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.

Love God with ALL Your Heart

I am looking for a Bible study to go through and read about a study on Tim Challies' blog by Paul Washer--one of my favorite preachers. It is entitled One True God and it gives a broad overview of the doctrine of God. During my study I read Deut. 6:4-5, which I have read many times in the past, but saw some things that I had not thought about before.

We are to love God with all our heart, all our soul, and with all our might. Most Christians can quote this verse, but we glaze over it without much reflection. Jesus quotes this verse in three of the gospels. He tells us that this is the greatest commandment in Mark 12:29,30. If Jesus tells us this we need to take notice and reflect on what that means for the way we live our lives. If we love God with ALL our heart, how much does that leave for others? If we love with ALL our might, what does our life look like?

My answer to the first is that it leaves nothing. If we follow what scripture says then we have nothing left to love others with because we have given all to God. How then does that line up with our command to love our neighbors in Mark 12:31? I would argue that we can love others because Christ loves and lives in us and therefore it is HIS love overflowing out of us. In other words, if we give him 100% of our love, He gives us an abundance to give to others. We love others because He first loved us.

My answer to the second question is that our lives would be radically different if we really followed this command with all our will. We would follow His commands and walk as Jesus walked. We would love and care for the poor, orphans, widows, and all our neighbors who are in need. James points to this as evidence of our salvation.

I believe that this commandment is the summation of all the other commands combined. This is an impossible task without the gracious work of Christ in our lives. I think 1 John 4:19 explains how this works. We love because He first loved us. I pray that we all experience this love fully because without it we can not hope to love anything in this world.