Love

Read I Corinthians 13

I will spend today and tomorrow closing out my thoughts on this passage of scripture. I hope you are enjoying this because even as I write this, personally I am seeing God through a whole new light.
Yesterday we showed how Paul used things that love didn’t do so that we could see the opposite of what love does. In this passage he once again reverts to telling us what love does. Love rejoices in the truth. This is interesting because the word “rejoice” is a compound word – part of it is the same word used in “delight in evil.” When put together with the other word it means “to sympathize with gladness.” When you delight in evil you are holding yourself apart from the other person – glad they are suffering and you aren’t. Rejoicing in the truth means you are drawing close to someone as they come to know the truth of God and about sin, come to know the love of God, or have something good happen to them. Love always protects, always trusts, always hopes, and always perseveres. This is really neat – these four words form a related pattern. “Protects” means to “roof over,” “trusts” means to “put your faith in” something, “hopes” means “to confide in” and “perseveres” means “to stay under.” These are all things God does for us – and things we should do for others – throwing a protective blanket, physically, emotionally – over someone else; being willing to put our faith in someone else – be real, confide in them – know that God will work good in their lives – then stick it out with them to see the love of God change their lives.
You see all this business of love isn’t some magical, rose-colored-glasses kind of “feeling.” It’s actually very specific: love and trust God no matter what, seek the best for and the best in those around you – then help benefit their lives as they draw closer to God. That’s love! So this begs the question – why does Paul put this in here – smack dab in the middle of a section on spiritual gifts? (Remember a couple of days ago I mentioned the placement of this chapter between chapters 12 and 13) It has application far beyond a discussion of spiritual gifts but it speaks directly to an attitude that believers can have, especially when they start talking about how God has gifted them – that they speak God’s words and bring about miracles.
If you reached out your hand and someone was healed it might happen to you too – you start to feel pretty special about yourself. Instantly the focus moves off of the real purpose of the gifts – to see others benefited and drawn close to God, even if it means you get hurt or get less in the process. We as humans are basically selfish. Paul is telling us that God is basically unselfish and will bring about good in others lives even if it hurts Him in the process – and we should be like Him! So to further illustrate this – Paul says “look – all this neat stuff you are experiencing is going to go away, but the need to love unselfishly will never go away.
Paul is saying that love is the supreme thing. (Reread verses 8-12) We seek to know the deep mysteries of God and think by our knowledge we are better. We seek to do mighty miracles, thinking that we must be more favored. But in reality – when you are really being a mature Christian, what you find is that love is the ultimate expression of who God is – selfless, other-focused, always giving, and love. Paul says – when you start to see who God really is, what maturity really is about, you see that it isn’t about you after all – it’s about what God does through for others. “13 And now these three remain: faith, hope and love. But the greatest of these is love.”
These three ideas were favorites of Paul – the “essentials” to life. Faith in Jesus as God and Savior, hope of the good things He is doing in our lives and is going to do – but love is the greatest – it is the driving force for everything. Remember? God so “loved” the world that …

“Who, being loved, is poor?”
- Oscar Wilde