God is love, which essentially means that He is completely selfless. He takes nothing for Himself and gives everything away. So, if we are truly filled with His own Spirit, we will display this selflessness as well.

Host: Kathy, it’s good to see you again. Thanks for joining us.

Kathy: Thanks. It's great to be here.

Host: Kathy, we're going to talk about something that we acknowledge we know so little about. But what little we do know about it we have discovered is a very wonderful thing. That is, the love of God. So, let's talk about a few aspects of the love of God. Let’s start out with this phrase, “The fruit of the Spirit is love.” Now those of us who have been around the Word of God or around the church have read that, but I don't know that we've pondered it much. What does it mean that the fruit of the Spirit is love?

Kathy: Well, when Paul listed out the fruit of the Spirit, the first thing he said was, “The fruit of the Spirit is love.” This is vital in the Christian's life, and I think that we all take it for granted. We look at it like a package deal that when we get the Lord, we get the fruit of the Spirit, but I really do believe that it's something we have to cultivate in our lives. And lately I have really been seeking the Lord to fill me with love for Him and for other people, because if I don't have that love, which I don't come prepackaged with or prewired with, I am not going to live out God's glory in this earth. I can't. And I'm so aware of that. It's just been so real to me how vital it is to be filled with the Spirit of love. I'm hungry for that love. I've tasted it, but I want more of it.

Host: I think one of the things that we struggle with as believers is that so much of what we're lacking, just because it's our nature to do so, we try to generate in and of ourselves. And you've said several times that it's the “Spirit” of love. We look at the disciples for instance, when they were walking with Jesus, they did not have this, but something dramatically transformed their lives.

Kathy: That would be the Spirit of love that came down. And I love to think about that because it's such a picture of our lives. Also, before we're filled with the Spirit, we're bumbling and walking into walls.

Host: And we’re unloving.

Kathy: Yeah. Mainly. But once the Holy Spirit came to the disciples, how different those men were. They were changed forever.

Host: You have said in the past that God is love. Expand on that a little bit. What does that mean? We can easily say flippantly, “God is love.” What does that really mean?

Kathy: God is literally and completely selfless, and I believe that's one of the main characteristics of true love. And God is a complete and total giver. He takes nothing for Himself, and He gives everything away.

Host: Yes. We have such a distorted idea of love. Aside from the fact that by our very nature we are different than God's love, we've been raised in a culture that has so contorted the meaning of love, that it has become difficult for us to grab hold of what the Bible describes as agape love. It’s that selfless giving to the unworthy. We see that in the reason that God sent Jesus His Son, the fullness of agape love. Talk a little bit about mankind's need for love and maybe give us an example or two of how we can see that need in mankind.

Kathy: Well, right off the bat, the main thing that you see in mankind is how utterly self-centered we are by nature. When Adam and Eve were with God daily in the garden, they were in the presence of perfection. Not only in the Earth, but in relationship with each other. I can't even fathom what that would be like, and for them to choose sin, I don't know if anybody can even come close to answering, why did they step down from that eternal love into this chaos?

Host: Yeah. And we see the need that was created by that decision on two levels. The love for God was lost in that they turned from God to themselves. They became utterly selfish. But also, they lost their love for one another in that immediately Adam blamed his wife for the sin. There was no love in that action. One of the things that God has so deeply instilled in this ministry is the understanding that the only thing that can conquer the selfishness of our hearts is the love of God. Talk about how love conquers selfishness.

Kathy: Well, this is kind of an elementary thing to say, but I just pray that the Spirit of God will make it real to people as they listen. When Jesus bore our wretchedness in His body on the Cross, God could not do anything else to demonstrate His love to us in that while we were yet sinners, He died. That's the love that won me when I was 18 years old. When that was made real to me, it changed everything about me, about my life, about my motives and about my goals. And it's true of every true believer that love conquers selfishness. So, as we grow in love, we become more God like. We become more forgiving. We become more generous. We become more selfless. We become more filled with God.

Host: Andrew Murray encouraged us in this chapter, “Do believe that the love of God can be shed abroad in your heart and mind so that you can love all the day.” For the listener out there who has experienced God's pull on their heart, they understand that they don't have the kind of love that God has, what do they do with that? Where do they go from there?

Kathy: It's a good question. Well, if you're talking about a believer, I can definitely answer that question because I find myself in that situation all the time. I'm not full of God's love. I'm not anywhere near it, and that's why I find myself weeping in my time with the Lord in the morning and throughout the day. I hunger for that love. I also see how much I don't have it and it grieves me. Yet I know that it's His desire to give that to me. I don't know what the issue is, but He knows, and I really have to come to the place in my own life where I am really trusting Him with that and I understand that it is in His hands.
       As for people who are on the outside looking in and they've tasted it, maybe got a little glimpse of it, all I can say is keep going toward it because you can't do this on your own. You've got to surrender. You've got to come into it. You've got to lay down. You just have to abandon yourself to this love that you have come close to, but you haven't actually entered into.

Host: And I would just add this little tidbit to that. God draws us with cords of lovingkindness. And if you are even sensing the love of God, then you can know that's the Lord and He's drawing you. But to underscore what you've just said, you have to respond, and what He's asking of you is to lay your life down and pursue Him.