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 no 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 have to remind myself what love looks like regularly…so I stop here at 1 Corinthians 13. Paul is dealing with the church in Corinth about the spiritual gifts and their place in the church. When he brings up the topic of love. And seemingly looking at it as a spiritual gift…he starts by solidifying its place at the top of the list of characteristics to have. If we think about Galatians 5:22, love is also on the list when explaining the fruit of the Spirit. Its level of importance is number one. Paul explains that without it, nothing else matters. Speaking in other languages, prophecies, or anything else are almost useless without love. So my thought is that if something is that important, we need to have a real good understanding of what it looks like and how to develop it in our lives. Verses 4-7 paint a great picture of what love looks like, and if you honestly think about it, give us a beautiful look at the face of GOD. As I read through the list, I can see how the presence of the Holy Spirit brings out those characteristics. I was honestly thinking verses 6-7 brought out the core of the description and took it away from the fluffy feeling that we all confuse as love, but I thing with out all of those characteristics we will never have a complete picture. After the description, Paul moves on to explain how all these other things will end, but love will remain. Jumping back to the beginning of this chapter and the level of priority love takes or should take, we see how it doesn’t matter if you give everything away and give your life for the kingdom…if you don’t have love it was all for nothing. Paul’s explanation of how much of this life we don’t see is a real eye opener. We look at the world through a peephole, and GOD has the view of everything. We understand very little, and HE knows it all. Verse 11 always reminds me it’s time to grow up. We are not children anymore. It’s time to put away our childish ways. Paul tells us that we see only a little, but at some point, we will be face to face with GOD, and everything will be made clear. 3 main characteristics remain faith, hope, and love. But the greatest is love. Without it, we got nothing.
Application:
for the longest time, I had it all confused. I fall victim to Hollywood’s skewed perception of love being this fluffy feeling that was always good. Never leaving me sad, disappointed, or discouraged. Where I always got my way and nothing ever made me cry. But that’s just not real. To be honest, real love is probably one of the hardest things for us to do. We are geared towards getting what we want. Waiting for it is foreign to us, and if it hurts, we run or push it away. We hold on to the wrongs that people do to us keeping a scorecard. Creating resentment and hoping they get what they deserve. This is the wrong way to approach anything. No matter what happens or has happened, we only see a small part. Keeping records of wrongs and pointing fingers is the way the enemy keeps division. Love is our weapon against his. We never see the whole picture. We can’t say we know what GOD is doing through some of our greatest tragedies, and if we would just let go of our rights to react and take our hands off of our own lives, allowing GOD to direct our path through the characteristics expressed above we may be able to see that it’s all part of a bigger plan. GOD wants to use you for HIS glory. HE made each and every one of us, and we all have a purpose for the kingdom. Demanding our way and holding records of wrongs done being impatient, intolerant, and outright hateful is not how followers of Christ are supposed to act. In fact, the Bible says they will know we follow Christ by the way we love. We can even run a little deeper with all this and say the bible tells us to have these characteristics with our enemies. Being kind to them not holding records of all the harm they have caused. Forgiving them when they don’t deserve it. Feeding them if they are hungry. True love is only possible through the presence of the Holy Spirit, and it’s the root of all the other fruit that is produced in our lives. If you really want to experience the fullness of Christ…just love them all and let GOD sort them out. It’s not up to us to determine who is right and who is wrong or to condemn others. Our job is to inspect fruit and act out of love. We can water and fertilize, but the increase is up to GOD. If we just start cutting down trees with hate, we never allow opportunities for fruit to grow. So, your assignment today is to love. That’s it. I love them all.
Prayer:
Father, we want to know you more. We want to understand how you see things… not just from our limited perspective. But from a greater picture. Help us to see how you see to love how you love. We want to be the hands and feet of Jesus… after all, those are the parts of HIM that we nailed to the cross. It’s only right that as the church that HE died for that, we become those parts for HIM. We ask for a heart of love today. Set aside all the things that keep us trapped in our ideas of how we are supposed to react and instead act out of love. Forgiving those who hurt us and trusting that you will make all things right. Our lives are not our own help us to die to ourselves and consider others to be more important. It’s in the mighty name of Jesus I pray amen