Completed Love

I’m not even going to comment on the fact that its been, well... all year long since we did a post.  I’m just moving on.  Let me catch you up on somethings.  Life has been full, fun, serious, hard, busy, joyful, fast, slow, vibrant, restful, exhausting, sunny, rainy, and full of celebration.  Hopefully that resembles a lot of your lives as well.

I wanted to write about a passage that for years I haven’t dwelled on because its over used, abused, is all over crafty southern Christian home’s walls, and so had seemed to have lost its power to me.  But recently it just came up in my mind and so I went to it.  I love it when the scriptures are fresh and a passage that is so familiar seems new all over again.  For me this time it was 1 Corinthians 13.  The Love chapter.  But its more than just about love.  Its about dealing with life, suffering around you, brokeness of your own and others in your life.  Its about handling hard situations, responding well, and forgiving.  Just look at it:

1 If I speak in the tongues of men and of angels, but have not 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. 

So if I have prophetic gifts, have knowledge, faith in abundance but not love...then I have nothing.  If I can get things done, have opinions or great ideas, can lead, or have other skills...but not love, then I have nothing.  Thats a really strong statement to make.  You don’t have anything if you don’t have love.  It means that above all those things that could be edifying and helpful within the church that to have love is much better.  I can see how my heart would quickly have pride if I had any one of those things in abundance.  But love keeps us meek, humble, and dependent upon Jesus.

But what about my responses to others?  Love confronts our responses and says that if we have love we’ll be patient, kind, humble, meek, pleasant, respectful, and joyful.  We won’t be rejoicing in brokeness around us but only when the truth of Christ goes forth.  Instead of leaving one alone to suffer or to defend yourself love bears all things.  Instead of assuming others are out to hurt you or to assume the worse, love calls us to believe all things.  It hopes and endures.  How can it hope and endure?  It can do both because the Apostle John tells us in 1 John that love comes from God.  The world isn’t able to love fully.  Even we can’t love completely because of our sin....but one day we will.  One day we will be made complete in the love of God.  

So after having meditated on this chapter for the last few days I had to repent about a few things.  Thank God for the power of his Word to have its effect upon our hearts.  My desire is not only to love better but to be consistent in loving better.  I want to look back at my love now and see the graciousness of God as He’s sanctified me.  I want to genuinely love people as well.  That’s what I’ve had to repent of.  I don’t love all that great.  But hopefully the Spirit will give me growth in this area.  How about you?  How are you loving?  Are you believing all things, bearing all things?  Are you patient or irritable, humble or arrogant?  We may have all the theological zeal and passion for God in the world, but without love it means nothing.  I pray that all of us then will abound more and more in love.  Love God Love People.