray
for the Church of Christ. It is right to pray for the heathen, as I have already
said. God help us to pray more for them. It is right to pray for missionaries
and for evangelistic work, and for the unconverted. But Paul did not tell
people to pray for the heathen or the unconverted. Paul told them to pray for
believers. Do make this your first prayer every day: "Lord, bless Thy
saints everywhere."
The state of Christ's Church is indescribably low. Plead for God's people that He would visit them, plead for each other, plead for all believers who are trying to work for God. Let love fill your heart. Ask Christ to pour it out afresh into you every day. Try to get it into you by the Holy Spirit of God: I am separated unto the Holy Spirit, and the fruit of the Spirit is love. God help us to understand it.
May God grant that
we learn day by day to wait more quietly upon Him. Do not wait upon God only
for ourselves, or the power to do so will soon be lost; but give ourselves up
to the ministry and the love of intercession, and pray more for God's people,
for God's people round about us, for the Spirit of love in ourselves and in
them, and for the work of God we are connected with; and the answer will surely
come, and our waiting upon God will be a source of untold blessing and power.
"The fruit of the Spirit is love."
Have you a lack of
love to confess before God? Then make confession and say before Him, "O
Lord, my lack of heart, my lack of love-I confess it." And then, as you
cast that lack at His feet, believe that the blood cleanses you, that Jesus
comes in His mighty, cleansing, saving power to deliver you, and that He will
give His Holy Spirit.
"The fruit of
the Spirit is love."
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