A sign of spiritual maturity is in your ability to love.

“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, and have not charity, I am nothing” 1 Corinthians 13:2, KJV.

When my husband and I were married, I thought I came to the marriage a spiritual giant that could teach him loads on how to win spiritual battles in prayer, how to prophesy, how to quote scriptures and how to storm the gates of heaven and get God to move. I was so impressed with myself and my “spiritual growth” until I kept coming across situations where I had to love people. I kept facing situations where I needed to be patient…and tactful…and believe the best…and all of those things that are not fun. I would fail the love tests every time. All of my faith and all that knowledge didn’t mean much because I didn’t know how to love properly. God had to help me see where I really was spiritually and help me get to where I needed to be. Over a long period of time, and little by little, He began the process of planting His seed of love in my heart and causing it to grow. He began to teach me how to lay down my life for someone else, how to not give up on people, how to accept others for who they are and how to love them through it. I thank God for what He’s shown me so far.

It doesn’t matter how much you can pray and war in the spirit if you don’t know how to love people. It doesn’t matter how many Bible verses you can quote verbatim if you don’t know how to treat people. A sign of spiritual maturity is in your ability to love.

Love is like a muscle. You have to work it in order for it to grow stronger. The stronger your love muscle is, the stronger you’ll be in life. You won’t become stronger by running from problems. You only get stronger by dealing with things head on and dying to yourself so God can rise in you.

Challenge: Take a closer look at 1 Corinthians 13 and see how well you measure up to God’s standard of love.

Prayer: Father God, thank you for speaking directly to my heart. I need you to teach me how to love. I haven’t been doing a good job at it. Plant your seed of love in my heart and cause it to grow and produce visible fruit in my life. Help me not to run problems, but face them with your grace and power. I want to grow spiritually, and I want to learn your ways of doing things. Help me to be more like you. In Jesus’ name, Amen.

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35 thoughts on “A sign of spiritual maturity is in your ability to love.”

  1. Amen my sister. That was and area in my that is was just hard for me. It was hard because I didn’t know how to Love.I’m greatful that God has shown me how to love others. Don’t get me wrong ,sometimes they can make it hard. But I look at my Lord and savior. His Love it is unconditional. Who am I,that I can’t love others.

  2. I am greatly challenged. Xtianity is not just how many hours u spent praying or preaching. But how much love we show to people around us , both xtians and non belivers

    1. #B2BB thank you sister for those words of wisdom… I’m coming to realize that in order to grow spiritually I have to remember to love each brother and sister that come around my way unconditionally to live the way God intends me to

  3. You know sometimes I feel so inadequate to truly love. Sometimes my heart is not in it.
    Thank you dearest Jesus for your unfailing love and example you gave us to love the commandment You gave to love one another. Please fill my heart with Your love so I may truly love as You want me to. I love you.

  4. Good Moring Sisters in Chris and Dauthers of God I Thank God for his LOVE That rules and rains within US and THOUGH us. My PRAYER Is that we allow God to increase his LOVE more in US and through us each and everyday. May everyone Have a Blessed Day

  5. This is a hard one for me. Dear Lord, please help me to love people unconditionally and without judgment. Let Christ’s love shine through me in Jesus’ name Amen.

  6. God thank you for plant your seed of True Love around me help me to show them that God Love is from the heart for us all that we are all learning

  7. I really hope in pray my sister in Christ get blessed on this morning the way I did receive in.believe that nobody loves you like Jesus hallelujah He doesn’t change be blessed my sisters! !
    Be Spiritually Minded
    Be Blessed. ……………
    Those who think they can do it on their own end up obsessed with measuring their own moral muscle but never get around to exercising it in real life. Those who trust God’s action in them find that God’s Spirit is in them – living and breathing God! Obsession with self in these matters is a dead end; attention to God leads us out into the open, into a spacious, free life. Focusing on the self is the opposite of focusing on God. Anyone completely absorbed in self ignores God, ends up thinking more about self than God. That person ignores who God is and what he is doing. And God isn’t pleased at being ignored.

    But if God himself has taken up residence in your life, you can hardly be thinking more of yourself than of him. Anyone, of course, who has not welcomed this invisible but clearly present God, the Spirit of Christ, won’t know what we’re talking about.

    Romans 8:5-9 The Message

    1. Hello…. Hello
      Its Bonnie again
      I just had to share this with all my sisters’ in christ
      LET’S JUST LOVE ON JRSUS IN LET HIM LOVE IN COMFORT YOU THROUGH OIutTHIS DAY IN.EVERY BLESSED DAY amen…..
      Therefore, brethren, we are debtors.”

      Romans 8:12

      As God’s creatures, we are all debtors to him: to obey him with all our body, and soul, and strength. Having broken his commandments, as we all have, we are debtors to his justice, and we owe to him a vast amount which we are not able to pay. But of the Christian it can be said that he does not owe God’s justice anything, for Christ has paid the debt his people owed; for this reason the believer owes the more to love. I am a debtor to God’s grace and forgiving mercy; but I am no debtor to his justice, for he will never accuse me of a debt already paid. Christ said, “It is finished!” and by that he meant, that whatever his people owed was wiped away for ever from the book of remembrance. Christ, to the uttermost, has satisfied divine justice; the account is settled; the handwriting is nailed to the cross; the receipt is given, and we are debtors to God’s justice no longer.

