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As I mentioned on the 13th, I had planned on revisiting my study of the fruits of the Spirit for the next nine weeks. As the saying goes, life is what happens when you’re busy making plans. Two days after that blog, I got a phone call from New York. For those of you who read my Who Wants to be a Millionaire? Me! post, you may already be able to figure out who called. For those who haven’t read that post, what are you waiting for? Go read it! I’ll be right here, waiting…
Okay, now that everyone is caught up, that’s right, the people from Who Wants to be a Millionaire called me on Thursday to be on the show! Needless to say, that has thrown all my plans into a bit of a whirlwind. I fly to New York next Saturday and tape on Monday, the 26th. Assuming everything goes well. Could be the 27th, if things don’t go as planned. Either way, I will be spending all week back in my old stomping grounds and looking forward to it. So, my studies may not be as in-depth as they were five years ago.
But, the more I think about it, the more I think that’s a good thing. Five years ago, I approached the fruits more from an analytical angle, than a practical angle. There was more head knowledge than heart knowledge. So maybe I don’t need to pull out the concordance or translate the Greek root of words. Maybe this time, I can just say what I feel. Before I do that, though, here’s my study on love from five years ago:
Picking fruit – Love
7/16/06
“But the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, longsuffering, gentleness, goodness, faith, meekness, temperance, against such there is no law.” (Gal. 5:22-23 KJV)
I think it’s interesting that love is the first fruit mentioned. There are several verses throughout the Bible that state that without love there is nothing. “Though I speak with the tongues of men and of angels, and have not charity, I am become [as] sounding brass, or a tinkling cymbal.” (1 Cor 13:1) “Charity” in this verse and “love” in Galatians are translated from the same Greek work “agape”. Now there are many types of love mentioned in the Bible, each with different words. Phileo is a brotherly love, storge is affection, eros is romantic love, but agape is a self-sacrificing love, a love that is unconditional and selfless. Paul says that without that type of love, all his words amount to nothing more than noise. And immediately after saying that, he goes on to give one of the best biblical descriptions of agape, just in case any of his listeners might not know what he’s talking about.
Agape is long-suffering – perseveres patiently and bravely in enduring misfortunes and troubles.
Agape is kind.
Agape does not envy.
Agape is not boastful.
Agape is not full of pride.
Agape does not act unbecomingly.
Agape is not self-serving.
Agape is not easily angered.
Agape harbors no evil thoughts.
Agape does not rejoice in the face of unrighteousness.
Agape does rejoice in the truth.
Agape bears all, believes all, hopes all, endures all.
Agape NEVER fails.
That’s a tall order, and few people can attain that level of love…
I’ve been thinking of the love I give in my life, and I know that, before I was a Christian, the love I had for people was more in the storge or eros category. I grew up moving from place to place, unable to make close friends, and knowing that, even if I did, I would be moving away again anyway. I had no roots, my parents both worked hard, so, emotionally, I tended to be on my own a lot. I knew my parents loved me, because they sacrificed all in order to care for us. We never went hungry, we always had a roof over our heads and clothes on our backs. But, emotionally, there was something missing in my life. I became a loner, unable or unwilling to make friends, and every time I tried, I ended up being hurt. So, I learned to be emotionally self-sufficient (by the way, it’s impossible to do so, but it is possible to fool yourself into thinking you are.). I built my castle walls and guarded my heart from pain…as well as from joy…
Relationships I had with women were shallow and short-lived. I didn’t have my first real relationship until the age of 26. It was the first time I’d been with someone longer than three months, and the first time I truly allowed myself to care about someone. That relationship only lasted a year, but I immediately met someone else. I married her, thinking she was the answer to all I was looking for. But, in all honesty, I didn’t know her at all when we got married. Not only that, but I was looking for things from her that I should have been looking for from God. At that time, though, I wanted nothing to do with God. Needless to say, the marriage didn’t last. We both wanted things from each other that the other wasn’t able to give. It was a self-serving love, each of us putting our happiness above the other’s. We got divorced six and a half years ago.
Since that time, I came to Christ and realized what I’d been looking for was right there with Him. He truly loves me just the way I am, and there’s nothing I can do to make Him love me any more or any less. He accepts me, warts and all. He died so that I wouldn’t have to. He gave His all for me.I still am very guarded about giving my heart away. After all, old habits die hard. But I have developed some very strong friendships, people who I would die for.
“For scarcely for a righteous man will one die: yet peradventure for a good man some would even dare to die. But God commendeth his love toward us, in that, while we were yet sinners, Christ died for us.” (Rom 5:7-8)And yes, the word love in that verse is also agape.
Husbands, would you die for your wives? Wives, would you die for your husbands? Would you die for your friend? Most people would say yes. But agape asks this question – “Would you die for an unrighteous person, for a stranger?” Would you give all that you can to help another at the expense of suffering yourself? Jesus said, “Love your enemies.” The word used here is agapao, self-sacrificing love. Would you sacrifice yourself for your enemy? Jesus did.
When I started this blog, I had no idea what I was getting myself into. Love, agape, is something that can be and has been written about for ages, and yet never fully understood until one actually experiences it.
I thank all those of you who actually read this, and I will close with another verse from 1 Corinthians 13 – “And now abideth faith, hope, charity(agape), these three; but the greatest of these [is] charity(agape).
I just reread that post and find it fascinating that I had no idea what was just around the corner when I wrote this. Three days before I posted this, some woman contacted me on MySpace complimenting my blogs. She was happy to see someone who claimed to be a Christian who actually seemed to walk the talk. She and I emailed each other for a couple of weeks before finally deciding to meet on July 22nd. That woman’s name was Heather Geer, and a little over a year later, she became Heather Tejada. Instead of writing about love in a clinical, scholarly fashion, I got to experience love for a change. She was a wonderful example of agape. She would do all she could for others and would give until she had nothing left to give. She did that with me, she did that with her family, especially her nieces and nephews, and even with strangers across the world that she supported through ministries like Compassion International. She loved so much and helped me to understand love like I never had before I knew her. And then, she was gone. At the ripe old age of 41, my wife passed away. But her love lives on. I see it in every single one of her nieces and nephews. I see it in her mother, her sister, her brother. I see it in every single life she touched. Her love made a difference in this world. And, really, that’s all we can hope to accomplish in our oh-so-brief time on Earth.
I still struggle with love every day. I’m even struggling writing about it. I have been hurt a lot in my past, and that has made it difficult to trust and love. I find it easy to slip right back into “lone wolf” mode. But, I can not, I WILL not, let that happen. I am going to challenge myself to love more – family, friends, enemies, even strangers. And that will be a HUGE step out of the box for me…
By the way, as for my other goal, I lost 2 pounds. I am now at 298.