The Greatest Gift

1 Corinthians 12-14 is well known to most Christians as the place in Scripture where Paul writes extensively about the gift of the Holy Spirit. This is also a place of great disagreement between believers. No matter what you think about prophecy, tongues, or the office of apostles today there is one thing we should all be able to agree on: the greatest of God's gifts is love. Paul tells us what love is in the passage and gives us specific examples of what love IS. If you look at the way love is described here love is always described as an action. It is not something passive or something done in the past. Love is a present action--not a past experience--and we must chose to love every moment.

We can never match up to what Paul has laid out to us in 1 Cor. 13. If we put our name in the place of love in the passage we see how much we fail to love biblically. When we examine ourselves we will see that we fail in all these areas. We only succeed because God gives us the ability to succeed. 1 Cor. 12:4-6 tells us that it is God who works to bring about our love for others. As I wrote in the last post, it is the Holy Spirit who brings about this love.

Lastly we need to see love as a necessity, above all other gifts, for all believers believe through the Holy Spirit. It is a prerequisite to all other gifts and ministries, and without it everything we do is empty. We must do all things out of an attitude of love for others and a desire to glorify God by displaying His love for them through us. When we do this we are also fulfilling the two greatest commandments of love for God and for neighbor.