"The Greatest of these is Love"
Scripture to follow:
1 Corinthians 13:1-13
“Faith, hope and love, these three abide, but the greatest of these is love.” What is the purpose of believing in God? For me, it’s that no other source within this world or myself gives me these three things mentioned in 1 Corinthians 13:13 more fully or consistently than my relationship with God. When Paul wrote this letter to the church in Corinth, He made it known that while faith, hope, and love are all essential to the transformation in followers of Christ, the greatest of all these is love. This is a shared priority throughout scripture.
“This is my commandment, that you love one another as I have loved you.” John 15:12 “Let all that you do be done in love” 1 Corinthians 16:14 “Above all these, put on love, which binds everything together in perfect harmony” Colossians 3:14 “So, we have come to know and to believe the love that God has for us. God is love, and whoever abides in love abides in God, and God abides in him.” 1 John 4:16
It’s almost as if God was trying to tell us, if we don’t grasp the meaning of love, we are missing the whole point. This makes sense when we consider God declared that He Himself is love. That love is not just a characteristic He has, or something He does well, but that He is love itself. Meaning everything He has ever shaped or touched, must first pass directly through love. He does not take an action, speak a word, bring something into being, or shape it for His purpose separate of love. Through God, not only do we receive our ability to feel and express love, as He is the creator of emotion, but we are also given the blueprint of what it ultimately means to be made in the image of God. When we accept salvation through Jesus and are given the Holy Spirit, scripture says there begins a renewal of our minds. If we surrender to this transformation, God promises to lead us on a journey of shedding the layers of this world and becoming more and more like Him. In Galatians, we see the fruits of the Spirit-meaning the characteristics of the Holy Spirit, the first of which named, is love.
If we take love out of the equation, our relationship with God is built on insecurity. We get caught up in the exhausting cycle of trying to prove we are worthy of His grace, protection, and blessings. We are left feeling anxious when our faith wavers or we make a mistake, wondering if we got it right enough for Him to answer our prayers or stick around. We can begin to avoid God out of shame and self-imposed pressure. Reconciling that maybe we will surrender to Him after we’ve proved to ourselves, we can do the right thing and become the best out of our own power and will. Without love as the foundation of faith we may get too focused on the knowledge we have of God and Christendom, viewing our faith as a ritual and leaving out the transformation. What a dangerous burden to bear. Paul warns against this particular consequence saying we even if have the ability to speak as angels, without love we are just noise. If we have the gift of prophesy, the ability to understand all of life’s grand mysteries, and all of the knowledge and intelligence, but lack love, we are nothing. We may even have great faith, the kind that can move mountains, but if we don’t have love. We are nothing. Nothing. Think about how definite and powerful that statement is.
We cannot be transformed by something we don’t trust. We won’t let our walls down to be changed if we don’t have faith that God is love and above all He loves us. Beloved, know at the root of it all You are the daughter or son of a loving Father before you are anything else. To become a strong Man of God, able to protect and lead well you must first accept your identify as a son; willing to be led and shaped by a loving Father. Being your own god will not get you there. To become a strong woman of God, able to inspire, influence, create, and nurture well, you must assume your identity as the daughter of a King. Meeting the world’s contradictory standards of perfection will not get you there.
I encourage you this week to study this scripture and see love as more than just emotion to feel, but an action take. Let it lead you further into refinement. Let it be your reason to further surrender. Let it become the full foundation of your faith and reason for hope.
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