Love

Posted On September 27, 2020

“And now these three remain: faith, hope and love.
But the greatest of these is love.”

1 Corinthians 13:13 NIV

We have been discussing the virtues listed in 1 Corinthians 13:13. Two weeks ago we examined faith; last week we explored hope. Now it’s time to talk about “the greatest of these” . . . love. I think the following clip from the movie Wonder Woman gives us a good place to start:

Ares: “They do not deserve your protection.”

Diana: “It’s not about deserve. It’s about what you believe,
and I believe in love.”

Wonder Woman (2017 film)

This scene reminds me of what God does for us. We don’t deserve His protection, but He saves us anyway. We don’t deserve His mercy, but He forgives us anyway. We don’t deserve His affection, but He loves us anyway. Rather than abandon us, He sacrificed His Son so that evil would be defeated once and for all. He did this so that we could live with Him as His children forever. Why? Because He loves us. This is where love begins — in God.

“God loved the people of this world so much that he gave his only Son, so that everyone who has faith in him will have eternal life and never really die.”

John 3:16 CEV

In He Chose the Nails, Max Lucado considers what it must have been like for God to become one of us. God is eternal. He exists outside of time. But when He became a man, He was suddenly bound in time and confined in a human body. He felt discomfort and pain, just like we do. And He who was without sin took on the sins of the entire world. As Rev. Lucado explains: “An unnamed soldier took branches — mature enough to bear thorns, nimble enough to bend — and wove them into a crown of mockery, a crown of thorns. Throughout Scripture thorns symbolize, not sin, but the consequence of sin. . . . Shame. Fear. Disgrace. Discouragement. Anxiety. . . . Jesus never knew the fruits of sin . . . until he became sin for us. And when he did, all the emotions of sin tumbled in on him like shadows in a forest. He felt anxious, guilty, and alone.” Christ took on all of our sins and felt the results of all of our transgressions. You can hear the anguish in His voice as He cried out to God, asking why He had been abandoned (Matthew 27:46). He went through all of that pain for us. He did it because He loves us that much.

“Christ came to earth for one reason: to give his life as a ransom for you, for me, for all of us. He sacrificed himself to give us a second chance. . . . He went to the cross, where man’s utter despair collided with God’s unbending grace. And in that moment when God’s great gift was complete, the compassionate Christ showed the world the cost of his gift.”

Max Lucado, Grace for the Moment

“For with you is the fountain of life; in your light we see light.”

Psalm 36:9 NIV

My study Bible includes the following note for the verse above: “By itself, light is invisible; and yet everything is invisible until light strikes it. So it is with God: we can’t see him, but ‘in his light’ (under his loving influence) we see and understand his love in all that surrounds us.” We are told in 1 John 4:8 that God is love. When we let His light shine on us, we will be able to perceive things the way He does: in love. When we see others through God’s eyes, we can’t help but love them! It reminds me of how Rod Tidwell feels in this scene from Jerry Maguire when he exclaims, “I love everybody!”

In Experiencing God, Henry T. Blackaby and Claude V. King tell us that God pursues a loving relationship with us and He wants us to reciprocate: “If . . . you really come to know Him as He reveals Himself to you, you will love Him. If you love Him, You will believe and trust Him. If you believe and trust Him, you will obey Him.” We show our love for God through obedience. God knows and wants what’s best for us. His commands are intended to lead us to our very best life. As Blackaby and King explain, “God’s nature is love. God can never function contrary to His own nature. Never in your life will God ever express His will toward you except that it is not an expression of perfect love. . . . Your trust in the love nature of God is crucial. . . . If you really believe that God is love, you will also accept the fact that His will is always best.” If we love God, we will obey His instructions. And Jesus Himself gave us the two most important commandments:

“Jesus replied: ‘Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind.’ This is the first and greatest commandment. And the second is like it: ‘Love your neighbor as yourself.’ All the Law and the Prophets hang on these two commandments.”