      But then, because we are not debtors to our Lord in that sense, we become ten times more debtors to God than we should have been otherwise. Christian, pause and ponder for a moment. What a debtor thou art to divine sovereignty! How much thou owest to his disinterested love, for he gave his own Son that he might die for thee. Consider how much you owe to his forgiving grace, that after ten thousand affronts he loves you as infinitely as ever. Consider what you owe to his power; how he has raised you from your death in sin; how he has preserved your spiritual life; how he has kept you from falling; and how, though a thousand enemies have beset your path, you have been able to hold on your way. Consider what you owe to his immutability. Though you have changed a thousand times, he has not changed once. Thou art as deep in debt as thou canst be to every attribute of God. To God thou owest thyself, and all thou hast — yield thyself as a living sacrifice, it is but thy reasonable service.

  8. Jesus paid the full sacrifice, of love,when he went to the cross and, shed his precious blood for me and you.It amazes me so much to know that there is nothing, anyone of us can do that will stop Jesus from loving us. Glory to his Holy, and Awesome name.We should love one another as Christ has loved us. I know it’s not easy to love some people,But his word says how can we love him whom we never seen but, hate our brother or sister whom we see everyday. Teach me Lord , true love. Be blessed everyone!!

  9. Lord teach me to love like you; unconditional. Yes, this spoke to my soul this morning. Our Father corrects those which He loves😌

  10. You my sister are sent from the All Mighty !!! My heart is full of awww at how He graces you to reach me! Amen and thank You Jesus. My King of kings and Lord of lords. ♡ y’all be blessed.

  11. Lord show me how to love in the true meaning of the word, teach me to sacrifice expecting nothing in return. Let me grow like you more and more each day. Mere words are not enough please show me how to love. Let’s spread God’s love around. Thank you Jesus.

    1. I want to love more I really thought I had it downpacked but I find residue still lingering especially when someone hurts me its easy to love your friends but the ones that use, abuse me it is harder to love them but I thank my Heavenly Father for correcting me when I get beside myself Lord I love that you love me and showing me how to love even when I find it difficult .

  12. I had to learn to seek God in all I do in this life becaues people will always be who they are you can’t change or fix anybody only God can we have to love everybody don’t have to like what they do God loves us no matter what I’m sure God ‘s not pleased with everything we do but He still loves us all the same so who are we not love others just like God loves us

  13. Love is an action word,Help me Father to allow your perfect love to flow through me that I can love those that hate and oppress me.I know I can do it,because your word declares that I can do all things through Christ that strengthens me!!!In Jesus name I pray!!!

  14. Abba Father, Thank-You for loving me unconditionally!! Help me to love my sisters and brothers in a way that glorifies You!! You know how hard it can be to love others especially the ones who try to take advantage of us and are disrespectful, You have loved me when I treated others in this way and You forgave me, so help me please to give the same forgiving love to them!! In Jesus name I pray. Amen

  15. Father You are love, and when You created us You created us in Your image, this means we have a measure of love given to us which we have to develope. It can only increase to the degree we are prepared to exercise it in our daily lives. When we walk in love we walk in God’s perfect will and we are blessed. We receive His favour and our prayers are answered because we are led by the Holy Spirit to pray according to His will. Walking in love gives us favour with God and man because we show mercy towards our fellow man and obedience towards  God. The word says that God requires of us to fear ( revere and honour) God, to walk in His ways, to love Him and to serve Him with all our heart, mind and entire being. Then our neighbours as our self, which means we can only love others to the degree we love and accept ourselves.Deut 10;12 . We should love others just as He has loved us. John 13;34.
    I walk in love because God appeals to and begs me to walk worthy of the calling to which I have been called with complete lowliness of mind and meekness, with patience, bearing with others and making allowances because we love them. Eph 4:1,2. Then When I walk in love God is present. 1John 4:7-8. Father all this feels and seems so far and nearly impossible but we can do all things if we are prepared to allow the Holy Spirit to help us and to yield to Him. Help us in our weakness to forgive because only then can we accept others and learn to love them.Help us to crucify the flesh and give You full access in our lives and hearts. Thank You that You are aware of our efforts and weaknessess and help us when we ask. We want to become mature and fulfill Your purpose for our lives.

    1. I totally agree with yu Zebi! Couldn’t agree less, thanx dear yu ar a blessing. God bless yu much and may yu live in His love forever

  16. Thank you God for this message. Show me how to LOVE people, show me how to make my muscle stronger. In Jesus Name Amen!!!

  17. Father, you know this is my deepest desire is to be baptize in with a dose of your love because that’s what it takes to draw men to you, sometimes it’s challenging but with your grace and mercy I can handle the difficult people I’ll have to love.

  18. Dear Father teach me how to love and to have patience for others and to love them for who you created them to be. Work on my heart Lord and to trust more and more. Thank You Lord for another day. Amen.

  19. Hi just read this devotional this afternoon it was for me I just had to deal with true unconditional love my foster son came home as is usual custom no home work which he always have .He refused to do so for nearly four hours I punished him it did not work he sat there and cried , I had to end up start writing the home work for him and then the work that took hours took him twenty minutes to be done I just Praise the Lord for me so I can extend it . Please pray for Ezra I.Thank you.

  20. I magnify you today Lord; thank you for always giving me a word that will make me into a better person. I’ve tried to expressed love and love me enemies, but yet still I’ve failed. Teach me how to develop true love and shows love to others even when it’s hard to love them. Help me Lord to grow more in you so your will be done in me. Thank you for loving me yet I don’t deserve to be love. In Jesus Name, Amen 🙏

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