Fruit of the Spirit: Love

There are 9 parts to the fruit of the Spirit and the first part is love. When you think about character and forming a Christian character within ourselves, it shouldn't come as a surprise that love is the first thing we should be working on. You can know lots about God and Jesus, you can know everything that your church stands for and believes about God, but if it's not shaped by love,  the rest is really meaningless, simply cold knowledge that will not change who you are as a person.
So how do you work on becoming more loving? 1 Corinthians 13 is a great place to start, "Love is patient, love is kind. It does not envy, it does not boast, it is not proud. It does not dishonor others, it is not self-seeking, it is not easily angered, it keeps no record of wrongs. Love does not delight in evil but rejoices with the truth. It always protects, always trusts, always hopes, always perseveres. Love never fails." When you look at how Paul describes love, what comes out is that love is based on who you are as a person rather than on a feeling. Love is about how you treat other people, not about how you feel about them, which explains how you can love even your enemies. Loving others is about having patience with them with kindness; it's about humility and being happy for them when things go well for them, Love doesn't take pleasure and doesn't participate in gossip, instead protecting others from being gossiped and spoken ill of by others. Love trusts in God, trusting that treating others this way gives God pleasure and honours God, all while resting in the hope we have as children of God. Finally, love never gives up, meaning you continue to act in these ways to others even if you get no benefit from it, and it doesn't change your relationship with them because it's not about you, it's about what God expects of you because of who you are as a follower of Jesus. 
Can you imagine the difference this would make in the minds and attitudes of those who are not followers of Jesus? It would make it more difficult to dismiss who God is if Jesus' followers were shaped by love instead of "being right." The true test of love is being able to see the image of God in the other person, no matter how different they are from you and embracing that image of God with love and respect. Imagine the changes in our communities if we all focused on loving the people there instead of trying to change them because we're working hard at changing ourselves more into the image of Jesus. Fear of others would begin to disappear and we would be able to have sincere relationships and conversations with those who see the world in profoundly different ways from us. Maybe we would change their fear of us and they might even come into our homes or visit our churches to see what it is that makes us so loving and meet the God of love who loves them unconditionally. 
In the end, this means trusting God that loving others, especially those whose values and lifestyles are radically different that ours, is how we become more Christ-like and that as we are changed into people of grace, that God will be honoured and the people God has placed in your lives will see your faith lived out, giving you opportunities to share with them why you follow Jesus.