Scripture:
1 Corinthians 13:1-13 ESV
[1] If I speak in the tongues of men and of angels but have no love, I am a noisy gong or a clanging cymbal. [2] And if I have prophetic powers, and understand all mysteries and all knowledge, and if I have all faith, so as to remove mountains, but have not love, I am nothing. [3] If I give away all I have, and if I deliver up my body to be burned, but have not love, I gain nothing. [4] Love is patient and kind; love does not envy or boast; it is not arrogant [5] or rude. It does not insist on its own way; it is not irritable or resentful; [6] it does not rejoice at wrongdoing but rejoices with the truth. [7] Love bears all things, believes all things, hopes all things, endures all things. [8] Love never ends. As for prophecies, they will pass away; as for tongues, they will cease; as for knowledge, it will pass away. [9] For we know in part and we prophesy in part, [10] but when the perfect comes, the partial will pass away. [11] When I was a child, I spoke like a child, I thought like a child, I reasoned like a child. When I became a man, I gave up childish ways. [12] For now, we see in a mirror dimly, but then face to face. Now I know in part; then I shall know fully, even as I have been fully known. [13] So now faith, hope, and love abide, these three; but the greatest of these is love.
Observation:
I was led to verses 11-12 but felt it was appropriate to keep them in context. Paul is writing to tell Corinthians. Looking at what is necessary to build the kingdom of heaven. First, he dismissed speaking in tongues and then eliminated prophetic power and knowledge. I’m not saying he does away with these things because faith is on the list as well, and we know that faith in Jesus is the key to the kind of love that Paul is about to express. It’s more like he is going over a list and their priority in the process. If you have the kind of love that Paul is about to explain. People will see it. It’s not just some feeling that comes and goes. I could go over all the characteristics of love and get real long-winded here. That’s not what I’m trying to do, either. So let’s do this if we look at verses 4-7 and take the word “love” out and replace it with GOD, we can get a clear picture of the one who pursues us. HE never fails. It’s a little hard for us to explain what love is, but Paul nailed it. GOD is love. It’s not that Hollywood story that they try to sell us. Now verses 11-12 Paul wants us to know that at some point we will grow up, and our thinking will change. We will see love differently. No longer a fluffy feeling but the most important choice we make. Driving all of this down to one point. Faith, hope, and love remain, but the greatest is love.
Application:
What does all this mean, and what does love look like? Well… it looks like GOD. HE has never given up on you. HE stayed in when it got hard, and that led to you sitting here right now reading this SOAP, wondering what my point is. Well, here we go. Don’t give up when it’s not that fluffy feeling that Hollywood tells us love is. That’s what a child would do. When it doesn’t feel good. We stop, that’s not love. Love goes through the hard stuff even when it hurts. It presses on to win the prize of the upward call of GOD. There are times when life is going to suck and you won’t want to press on. But real love does not give up in those moments. It clings to GOD for the strength to move forward when you can’t breathe because the pain in your heart is too much. My point is that love is not always easy, nor does it always feel good, and if that’s how you’re thinking, your thinking is like a child. It’s time to put away that thought… love is hard. It doesn’t just give up. It doesn’t hold some kind of score sheet. It’s not tit for tat or this for that. Love makes a choice to do the right thing even when it hurts. It’s not self-motivated. Love is kind when it doesn’t want to be. To put it short, love is a choice that leads to actions that put others first. I will close with this for GOD, so I loved that HE gave HIS everything to redeem it. It had to hurt to turn HIS back on HIS son even if it was only for a moment. Love sets you free from your sin, and that’s why it’s the greatest of all.
Prayer:
Father, it’s hard to fathom what it felt like. When you gave all you had for us. Even though we were still stuck in sin. While we were still enemies of yours, you sent your son to redeem us. That’s a love that is hard to understand or comprehend. But that’s how we are supposed to love others. You want us to give our all. Even if they are our enemy, so to speak. Your word tells us to pray for them. That’s what you did. You love us when it hurts you. You washed away our wrong by the blood of your very own son. It’s not easy, and it’s not fluffy. But it’s love. We want what you want for us. I would say help us to love like you love… that’s scary because, yes, love sometimes hurts, and as humans, we run from pain. Father, what I will ask you is help to stop giving up on people… people whom you created for a purpose. Let us put aside the 99 and chase after the one. No greater love is that than one who will lay down his life for someone he doesn’t even know. Father, we love you, and we trust that you know what’s best for us, so we place our lives in your hands. It’s in the mighty name of Jesus I pray amen.