Jay Adams on True Love

True Love
May 13, 2011 by Jay Adams
Have you ever noticed how closely love and the Holy Spirit are connected in the Bible?

“Can’t say that I have.”

Well, love is the first piece of fruit mentioned in Galatians 5:22. Some even think it’s the basic quality from which the other items listed flow.

“Of course, now that you mention it, I remember it as the first fruit of the Spirit.

And, sometime, check out Colossians 1:8 where, in passing, Paul mentions “your love by the Spirit.”

“What do you think that means?”

Much the same as the longer reference in Romans 5:5 where Paul wrote,

God’s love has been poured into our hearts through the Holy Spirit Who was given to us.

Before regeneration (of which the pouring is a picture) no one is capable of expressing God-like or God-pleasing love. Others may love with a sort of ersatz love, but the vertical dimension is totally missing from it.

“What does that mean?”

It means that God is left out of the picture; that such love has a heavy self-focus rather than an other-focus (and, in particular, leaving out God as the significant Other).

“Tell me more.”

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