"If I could speak all the languages of earth and of angels, but didn’t love others, I would only be a noisy gong or a clanging cymbal. 2 If I had the gift of prophecy, and if I understood all of God’s secret plans and possessed all knowledge, and if I had such faith that I could move mountains, but didn’t love others, I would be nothing. 3 If I gave everything I have to the poor and even sacrificed my body, I could boast about it;but if I didn’t love others, I would have gained nothing.
4 Love is patient and kind. Love is not jealous or boastful or proud 5 or rude. It does not demand its own way. It is not irritable, and it keeps no record of being wronged. 6 It does not rejoice about injustice but rejoices whenever the truth wins out. 7 Love never gives up, never loses faith, is always hopeful, and endures through every circumstance."
I'm reading a book by Caroline Barnett right now, "Willing to Walk on Water," and in the book she challenges readers to read that passage and apply it to themselves in a few different ways. First off, to apply it to the way we love our kids. Second, to the way we love our spouse and thirdly, to the way that Jesus loves us.
It's interesting to ponder that passage in those ways. Regarding my family, am I always patient and kind? Am I irritable? Um. Yes, too often. Do I lose faith sometimes, do I give up, do I endure in every circumstance? Now, of course nobody is perfect on this planet when it comes to applying love in the correct manner with those we hold dear, but it sure is challenging to apply this verse that way.
Now how about God? Is He always patient and kind with me? Yes. Is He irritable? No. Although He probably gets very close to irritation with me sometimes! Does He ever give up on me? Nope. Does He endure with me through every circumstance? Yep. When you apply the verse in that context, boy, it's overwhelming really. He endures with me. No matter how annoying I am. No matter how many wrong choices I make. No matter how many times I don't look at people with this kind of love. No matter, no matter, no matter, He endures.
You would think it would be simple to simply love, wouldn't you? And often times, I just assume I've got this love thing down. I love people. I love my family, I love my friends, I love our church, I love our city. I'd consider myself generally a loving person. But as I read the first portion of this text, I see that nothing I do would matter, if not done with love. If I had un-limited access to knowledge, it would not matter if I didn't love. If I could know God's secret plans, it would not matter if I didn't love. Man! And this one hits me, "if I had such faith that I could move mountains, but didn't love others, I would be nothing."
We strive so much in our Christian walk to live by faith. We value our faith. If we don't have faith in this life, we will go from struggle to struggle. We need faith. Oh we desperately need faith. Faith carries us through every adversity. Faith drives us through our disappointment. Faith gives us a backbone in an otherwise spineless world. And yet, even if I am the most faith filled person, if I don't have something as seemingly simple as love, I'm nothing.
In fact, chapter 13 ends with this: "Three things will last forever—faith, hope, and love—and the greatest of these is love."
Greater than faith, love? Greater than hope, love? Wow. I need faith. Oh man do I need hope. But more than that, I need love. We need it. We need love and we need to BE loved. It's the essence of all we believe. Love.
Love seems simple, right? I can love a person through some crazy stuff, and I'm sure you could too. But love is so much more than that, it's a power that can't be taken for granted. Love holds more power than faith. Love holds more power than hope.
Love sent Jesus to the Cross. It has to be a powerful force. If it was faith that sent Jesus there, He could have easily detached His emotions from the situation. If it was Hope, as great as hope is, He could have still blocked out what was happening to Him on Golgotha. But it was not faith, and it was not hope - it was love.
As He hung on that wooden cross, overcome with physical pain, overwhelmed by the sin and the sickness of you and of me, there had to be something that kept Him going, something that He could feel. We don't feel faith. We don't even necessarily feel hope. But we do feel love. Oh how we feel love.
Those wonderful feelings of love that overtake you as you stand before your mate on your wedding day! Oh goodness, there is so much love in that moment you feel like you might burst! There is nothing like it. Or the time you look into your child's eyes and are overwhelmed with the gift God has given you. It's a special kind of love. Or a love you feel for a friend that goes deep in your soul as God has knit you together as He does family. Love is a precious, precious thing. It's an overwhelming feeling.
You feel it. Sometimes we love so hard that it hurts, I'm sure you've heard that saying. There are times you have to love a person through something so difficult that you literally feel pain over the situation. An offense that was done to you, or an action taken by a loved one that ultimately caused you pain. Or the loss of someone you so greatly loved, oh the pain of love that goes to the core of your being...
Love is a feeling.
And so now I understand the last verse of chapter 13. I understand why the greatest of Faith, Hope and Love is indeed, love. I get it. I totally get it. Because if Jesus could not feel His love for me, He would not have stayed on the cross. But He felt it. He felt His love for me that day. Too the very core of His being, He felt it. He saw down the road and loved me as a little girl with hair so light it looked white. He saw my hazel eyes wrought with tears over the destruction that took place in my home. He saw my tiny heart covered in shame as a 5 year old little girl. He felt it. He felt my pain. He felt my shame. And He felt the love. He loved me as He watched me grow, and make mistakes, and walk through difficulty...and then I can only imagine the joy He felt the day I prayed to Him as a 14 year old teenager and asked Him to fill me with the love that He has carried for me since that day on the Cross! Oh the LOVE!!
So my challenge to myself today is this, love. Simply that, love. And even when it's not so simple, love. It really is the greatest thing.
