Self-Denying Love

Sometimes, loving God and loving others means saying no to something that we want. This is hard in a culture that tells us that we deserve to follow our desires and have whatever we think will make us happy.

Today’s passage tells us that, because of our faith in Jesus, we have been set free to love. This is not freedom to do whatever we want when we want, but instead to use our freedom to “serve one another humbly in love.” What an opportunity! Is it not an amazing show of love to use your freedom for the sake of someone else rather than yourself?

Saying no to sinful desires means knowing what they are, and the list in verses 19–21 gives just a few examples. These things not only destroy our relationships with others and with God, but they destroy us as well. When we follow the desires of our flesh, we do not love others.

The good news is that because we belong to Jesus, our sin has been defeated. We will continue to struggle against it, but Jesus won the ultimate victory and gave us his Spirit. Since we have the Spirit, we should live according to the Spirit and not our own sinful desires. This means we can love others with the fruit of the Spirit: joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, and self-control.

Questions: 

1. We’ve seen “love your neighbour as yourself” come up a few times across this series. Why do you think so many places in the Bible talk about this? 
2. Has following sinful desires hurt your relationships with others before? If you haven’t yet, ask God for forgiveness, and you can be confident that he will grant it. 
3. What fruit of the Spirit do you find hard to live out? Pick one you could start practising today.

Prayer:

Loving Father, thank you that you have set me free from following my destructive sinful desires. By your Spirit, lead me that I might desire to follow Jesus always. Help me to stay in step with you and to love others with joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, and self-control. Amen.