“The fruit produced by the Holy Spirit within you is divine love in all its varied expressions: joy that overflows, peace that subdues, patience that endures, kindness in action, a life full of virtue, faith that prevails, gentleness of heart, and strength of spirit.” (Galatians 5:22-23 TPT)
In The Five Love Languages, author Gary Chapman writes about different ways each of us experiences and expresses love. According to this book, the five most common forms of showing love are: quality time, words of affirmation, acts of service, physical touch, and gift giving. A husband whose love language is gift giving may bring his wife flowers and also feel loved when she reciprocates with gifts of his liking. However, if the wife’s primary love language is service, she may feel more loved if her husband washed the dishes after a meal. Knowing each other’s love language can help us communicate our emotions and understand each other better.
Divine love, in all its varied expressions, is produced by the Holy Spirit within us. The love languages of the Spirit are: joy that overflows, peace that subdues, patience that endures, kindness in action, a life full of virtue, faith that prevails, gentleness of heart, and strength of spirit. Striving to produce these virtues in ourselves is ineffective. Most of us can only manage to stutter and stammer incoherently in our own power. Christ communicated God’s love. May the Spirit of God express love to us and through us--filling us with goodness and overflowing onto others.
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