In an article I posted back in July I wrote about 1 John 2:3-6. Part of that study included a discussion of walking as Jesus walked from verse 6. I mentioned all the things that are my walk; my words, deeds, time, character and affections. My affections are those things that I love. Love is a walk.

1 John 2:7-14 explains this by telling us how important love is to the Christian. Since Jesus commands it and the Holy Spirit demands it then a true believer will stand on love as the vehicle of the Spirit’s work in and through the believer’s life. In verse 7 John speaks of an “old commandment” that had been given by Jesus. What he’s referring to is the moment in John’s gospel wherein Jesus commands His disciples to “love one another, as I have loved you” (John 15:12). Then in 1 John 2:8-11 John talks of a new commandment. Not one that does away with the old, but a new commandment that fulfills the old. He says it’s “in you: because the darkness is past, and the true light now shineth” (verse 8). What Jesus commanded, the Holy Spirit now enables the believer to do, and suddenly love becomes the most powerful evidence that one is a disciple of Christ.

By this shall all men know that ye are my disciples, if ye have love one to another (John 13:35). If you’re walking in the Light, then love will be your walk!

Galatians chapter 5 talks about the fruit of the Spirit, or the evidence that one has the Holy Spirit living inside him:
But the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, longsuffering, gentleness, goodness, faith, Meekness, temperance: against such there is no law. And they that are Christ’s have crucified the flesh with the affections and lusts. If we live in the Spirit, let us also walk in the Spirit. (Galatians 5:22-25)

While at first glance this passage reads like a long list of qualities that make one spiritual, I believe that the fruit of the Spirit is singular. The fruit of the Spirit is LOVE! The evidence that you are a child of God, born again and indwelled by the Holy Spirit is that you have love for others, including those who don’t like you, and those whom you find hardest to love. All of those other qualities; joy, peace, longsuffering, gentleness, goodness, faith, meekness and temperance are all wrapped up in the love. If you genuinely love the way God loves, you will exhibit all of those other traits. They are all characteristics of love. Is love your walk? 

John C. Lawton
John@JohnCLawton.org