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The development of the soul and spirit is essential for a full life.
No 4 Love is the Greatest of All 1 Corinthians 13:9-13
The love that demonstrates God’s love to
seed His Son into the world to die for lost human
beings dominates the New Testament.
It is the great attribute and distinguishing
mark of the Christian. Love is shed abroad in our
hearts by the Holy Spirit.
This kind of love is not something we learn
form people but form God.
The Christian love mentioned is sacrificial
and unconditional like Christ’s. It enables us to
even love our enemies. It
is the life of the Body of Christ, the church.
It is the greatest love anyone can have. One
needs to know and experience God’s loves in order
to demonstrtrate it to others. God
the Father loved so much that he gave His Son to die
for our sin, The Son’s love was so unique and He
gave willingly gave Himself for us and the Holy
Spirit pours out the love of God the Holy Trinity
into our hearts.
Because love is the heart of Jesus, and the
supreme function of the Holy Spirit is to make us
love like Him.
Love may become one of the most confusing
and ambiguous words in the English language. To Fall
in Love is to feel an exhilarating closeness and
intimacy with another human being.
This emotional high however, cannot last
forever. For deep love to persist and grow there
must be a giving, other-centred relationship as
described in 1 Corinthians 13. Deep and secure love
comes after a person gets married. To feel you are
in love is not in itself a solid basis for marriage.
Biblical marriage is not based upon feeling or other
reasons such as sexual need, loneliness,
companionship, financial security, support, the
desire to escape an unhappy home or pity etc. These
are immature and self centred and not real love. To
be in love is to experience a state of emotional
exhilaration; to grow in love is to involve oneself
deliberately in acts of giving and caring.
Your love comes through when you hurt, when you listen and when you hear
what we don’t say. Love comes through when you
laugh under pressure, even when it doesn’t seem
fitting. You have humour and insight in people,
situations and things. Love is giving someone a hug
although they don’t deserve it. Love bears the
scars of life and carries on. Love acts unselfishly
and is like a sixth sense that knows that the other
person needs you to embrace them.
No matter what age a person is they need love and affection. It
doesn’t stop when children grow up. Love when
someone is in deep need or help; love doesn’t
hesitate, does not make an inquisition, does not put
on probation and it demonstrates affection. Don’t
hold back on your affection. Demonstrate your
acceptance of your children and spouse. They long
for affirmation and appreciation.
Love affirms our children and it can do
that in two ways, verbal and non verbal. A touch or
a kiss or even drawing close can mean so much to a
person. Love accepts you even when you fall.
Love is therapeutic it cannot be
manufactured by Psychiatrists or Psychologists. They
cannot create it of release it. Love reaches out to
those who are confused and are hurting or are
bereaved. The Christian approach to life is based
upon love and helps were counsellors fail. God helps
the Christian love needy people. Such love can bring
change. Showing love with patience and understanding
can reduce fear and anxiety; it can help anxious
persons find relief. “Perfect love drives out
perfect fear” (1 Jan.
Love has to do with seeking the highest
good for the other person. It is a selfless love.
Love when it hurts. Love when you are weary. Love
when it means discipline. Love when it means staying
the task. Washing… cooking the meals… driving
those miles… planning the future… dreaming those
big dreams. Love when it means caring for the
children’s needs. Love in the midst of the daily
frustrations. Love when the pressure is on.
This chapter is sandwiched between a
discussion on the spiritual gifts and service to God
in love. If love is your aim, you will not use your
gifts for purely personal gratification; you will
not flaunt you r gifts at inappropriate times; you
will not misuse your gift. Love is the essential
ingredient in the use of those gifts discussed in
chapter 12. The character puts away childish habits.
What about you? Do you still behave like a child?
Have you matured and developed. Tongues are ecstatic
utterance and some people believe you have become
mature when you speak in them.
THE
VICTORY OF LOVE vs. 9-13
Vs 9-10: “For we in part, and we prophecy in part. But when that which
is perfect is come then that which is in part will
be done away.” They will not cease to be
perfected.
Vs 11-12: “When I was a child, I spoke like a child.” Childish talk,
foolish talk, happy chatter or immature talk is not
for the mature. Grown men do not talk that way, they
put away childish ways of speaking. He develops,
grows and appreciates. He puts away childish habits.
What about you, do you still behave like a child?
Have you matured and developed. Tongues are ecstatic
utterances and some people believe you become mature
when you speak in them, but here they are a glaring
evidence of immaturity. Languages or ecstatic
utterances are not sign of a close, mature walk with
God. Tongues shall cease but knowledge and prophecy
will perfected.
Knowledge changes for we keep on updating our textbooks and
encyclopaedias. Modern man is marked with
imperfection. Love will remain forever.
“I understood as a child.” A child’s mind is limited and centres
around playthings, toys and not deep things.
“But when I became a man.” This means a mature person.
“I put away childish things.” I stopped playing with toys and
thinking immaturely.
“For now we see through a glass darkly.” When a mirror is dark you
cannot see things as they really are. You cannot see
the real person you look at for they live inside
their body. You know people in part.
