Love is the Foundation!

01 Feb Love is the Foundation!

Read Galatians 5:22-23
Thought for the Day: Love is the right foundation!

When I was little, I remember going with my aunt as she was house-hunting. While she ultimately picked a condo, I accompanied her to a variety of potential homes. Of all the houses we looked at, I only clearly remember one of them. This house looked perfectly normal on the outside but had a very strange feature: the ground floor was warped in various rooms. One room was so warped that I mentioned to my aunt that she should buy the house just so I could race my Hot Wheels cars on the floor. Unfortunately for me, my aunt realized that the house had major problems with its foundation and she did not buy it.

As Paul wrote to the Galatians, he stressed that love is the foundation on which all the other fruit of the spirit come. Think about it – is it possible to have true peace or true goodness without love? In this passage, the Apostle Paul uses the Greek word “agape” which also distinguishes itself from the ways we use love today. In English, we use the same word to denote both our love for cinnamon rolls and our love for our families. In Greek, “love” has a variety of words and each with a different meaning. Agape-love is God’s unconditional love. While we certainly agape-love our family members, we don’t agape-love cinnamon rolls. They are delicious, but it’s not the same.

When we think of our lives, it is important to keep God’s agape-love at the foundation of what we do. Think about it: when Jesus was asked about the Meaning of Life, He said that we need to agape-love God and agape-love our neighbors. Jesus Himself knew the importance of living a life of agape-love and that is why He suffered death on the cross. Still, when we make decisions in our lives, it can be very easy to get pulled into various motives. However, we are called to keep God’s love at the center of each and every decision. We need to realize that there is only one way to live lives of joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, and self-control. Agape-love is the foundation.

In Christ,
Pastor David (and Stan)