The word “LOVE” is often misunderstood and warped in much of our culture. God’s definition of “LOVE” is very different. God’s view of love involves giving and self-sacrifice, which in our own strength can be hard to do. Thankfully, Holy Spirit within us can help us grow in our ability to have love, joy, peace, patience, and so much more.
Sandwiched between two chapters about how the church functions – in spiritual gifts, unity, prophecy, praying in tongues, and orderly worship – this very famous “Love Chapter” of the Bible has kind of taken on its own life. Often used at weddings, it’s generally applied to romantic relationships. While I agree that true married love should be patient, kind, etc., I believe that the true Love that the Apostle Paul writes about is bigger than just one-to-one relationships. I think it comes from God and extends to within the local and the greater Church. Perhaps you are farther along on the journey, but I find it difficult to love “certain people.” Maybe that’s why the Lord included this in our Bible – because he knew our human, fleshly nature, would need the reminder that “the greatest of these is love.” So, today, let us love those around us and those in our worlds a little better.
God of Love,
Thank you that you love us and show yourself as our God of Love. Thank you that when we are born of You, you plant Love within us so we can love others and your Love can be made complete within us. Thank you for your Spirit which helps to perfect us in love. We love because You first loved us; help us to love each other with pure hearts, especially those who are rather difficult to love. Even if it seems we have all the spiritual gifts or earthy blessings you offer, we know that if we do not have your love we have completely missed your call. Cause our love to be patient, kind, not envious or boastful or proud. Cause our love to rejoice in truth, protect, hope, persevere, and trust. Cause our love to be pure so it is not delighting in evil, dishonoring to others, self-seeking, easily angered, or a keeper of wrongs. Cause us to want to crucify our flesh and its passions and desires so we can live by the Spirit and walk in the ways – and with the attitude – you have for us. Holy Spirit, give us more faith and hope, but especially tune our hearts to be able to love those around us and those in your Church as you love. May our love never fail but grow in completeness. In the loving name of Jesus we pray, Amen.
“But the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, forbearance, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness and self-control. Against such things there is no law. Those who belong to Christ Jesus have crucified the flesh with its passions and desires. Since we live by the Spirit, let us keep in step with the Spirit.” (Galatians 5:22-25 NIV)
“Dear friends, let us love one another, for love comes from God. Everyone who loves has been born of God and knows God. Whoever does not love does not know God, because God is love. This is how God showed his love among us: He sent his one and only Son into the world that we might live through him. This is love: not that we loved God, but that he loved us and sent his Son as an atoning sacrifice for our sins. Dear friends, since God so loved us, we also ought to love one another. No one has ever seen God; but if we love one another, God lives in us and his love is made complete in us.
“This is how we know that we live in him and he in us: He has given us of his Spirit. And we have seen and testify that the Father has sent his Son to be the Savior of the world. If anyone acknowledges that Jesus is the Son of God, God lives in them and they in God. And so we know and rely on the love God has for us.
“God is love. Whoever lives in love lives in God, and God in them. This is how love is made complete among us so that we will have confidence on the day of judgment: In this world we are like Jesus. There is no fear in love. But perfect love drives out fear, because fear has to do with punishment. The one who fears is not made perfect in love.
“We love because he first loved us. Whoever claims to love God yet hates a brother or sister is a liar. For whoever does not love their brother and sister, whom they have seen, cannot love God, whom they have not seen. And he has given us this command: Anyone who loves God must also love their brother and sister.” (1 John 4:7-21 NIV)
“If I speak in the tongues of men or of angels, but do not have love, I am only a resounding gong or a clanging cymbal. If I have the gift of prophecy and can fathom all mysteries and all knowledge, and if I have a faith that can move mountains, but do not have love, I am nothing. If I give all I possess to the poor and give over my body to hardship that I may boast, but do not have love, I gain nothing.
“Love is patient, love is kind. It does not envy, it does not boast, it is not proud. It does not dishonor others, it is not self-seeking, it is not easily angered, it keeps no record of wrongs. Love does not delight in evil but rejoices with the truth. It always protects, always trusts, always hopes, always perseveres.
“Love never fails. But where there are prophecies, they will cease; where there are tongues, they will be stilled; where there is knowledge, it will pass away. For we know in part and we prophesy in part, but when completeness comes, what is in part disappears. When I was a child, I talked like a child, I thought like a child, I reasoned like a child. When I became a man, I put the ways of childhood behind me. For now we see only a reflection as in a mirror; then we shall see face to face. Now I know in part; then I shall know fully, even as I am fully known. And now these three remain: faith, hope and love. But the greatest of these is love.” (1 Corinthians 13:1-13 NIV)