How Do I Love?

It is so easy to seek out fleshly efforts to "please" God and also easy to make legalistic efforts to "please" God, but what has He asked from us? He wants us to love others. Why do we prefer works over love? Why do we prefer the law over grace? Why do we always seem to be looking for another way to salvation than through the shed blood of Christ?

For the whole law is fulfilled in one word: “You shall love your neighbor as yourself.” 
Galatians 5:14

So in everything, do to others what you would have them do to you, for this sums up the Law and the Prophets. Matthew 7:12

A Pharisees asked Jesus 36 “Teacher, which is the great commandment in the Law?”
And he said to him, “You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind. 38 This is the great and first commandment. 39 And a second is like it: You shall love your neighbor as yourself. 40 On these two commandments depend all the Law and the Prophets.”  Matthew 22:35-40

So now we know that regardless of how religious we may be with our "good" works, if we don't have love for one another we have deceived ourselves.
We love, because He first loved us. 20 If someone says, "I love God," and hates his brother, he is a liar; for the one who does not love his brother whom he has seen, cannot love God whom he has not seen. 21 And this commandment we have from Him, that the one who loves God should love his brother also. 1 John 4:19-21

But how do we do it? How do we love others? Well we know that love is listed as a fruit of the Spirit. God is love. It is not our love that we are seeking to walk in but Christ's love.

But the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, long suffering, kindness, goodness, faithfulness,²³ meekness, self-control; against such there is no law. Galatians 5:22-23

 

So, how do we get the fruit of the Spirit in our lives? I think we have to: seek God and draw near to Him. We need to wash our minds in the word of God, think on God's word, make our thoughts line up with His thoughts, meditate on His word, be kind to one another, deny our flesh, do good works etc., but all the while seeking His direction that we be with Him and in Him and not our own way. We need to be one with Him in the Spirit. We may want to do one good work when our heavenly Father may have a completely different good work for us to do. His good work may not seem as glamorous and as fruitful and productive as the "good work" we chose for ourselves. We need to surrender our all to Christ and trust Him and follow Him wherever he leads. Today let us seek to truly love one another in Christ as He has loved us. Let us draw near to Him.