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Fruit of the Spirit, Love - Weekly Devotional
This week's focus: Love
It is no accident that love is the first fruit of the spirit mentioned in Galatians 5:22-23. It is the most important fruit that grows in our lives when we stay connected to Jesus. That’s why Jesus said the greatest commandments are to “love the Lord with all your heart, mind and strength and to love your neighbor as yourself.” (Matthew 22:36-40)
Sometimes we encounter people in our lives who are hard to love. These people may not treat us the way we want to be treated but God asks us to love them. God wants us to love others the way he loves us. And that means without condition, or no matter what. It is hard to love those who treat us poorly, but we can do it with God’s help.
1 John 4:19 (NIV)
We love because he first loved us.
Prayer Points:
- Pray and ask God to show you how you can love the hard-to-love people in your life. Over time, you may find that loving them with God’s love softens their heart, so they love better, too.
- For the first time since the late 1930s, fewer than half of Americans say they belong to a church and the percentage of Americans who do not identify with any religion has grown from 8% in 1998-2000 to 21%. Christianity is severely declining in America but in the rest of the world, the growth is stunning. In China, Christianity has grown from 22 million a decade ago to 38 million currently. In Africa, there are now roughly 685 million Christians which is expected to grow to 760 million by 2025. And in Brazil, only 5 percent of the population described themselves as evangelical in 1970. Today, that number is 22 percent. Praise God for all those who are coming to know Him as their Savior! Pray for America, that there would be a great awakening and revival in our nation.
We want to see God honored in America, and we pray for an unprecedented spiritual awakening.
This devotion was produced in partnership with Every Home for Christ.
This ministry is made possible by the generous support of friends like you.