The Greatest of These is Love
Blog
Even knowing what God wants for the body of Christ, and with the assurance of faith in all the provision we have in Christ, I have still found in my own heart times that I feel lacking or distant from Him. Or times when there doesn’t seem to be real power in Jesus the way I know there should be.
Maybe this stems from apathy or operating out of a sense of duty. Both of these are weak foundations for faith and result in a tendency to drift away from the reality of Jesus Christ and His body.
I find at times, I can walk in the duty of my faith and obedience to His word, yet when a storm comes, I am lacking in my foundation.
My flesh often steps out to accomplish God’s promises, not in what Christ has given me, but in my own efforts and resources.
The results of my own work may look appealing to many people for a very long time, but by God’s mercy, I begin to see that trying to function in the body of Christ while resting in my own effort rather than in His promises does not result in the life God wants. In fact, it looks just like death (Romans 8:6).
I believe this battle in my own heart to follow God in Spirit and not in the flesh is a common temptation and pitfall in the church, and brings us again to a point of decision.
Jesus told us multiple times that if we ask anything in His name, He will do it. And I believe that most Christians are well-practiced in coming to God and asking Him for things in Jesus’ name. Of course, we often focus on practical requests of God’s financial provision, sin struggles, healings and the like. And God wants us to bring those things to Him. I’m sure many of us also come to God to ask for things like wisdom to navigate difficult situations, faith that God’s promises are true, patience to bear many kinds of burdens, and even hope that will sustain us through the day. Those things are needed also, and we especially feel them as trials bear down on us, threatening to push us over some sort of cliff.
But I am realizing that things like wisdom, faith, patience, hope, and the like are fruits, of course, of the Spirit of God, but that 1 Corinthians 13 tells us the greatest of these things, and it would seem to me what all gifts hinge on, is the love of the Father, given to us. It is also clear that love cuts through the deception of human effort in our work for the kingdom.
1 If I speak with the tongues of men and of angels, but do not have love, I have become a noisy gong or a clanging cymbal. 2 If I have the gift of prophecy, and know all mysteries and all knowledge; and if I have all faith, so as to remove mountains, but do not have love, I am nothing. 3 And if I give all my possessions to feed the poor, and if I surrender my body to be burned, but do not have love, it profits me nothing. 4 Love is patient, love is kind and is not jealous; love does not brag and is not arrogant, 5 does not act unbecomingly; it does not seek its own, is not provoked, does not take into account a wrong suffered, 6 does not rejoice in unrighteousness, but rejoices with the truth; 7 bears all things, believes all things, hopes all things, endures all things. 8 Love never fails; but if there are gifts of prophecy, they will be done away; if there are tongues, they will cease; if there is knowledge, it will be done away. 9 For we know in part and we prophesy in part; 10 but when the perfect comes, the partial will be done away. 11 When I was a child, I used to speak like a child, think like a child, reason like a child; when I became a man, I did away with childish things. 12 For now we see in a mirror dimly, but then face to face; now I know in part, but then I will know fully just as I also have been fully known. 13 But now faith, hope, love, abide these three; but the greatest of these is love.
(1 Corinthians 13)
Great spiritual gifts or ministry talents or spiritual knowledge should not function without love. But it would seem that they can.
Even great Christian service, giving all things to the poor, or great physical sacrifice of giving your body to be burned, these things, even done in Jesus’ name, should not be done without love. But it seems that they can. Yet it profits nothing.
What profit do we want? Earthly or heavenly? Temporal or eternal? Do we desire the fruit of spiritual labor, not the fruit of human institutions? Where do we find the difference?
The flesh and human institutions will often operate in Christian sympathy and sentiment. In sympathy, one could give all one has to the poor, yet not have love. And profit nothing.
We must ask God for His love. Seek it in all that we do for the kingdom, and ask that His love overwhelm us so that any traces of superficial Christian emotion or sympathy or sentiment would be lost forever in the vastness and reality of His love. Perfect love casts out all fear. We must not fear in laying down our sympathies. The world clings to these things because they have nothing deeper.
We have the source of real emotions. We have Christ. And we can rely on no other resource for the church.