February often paints love in petals and poetry but heaven writes it in permanence and presence. Not as a feeling or a fleeting spark, but as identity because God is love. Note that we didn’t say God has love, or God shows love. GOD IS LOVE.
And here is the holy implication: Love is the measure of true spiritual growth.
If spiritual growth were a tree, love would not merely be one of its branches. It would be the root and sap, the unseen forces that prove the tree is alive.
Not how long you’ve been in church.
Not how many scriptures you can quote.
Not how eloquently you pray or preach.
Not how much you give.
LOVE!
The Command that Simplified Everything
When asked about the greatest commandment in Matthew 22 vs 37 – 40, Jesus didn’t offer a complicated formula. He distilled the entire law into two blazing directives:
● Love God with all your heart, soul, and mind.
● Love your neighbour as yourself.
Everything else hangs on that. That’s why if your spiritual life does not increase your capacity to love God more deeply and people more genuinely, then you’re not really growing. Spiritual growth is not merely learning more about God. It is becoming more like Him. And if God is love, then growth without love is a contradiction.
In Galatians 5 vs 6, Paul writes that what truly counts is “faith working through love,” because love is not an accessory; it is the oxygen of spiritual growth. Love is the engine that makes faith functional. Without it, faith becomes cold theory.
The interesting irony is that you can increase in knowledge yet decrease in kindness. You can master theology yet lag behind at tenderness. You can perform spiritual disciplines yet remain emotionally and relationally distant.
As a believer, love reveals whether your obedience is duty-driven or devotion-driven. It shows whether you serve to be seen or because you’ve been changed.
Bottomline: you cannot mature spiritually without love.
The Missing Link
Ada loved God deeply. She woke up to pray at 5 a.m everyday. She fasted twice a week, served in three departments at church. Her Bible was marked, highlighted, and layered with sticky notes like a war map. But at home, she snapped at her children for making minor mistakes.
She dismissed her colleagues who struggled to meet deadlines and avoided a neighbour who offended her instead of having a hard but healing conversation about it.
One day, during her quiet time, a simple question rose in her heart:
“Has your walk with Me made you more loving or more emotionally and relationally unavailable?”
That question unsettled her. She realized that there was a disconnect between the love of God which she professed and her relationships with people: she was disciplined but not necessarily compassionate. Consistent but not always kind. Devoted but mostly distant.
That day, she decided to practice love intentionally: when her son broke an expensive dishware, she chose patience over irritation. When her colleagues failed to deliver on target, she offered help instead of silent judgment. When her neighbour reached out, she chose forgiveness and honest reconciliation over resentment.
Nothing dramatic happened. There were no lightning bolts or angelic ministrations but something within her shifted: love reshaped her reflexes causing her prayers to soften. Her joy also deepened and her worship felt less like performance and more like partnership.
How Love Shapes Our Walk With God
When love anchors your walk with God:
• Prayer becomes communion, not duty.
• Obedience becomes delight, not pressure.
• Repentance becomes restoration, not shame.
• Worship becomes response, not ritual.
You stop striving to impress God and start resting in Him. Love changes your motive from “I must” to “I want to.” And spiritual maturity is largely about motive transformation.
How Love Shapes Our Work With People
When spiritual growth truly happens, it spills over. Love makes you:
• Patient with slow growth—in others and yourself.
• Generous with grace when people fall short.
• Courageous enough to correct without crushing.
• Humble enough to apologize when you’re wrong.
It teaches you that being right is not the same as being righteous because love refuses to weaponize truth. Instead, it insists that truth must heal. Here’s the deeper revelation: You cannot claim closeness with God who is love while consistently withholding love from people made in His image.
The Takeaway
If God is love, then every step toward Him must increase your capacity to love.
So ask yourself—gently, but honestly:
• Am I more patient than I was last year?
• Do people feel safer around me?
• Has my intimacy with God made me better or bitter?
• Is my obedience fueled by affection or anxiety?
Spiritual growth is not proven by spiritual vocabulary. It is proven by transformed character. The most mature believer in the room is not the loudest, the most visible, or even the most gifted. S/he is the one who loves genuinely and consistently.
Prayer Focus
If you’ve read this far then you can tell that love is not a sentimental accessory to the Christian life. It is the spine, the proof, the pulse. It isn’t the advanced stage of Christianity. It is the foundation.
Similarly, spiritual growth is not about climbing higher ladders. It is about becoming a wider vessel able to carry more of His heart into the world. So if you ever wonder whether you are growing spiritually, do not begin with your gifts. Begin with your love because in the end, perhaps the simplest test of maturity is this:
Are you becoming more like Love Himself?
Take a moment to pray for yourself today. Say Father, because You are love, grow me in who You are. Remove every trace of pride disguised as spirituality. Teach me obedience that flows from affection. Make my faith active through love.
Let my walk with You produce gentleness in my home, grace at my workplace, and compassion in my community.
Where my heart has grown rigid, soften it. Where I have loved selectively, expand me. Let love become my reflex, my rhythm, and my response and let my growth be visible in compassion, proven in kindness, and perfected in love.
In Jesus’ name, Amen. 🙏