Matthew 22:37-40 NIV

The Holman Illustrated Bible Dictionary includes this defintion of love: “Unselfish, loyal, and benevolent intention and commitment toward another. The concept of the love of God is deeply rooted in the Bible. The Hebrew term chesed refers to covenant love. Jehovah is the God who remembers and keeps His covenants in spite of the treachery of people. His faithfulness in keeping His promises proves His love for Israel and all humanity.” In the Old Testament, God showed His love and faithfulness to His chosen people time and time again, despite their unfaithfulness toward Him. He did so because He chose to, not because they deserved it. In the New Testament Jesus lived as an example of how to love. He loved all people unconditionally, and He commanded that we do the same.

“A new command I give you: Love one another. As I have loved you, so you must love one another.”

John 13:34 NIV

The Student Bible Dictionary defines love as: “Deep, enduring concern for others’ welfare; affection, friendship . . . . An essential characteristic of God that comes only as a gift . . . .” God gives us His love, and He wants us to share this gift with others. In 1 Corinthians 13, also known as the “love chapter,” Paul spells out what love is and explains that without it, nothing else matters. Below, I have included a portion of this chapter in The Message translation:

“The Way of Love”

“If I speak with human eloquence and angelic ecstasy but don’t love, I’m nothing but the creaking of a rusty gate.
If I speak God’s Word with power, revealing all his mysteries and making everything plain as day, and if I have faith that says to a mountain, ‘Jump,’ and it jumps, but I don’t love, I’m nothing.
If I give everything I own to the poor and even go to the stake to be burned as a martyr, but I don’t love, I’ve gotten nowhere. So, no matter what I say, what I believe, and what I do, I’m bankrupt without love.
Love never gives up.
Love cares more for others than for self.
Love doesn’t want what it doesn’t have.
Love doesn’t strut,
Doesn’t have a swelled head,
Doesn’t force itself on others,
Isn’t always ‘me first,’
Doesn’t fly off the handle,
Doesn’t keep score of the sins of others,
Doesn’t revel when others grovel,
Takes pleasure in the flowering of truth,
Puts up with anything,
Trusts God always,
Always looks for the best,
Never looks back,
But keeps going to the end.
Love never dies. . . .”

1 Corinthians 13:1-8 MSG

“The only thing that counts is faith expressing itself through love.”

Galatians 5:6 NIV

God only wants what’s best for me and for all His children. He will never let me down, and He will never stop loving me. Without love, nothing else matters. Because God is love, any true faith must be expressed in love. Why would anyone want to listen to what I have to say if I don’t say it in love? To love God is to also love His children. The Weekly Faith Project reminds us: “God is love . . . and so faith in God must have love. It’s loving God with all your heart and soul and mind and strength (Mark 12:30). And it is accepting that God’s love for you is both endless and unconditional (Romans 8:38-39). Because God’s love for you gives you every reason to have faith, and your faith gives you every reason to show the world how much you love Him.”

Bob Goff, in his book Love Does, explains the importance of expressing faith in loving actions toward others. He describes the difference it made in his own life when a Christian friend did this for him. In high school he met Randy, a guy a few years older than he was, who worked for a Christian organization called Young Life. Randy took an interest in Bob and the two of them became friends. When Bob was a junior in high school, he decided he was ready to drop out of school and move to Yosemite. He describes what happened:

“More out of courtesy than anything, I swung by Randy’s house first thing on a Sunday morning to say good-bye and to let him know I was leaving. I knocked on the door and after a long couple of mintues Randy answered. He was groggy and bedheaded — I had obviously woken him. I gave him the rundown on what I was doing. All the while Randy stood patiently in the doorway trying his best to suppress a puzzled expression. . . . Randy disappeared for a few minutes into the house while I stood awkwardly on his porch with my hands in my pockets. When he came back to the door, he had a tattered backpack hanging over his shoulder by one frayed strap and a sleeping bag under his other arm. He was focused and direct. All he said was this: ‘Bob, I’m with you.’ . . . I’m not sure why I accepted Randy’s generous self-invitation. I guess it’s because it caught me totally off-guard. No one had ever expressed an interest in me like that before.”

