Colossians 1:9 “For this reason we also, since the day we heard it, do not cease to pray for you, and to ask that you may be filled with the knowledge of His will in all wisdom and spiritual understanding…” The Apostle Paul is writing to the church of the Colossians. He tells them “we are praying.”
Looking back to verse 8 it says “Who also declared to us your love in the Spirit.” Right there Paul describes that the Colossians had that genuine connection to the Holy Spirit in love, and a genuine connection to God by His Spirit
What does it look like to have love in the Spirit? We have in 1 Corinthians, chapter 13, what I call the “Love Chapter.” Here Paul writes in verses 1-3, “Though I speak with the tongues of men and of angels, but have not love, I have become sounding brass or a clanging cymbal. And though I have the gift of prophecy, and understand all mysteries and all knowledge, and though I have all faith, so that I could remove mountains, but have not love, I am nothing. And though I bestow all my goods to feed the poor, and though I give my body to be burned, but have not love it profits me nothing.”
So that’s what love doesn’t look like. If you don’t have love, you can outwardly be doing the most sacrificial, incredible, amazing things. People would look at you and just be in awe at the amazing things that you do for humanity, or sacrificially. You can have the greatest of gifts, the greatest of sacrifices, but without love it’s nothing.
Paul goes on to describe what God’s love is. 1 Corinthians 13:4-8: “Love suffers long and is kind; love does not envy; love does not parade itself, is not puffed up; does not behave rudely; does not seek its own, is not provoked, thinks no evil; does not rejoice in iniquity, but rejoices in the truth; bears all things, believes all things, hopes all things, endures all things. Love never fails…”
Sometimes when I do a wedding I’ll emphasize the fact that we don’t love perfectly. If you tried to insert your name in that list that Paul gives, how quickly you’d feel uncomfortable, because it doesn’t fit. But put the name of Jesus in there and you have no problem reading it that way. Some say “Love is blind,” when really it’s quite the opposite; because God’s love sees more. Love covers a multitude of sins.
The Bible teaches us that Jesus would say something like “I’ve got you covered,” because of His love for us. So, we in a lesser way, having God’s love in the Spirit, can say the same. The fringe benefits of love are far-reaching. The love of God is being poured through us. God enables us to love and to be fruitful. That’s why Paul writes in Galatians 5:22-23 “But the fruit (notice singular here) of the Spirit is love (then he basically encapsulates these things), joy, peace, longsuffering, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, self-control. Against such there is no law.”
So we have God working in us and through us by His love. But it’s not until you turn your life over to Jesus that you will be able to enjoy this empowerment of love. Until you turn your life over to the Lord, you can’t be a recipient of that love, or a candidate of that love, or a conduit of the love of God.