The fruit of the Spirit is love.
—Galatians 5:22
I beseech you…for the love of the Spirit.
—Romans 15:30
Who also declared unto us your love in the Spirit.
—Colossians 1:8
These verses lead us up into the very center of the inner sanctuary. We will have to learn that love is not only one of the fruits of the Spirit, but it is also the most important of all. The Spirit is nothing less than divine love, come down to dwell in us. We have only as much of the Spirit as we have of love.
God is Spirit. All life is owing to the Spirit of God. This is so because God is also love. He is love as seen in the Father giving all He has to the Son and the Son seeking all He has in the Father. In this life of love between the Father and the Son, the Spirit is the bond of fellowship. The Father is the loving One, the fountain. The Son is the beloved One, the great reservoir of love, always receiving and giving back. The Spirit is the living love that makes them one. In Him the divine life of love has its ceaseless flow and overflowing.
The outpouring of the Spirit is the inpouring of love. This love now possesses the heart. That same love with which God loves Jesus, ourselves, and all His children overflows from us to all the world. If we trust and yield to this love, it will also be power for us to live. The Spirit is the life of the love of God. The Spirit in us is the love of God taking up abode within us.
Live in the love of Jesus, and you will be a messenger of His love to everyone you meet. The more intimate your communion with Jesus through the Holy Spirit, the more accurate your translation of that life will be into the relationships of daily life.
The compensation for our not being able to see God is that we have one another to love! (See 1 John 3:14–24.) If we do this, God lives in us! We do not have to ask if our brother is worthy: God’s love for us and for him is love for the unworthy. It is with this divine love that the Holy Spirit fills us and teaches us to love our brothers.