1 Corinthians 13 English Standard Version
The Way of Love
13 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,[a] 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;[b] 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.
The Word of God for the Children of God.
Glory be to the Father,
and to the Son, and to the Holy Ghost;
as it was in the beginning,
is now, and ever shall be,
world without end. Amen, amen.
The covenant commitment to love, honor, and cherish are words very familiar and deeply meaningful to most of us.
Too often they are simply words of a ceremony.
The meaning, weight, and importance of those words are often overlooked.
They are actual promises/vows that spouses make to each other, for a lifetime.
We say them in front of our family, friends, the preacher, each other, and God.
Yet…do we really “get” the meaning of those words and apply them to our daily lives…living them each out in the great expanse of time which is our marriage?
1 Corinthians 13:13 says, “So now faith, hope, and love abide, these three; but the greatest of these is love.”
By God’s spoken Word, the greatest of all aspects of the Christian life is love.
Love is to be at the foundation of all we do, all we are, and all we hold on to.
If we focus on love and allow the Holy Spirit to strip everything else away, what will be left is a life of blessed simplicity rooted in face-to-face, life to life, heart to heart relationship with our heavenly Father.
As we spend time looking at the simplicity of love, I pray that all the weighty, frivolous things of the world that rob you of an abundant life fall away in light of the glorious goodness of God’s unconditional, wholly available love for you.
All God Asks of Us is to Love, Honor and Cherish
As Husband’s and Wives, we look at each other – eye to eye, face to face, life to life – we must come together in the sight of God and a whole host of witnesses to acknowledge and confess before everyone, that one of the most life-giving, transformational truths of the gospel is that of everything we have to offer God, of everything in this life we have to give to each other, He most desires our love.
To love God is all-encompassing.
Colossians 3:14 says, “And above all these put on love, which binds everything together in perfect harmony.”
To love God and each other is to pursue a life of wholehearted devotion to a King who is wholeheartedly devoted to us – to love God is to place ourselves in this never-ending, totally blessed cycle of giving and receiving limitless love.
The simple truth of the Gospel message is that God simply wants our love, by our love, God frees us from frivolous pursuits.
God’s love frees us all from systems and practices that are rooted in “would” “should” and “could” and might have” and “what if’s” rather than true desire.
God will take us however God can get us.
He’ll take every single one of us if all we have to give is a simple child-like belief that as husbands and wives we should both equally serve Him or be with Him.
But God never desires to keep us in that place.
He longs to love each of us to such an unbelievably miraculous level that we, as husbands and wives would live and serve Him equally out of a place of full 100% devotion as our hearts natural response to His overwhelming affections for us.
1 John 4:16 says, “So we have come to know and to believe the love that God has for us. God is love, and whoever abides in love abides in God, and God abides in him.”
Allow 1 John 4:16 to create an image in your mind for a second.
Picture what it would be like to truly abide in God and have him abide in you.
Picture what it would be like to truly abide in God, have our spouses abide too.
Take both pictures, bring them together as one – in God, the Father Almighty.
Ask the Holy Spirit to give you a vision of what that would be like.
What would everyday life look like for you and your spouse if you were to both, individually and together, truly abide in our God and have Him abiding in you?
So great is God’s love for us, as husbands and wives, that He makes himself available for both of us, individually and together, to genuinely abide in Him.
So great are his affections for us that we could have Him abiding in us.
If we will pursue love for God above all else, we will discover a wellspring of child simplicity and life rooted in wholehearted devotion to the God of love.
Cast off all other pursuits today in light of God’s call to love.
Cast off the striving, tireless work of doing life rooted in the “what if” “could” “should” “would” and let God love us to a place of true love-based obedience.
Find rest today in the truth that God is simply after your heart.
Open up to him and receive his vast affections.
1 Corinthians 16:14 says, “Let all that you do be done in love.”
May you and your spouse abide in the heart of your heavenly Father and allow him to come in and meet with you that all you do today might be done in love.
In the name of God, the Father and God the Son and God the Holy Spirit,
Guided Prayer:
1. Meditate on the call of God to love. Allow Scripture to fill you with a wholehearted desire to love God in all you do.
“You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your strength and with all your mind, and your neighbor as yourself.” Luke 10:27
“So we have come to know and to believe the love that God has for us. God is love, and whoever abides in love abides in God, and God abides in him.” 1 John 4:16
2. Ask the Holy Spirit to fill you with a fresh revelation of God’s love for you. Receive the love of God and allow it to cast out all fear and reservation.
“There is no fear in love, but perfect love casts out fear. For fear has to do with punishment, and whoever fears has not been perfected in love.” 1 John 4:18
3. Respond to the affections of God with your own. Tell God how you feel in his presence. Thank him for all that he’s done for you. Enter into the cycle of giving and receiving affection.
“We love because he first loved us.” 1 John 4:19
This life cycle of husband and wife giving, receiving affection, is really just a picture of what it is to worship God the Father God the Son God the Holy Spirit.
As we allow God to love us, our natural response will be to love him in return because we are created for worship.
As we receive his love we will naturally love him and others.
For a long time I pictured worship as this time where I had to somehow drum up affection for God that I honestly didn’t always feel.
God never asks us to fake our worship.
God never asks us to fake our marriages.
He never wants worship that isn’t truly from our hearts.
He knows we need his love to love him in return.
If you and your spouse find yourself emptied of affection for him and others today, take time to just let him love you so you can live wholeheartedly today.
Glory be to the Father,
and to the Son, and to the Holy Ghost;
as it was in the beginning,
is now, and ever shall be,
world without end. Amen, amen.
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Loving God, Living God, Loving Hope, Living Hope, Loving Living Life His Way! "Many things are possible for the person who has hope. Even more is possible for the person who has faith. And still more is possible for the person who knows how to love. But everything is possible for the person who practices all three virtues." - Brother Lawrence (1605-1691), Practicing the Presence of God (1692). 