The Greatest of These Is Love

When God says, “The greatest of these is love.”  He’s boiling life down to three things.  Once everything has been destroyed, the Last Day is over and past, eternity is rolling, what will be left.  The answer is faith, hope, and love.  Faith will still be there.  It will be easy because we’ll be in the presence of God.  Hope will be reality.  We can hope that the next day in eternity will be better than the last – and it will!  Finally there is love.  Why is love better than being in God’s presence and the constant expectation that never lets us down?  God describes himself as love personified.  In fact God tells us that the world will know that we are Christians when we reflect that love to the people around us.

Paul’s first letter to the church in Corinth is a perfect study of love.  Many couples have asked me to offer a sermon for their wedding using the words from the 13th chapter.  There is great reason to go there!  The applications of this chapter are a little different for members of a church of any age and a set of newlyweds.

Let’s take the example of Mother’s Day.  This year it was last Sunday.  Unfortunately, for our illustrative purposes, you forgot to call you mom, write her a card, or send flowers.  You didn’t do anything, and what is worse, you just realized it TODAY!  You feel awful.  So what do you do?  You send her TWO dozen roses, a giant life size card, and you send a singing telegram.  How else could you make up for your error?  That would be a great show of love, right?  WRONG.  A God like love would be your mom talking to you the next time you remember to call her, offering you her forgiveness.  We can’t make up for missed Hallmark Holidays – not theologically speaking.  When a sin happens there is only one solution, go to the cross.

Want you hear more?  Watch this Sunday’s message taken from 1 Corinthians 13.

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