Seeking God to Learn Our Own Heart

Authentically born-again believers can love the way Christ loves because He has replaced their own spirit with the Spirit of God.

John 13:34-35 "…34 A new commandment I give you: Love one another. As I have loved you, so you also must love one another. 35 1

John 3:14

"We know that we have passed from death to life, because we love our brothers. The one who does not love remains in death."

1 John 4:20

"If anyone says, "I love God," but hates his brother, he is a liar. For anyone who does not love his brother, whom he has seen, cannot love God, whom he has not seen. By this everyone will know that you are My disciples if you love one another.”

Love is the first and main gift given to all born-again believers. None of the other fruit of the Spirit can operate without this very first fruit in the list. We all have this fruit of love if we are born again, then all the other fruit are present because of this first fruit.

Galatians 5:22-23

"22 But the fruit of the Spirit is LOVE, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, 23 gentleness, self-control; against such things there is no law."

Without love, none of the other fruit can be present.

Matthew 22:34-40

"34 But when the Pharisees heard that Jesus had silenced the Sadducees, they gathered together.

35 And one of them, a lawyer, asked Him a question, testing Him:

36 “Teacher, which is the great commandment in the Law?”

37 And He said to him, “‘You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, and with all your soul, and with all your mind.’

38 This is the great and foremost commandment.

39 The second is like it, ‘You shall love your neighbor as yourself.’

40 Upon these two commandments hang the whole Law and the Prophets.”

When we encounter someone who, as a lifestyle, shows lack of love we have met someone who is not born again.

1 John 3:10

"10 By this the children of God and the children of the devil are obvious: anyone who does not practice righteousness is not of God, nor the one who does not love his brother and sister."

Self-reflecting in prayer is the best way to find out if we are demonstrating our heart having been changed by Christ through a lifestyle of Spiritual fruit.

We need to keep seeking God to learn our own heart.