First Comes Love

"We love because He first loved us." 1 John 4:19

Our ice cream cones were cold and creamy, and so delicious. We wiped up the melts and drips, and piled back in my car. Traffic was heavy, requiring my full attention. Jackson started pestering his sister, who was trying, in the nicest way, to ignore him. That didn't work because he kept up the pestering, and starting hitting her knee. She asked him once, twice, and a third time to "Stop it!" He was getting the better of her, but she knew how to get him. She began whispering, "Jackson and Eva, sittin' in a tree, k-i-s-s-i-n-g; first comes love, then comes marriage, then comes Jackson with the baby carriage."

When he started getting mad and turning red, she knew she had him. I remembered the rhyme. In elementary school years we used to recite it while jumping rope.

First comes love. This morning the scripture verse on my calendar was from the fifth chapter of the book of Galatians: "The fruit of the spirit is love, joy, and peace".

I thought, LOVE, joy, and peace. First is love. That is the most important. Without it, can we have the others?

I was mulling this over, and thought that all of these surely must flow from love. There is no joy without love, nor peace without love- both giving and receiving. In fact the Bible says "The entire law is summed up in a single command: "Love your neighbor as yourself." (Galatians 5:14)

Love. The thirteenth chapter of Corinthians is the great "love chapter", quoted often in wedding vows. And First John, chapter 4, is loaded with LOVE stuff, especially verses 7-12 and 16-18).

Yes, the evidence (fruit) in believers' lives is "love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness and self-control." (Galatians 5:22)

And first comes love.

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Contributed by Sally I. Kennedy: boca7565@bellsouth.net Sally is the author of "52 Little Parables from Ireland" Creation House Press.