When they arrived in Yosemite, Randy stayed by Bob’s side, reassuring him that he would be with him no matter what. Bob soon discovered that there were no jobs to be found and he was quickly running out of money. After a couple of days he decided that going back home to finish school would be his best option.

“After a short pause, Randy said again what had become a comfort to me throughout the trip: ‘Man, whatever you decide, just know that either way I’m with you, Bob.’ Randy had been with me, and I could tell that he was ‘with me’ in spirit as much as with his presence. He was committed to me and he believed in me. I wasn’t a project; I was his friend. I wondered if maybe all Christians operated this way. I didn’t think so, because most of them I had met up until that time were kind of wimpy and seemed to have more opinions about what or who they were against than who they were for.”

They headed back home. When they arrived at Randy’s house, Bob followed him in and noticed some recently opened gifts lying around: plates, glasses, a coffeemaker, and a microwave. Then Randy’s new wife appeared and welcomed home her husband. Bob realized in an instant that Randy and his girlfriend had just gotten married.

“When I had knocked on Randy’s door on that Sunday morning, Randy didn’t just see a high school kid who had disrupted the beginning of his marriage. He saw a kid who about to jump the tracks. Instead of spending the early days of his marriage with his bride, he spent it with me, sneaking into the back of a tent. Why? It was because Randy loved me. He saw the need and he did something about it. He didn’t just say he was for me or with me. He was actually present with me. What I learned from Randy changed my view permanently about what it meant to have a friendship with Jesus. I learned that faith isn’t about knowing all the right stuff or obeying a list of rules. It’s something more, something more costly because it involves being present and making a sacrifice. Perhaps that’s why Jesus is sometimes called Immanuel — ‘God with us.’ I think that’s what God had in mind, for Jesus to be present, to just be with us. It’s also what He has in mind for us when it comes to other people. . . . What I learned from Randy about the brand of love Jesus offers is that it’s more about presence than undertaking a project. It’s a brand of love that doesn’t just think about good things, or agree with them, or talk about them. What I learned from Randy reinforced the simple truth that continues to weave itself into the tapestry of every great story: Love does.”

Bob Goff, Love Does

Love isn’t just a feeling. It’s an action. And it’s a choice we make every day. God chooses to love us, not because we deserve it, but because He wants to. It’s who He is. And He wants us to be just like Him. He wants us to choose to love others, not because they deserve it, but because we want to. When we do, we let God’s light shine through us. And that makes the world a beautiful place!

“Dear friends, let us love one another, for love comes from God.”

1 John 4:7 NIV

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As we reach the end of our three-week exploration of the virtues in 1 Corinthians 13:13, let’s review what we’ve discovered. Faith in God means we trust Him and we obey Him. Christian hope is confidence in God’s promises. And love is unselfish commitment to God and to all of His children, even those — especially those — that are hard to love.

Bob Goff wrote a second book called Everybody Always. As he explains, it is actually his third book because the first draft of it, which had been saved on his laptop computer, was stolen:

“A number of years ago, a friend of mine quit the megachurch he pastored in Southern California and moved to the inner city of San Francisco. . . . He and a few friends started a restaurant staffed by guys who needed a fresh start and also a home for women who have confronted some of life’s biggest challenges with courage and hope. These amazing people spend their free time loving people in the housing projects near the restaurant. They give away love like they’re made of it. Like my friend, they do this becaue they have developed completely unrealistic ideas about what their faith can do in the world when it’s expressed in love. . . . You see, they wanted to follow Jesus’ example; instead of telling people what Jesus meant, they just loved people the way He did. . . . On one of the trips to see my friend in San Francisco, brought a couple of people who work with me. We flew in, rented a van, and headed over to the restaurant to see how we could help. We had been inside washing dishes for about thirty minutes when I went outside to get something out of the van. I was drop-jawed at what I found. All the windows were shattered, pieces of glass scattered on the seats and floorboards. Theives in the neighborhood had broken in. All our luggage was gone. Oh, and our wallets, cell phones, and laptop computers too. I had just finished writing the first draft of this book, and it was on my stolen computer. . . . I had to write the book all over again. . . . It’s hard to believe Jesus loves the van thieves and all the difficult people we’ve met just the same as you and me. Yet, the incredible message Love came to earth to give was that we’re all tied for first in God’s mind. While we’re still trying to get our arms around this idea, God doesn’t want us to just study Him like He’s an academic project. He wants us to become love. . . . I hope this second version of the book moves the needle in a way that reaffirms the power of extravagant love and excessive grace in your life and in the world. . . . Every time I wonder who I should love and for how long I should love them, God continues to whisper to me: Everybody, always.”