“But then face to face.” You will be known; you will your loved
ones.
Vs 13: “And now abides faith, hope and love, these three, but the
greatest of these is love.” There are three major
words and doctrines for the Christian to understand.
The object of faith will be fulfilled. There will be
no need for faith.
All our hope will be realised. There will be no need for faith. But love
will remain forever. Christ loved mankind even unto
death; His church is His most wonderful bride and
possession. His is an eternal love, a sacrificial
love, a patient love, a kind love and humble love.
THE
PREMANENCE OF LOVE
This is the love of heaven. It all our earthly gifts, when all prophecy
has found fulfilment, when all tongues sing the song
of the redeemed, when faith is swallowed up in
sight, and hope is fulfilled in possession by the
Beloved - then love remains. Then the saints will be
untied in heaven to love without contention. We
shall be judged at the end on our spiritual
condition and service. We will be rewarded on the
basis of our love and likeness to Christ. Our church
must show this love to the needy world today and
minister to it. We are not to be preoccupied with
petty concerns or internal organisations or
differences that are not fundamental. We are not to
waste time, talents or anything God gives us but use
them in Christ’s service. Only what is done is the
Spirit and in love will stand inspection when we
appear before Christ. When we are always
complaining, gossiping, backbiting, judging,
striving for position, or lazy and hypocritical…
How much do we care about the souls of the drug
addict, the prostitute, the youth of our land or
children? How much do we care about missions and the
billions without Christ? How much do we care about
out neighbour? How much do we really love our
brother that is the barometer to our love? Make love
your aim… the greatest of these is love.
THE
SOURCE OF LOVE 1 Jn. 4:7-21
Vs
7: “Beloved let us love one another, for love is
of God.” Love is from God who is the source of
love. The mark of the Christian’s character is a
love for other believers.
Vs
8: “He who does not love does not know God, for
God is love.” When we become Christians we receive
God’s nature (1 Pet. 2:4). Since His nature is
love we must reflect love. The one who does not love
does not know God.
Vs
9-11: “In this the love of God was manifested
towards us, that God sent His Son into the world,
that we might have life through Him.” This is a
great reason for us to love those in the world also.
Vs10:
“This is love, not that we loved God, but that He
first loved us and sent His Son to be a propitiation
for our sins.” The word means “mercy seat”;
Christ became our mercy seat, like the one in the
Holy of Holies, where he High Priest splattered the
blood of the sacrifice on the Day of Atonement (Lev.
16:15). It is because of Him we receive mercy.
Vs 11: “Beloved, if God so loved us, we also ought to have love one for another.” Because God manifested His love through His Son we have an obligation to habitually and sacrificially love one another.
GOD’S
LOVE MADE VISIBLE
Vs
12: “No one has seen the Father at any time. If we
love one another God abides in us and His love will
be perfected in us.” God is invisible, Jesus is no
longer with us and so the only way man can see
God’s love demonstrated is through the church. No
one has viewed or looked upon God, no one has that
capacity. Our self-sacrificing love for one another
demonstrates to the world the love of God.
Vs
13: “By this we know that we abide in Him, and He
in us, because He has given us of His Spirit.” The
indwelling evidence of God’s Spirit in us confirms
that we are in God. “He in us” speaks of His
presence and the communion we have with Him.
Vs
14: “And we have seen and testify that the Father
has sent the Son as Saviour of the world.” John
had seen Jesus who is God manifested in flesh. He
worshiped Him as Saviour, which was a capital
offence against the Emperor of Rome.
Vs
15: “Whosoever confesses that Jesus is the Son of
God, God abides in him and he in God.” The one who
agrees that Jesus Christ is God come in the flesh is
a confession of His deity.
Vs
16: “And we have known and believed that the love that God is for
us, God is love and he who abides in love abides in
God.” We have known, we have believed are two
personal statements.
THE
FULLNESS OF LOVE
Vs
17: “Love… perfected among us.” Love has been
made complete and exists in its finished results.
This is not sinless perfection but rather a mature
love. This is a past fact and a present reality.
This fullness of love results in a life entirely
devoted to the Lord Jesus. It is a love that is
confident and unashamed of meeting Him at some time
in the future. “As He is so we are.” We have all
the benefits as sons since we have been adopted into
His family.
LOVE
CASTS OUT ALL FEAR
Vs
18: “There is no fear in love; but perfect love
casts out all fear, because fear involves torment.
But he who fears has not been made perfect in
love.” This does not mean we are not in awe of God
or fear Him but that we do not fear torment or
punishment. The saint who has experienced the
fullness of God’s love will not fear.
LIARS
OR LOVERS?
Vs
19: “We love Him because He first loved us.”
When we were unattractive and unlovely, He loved us.
That makes Him worth loving and serving.
Vs
20: It is impossible to go on constantly loving God
and hating your brother. If we do not love the
fellow Christians that we see then we are liars and
hypocrites.
Vs 21: This verse summarizes chapter 4. One cannot love God without loving his fellow Believer. To claim to do so is a delusion. It is a command you do not have to feel like it but do it
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Robert Hunsdale (Pastor/Founder) |