Bob Goff, Everybody Always

Faith, hope, love. These three can get us through a lot. But without love, the first two don’t mean much.

“We don’t yet see things clearly. We’re squinting in a fog, peering through a mist. But it won’t be long before the weather clears and the sun shines bright! We’ll see it all then, see it all as clearly as God sees us, knowing him directly just as he knows us! But for right now, until that completeness, we have three things to do to lead us toward that consummation: Trust steadily in God, hope unswervingly, love extravagantly. And the best of the three is love.”

1 Corinthians 13:12-13 MSG

This week’s Scripture passages focus on love. There is a printer-friendly pdf version below the image. I have also posted a video of the song “Love One Another” by Newsboys. Their upbeat song reminds us of Christ’s command to love others, and the video is a lot of fun to watch. Enjoy!

“By this everyone will know that you are my disciples,
if you love one another.”

John 13:35 NIV

References:

• Blackaby, Henry T., and Claude V. King. Experiencing God: Knowing and Doing the Will of God. Lifeway Press, 1990.
• Brand, Chad, et. al., editors. Holman Illustrated Bible Dictionary. Holman Reference, 2003.
• Dockrey, Karen, et al. The Student Bible Dictionary. Barbour, 2000.
• Goff, Bob. Everybody Always: Becoming Love in a World Full of Setbacks and Difficult People. Nelson Books, 2018.
• Goff, Bob. Love Does: Discover a Secretly Incredible Life in an Ordinary World. Nelson Books, 2012.
• Jerry Maguire. Dir. Cameron Crowe. Sony Pictures, 1996.
• Lucado, Max. Grace for the Moment: Inspirational Thoughts for Each Day of the Year. J. Countryman, 2000.
• Lucado, Max. He Chose the Nails: What God Did to Win Your Heart. Thomas Nelson, 2000.
• “Newsboys – Love One Another (Official Music Video).” YouTube, uploaded by newsboystv, 20 March 20, www.youtube.com/watch?v=VAFMGRMhFsM.
• “Rod Tidwell: I Love Everybody.” YouTube, uploaded by Vance Jones, 1 October 2017, www.youtube.com/watch?v=LzT2avxRBtc.
• The Weekly Faith Project: A Challenge to Journal, Reflect, and Cultivate a Genuine Faith. Zondervan, 2019.
• Wonder Woman. Dir. Patty Jenkins. Warner Bros. Pictures, 2017.
• “Wonder Woman (2017) – I Believe in Love Scene (10/10) | Movieclips.” YouTube, uploaded by Movieclips, 4 May 2018, www.youtube.com/watch?v=0v74ANWBqv0.

Images:

• Rope Heart featured image by congerdesign from Pixabay
• Hearts image by Ben Kerckx from Pixabay
• Bible image by James Chan from Pixabay
• Anchor Silhouette image by Clker-Free-Vector-Images from Pixabay
• Cross Silhouette image by OpenClipart-Vectors from Pixabay
• Heart Silhouette image by kmicican from Pixabay
• Heart Hands image by Photo Mix from Pixabay
• Heart Line Art image by Please Don’t sell My Artwork AS IS from Pixabay