1 Corinthians 13  1-8 “Though I speak with the tongues of men and of angels, but have not love, I have become sounding brass or a clanging cymbal. And though I have the gift of prophecy, and understand all mysteries and all knowledge, and though I have all faith, so that I could remove mountains, but have not love, I am nothing. And though I bestow all my goods to feed the poor, and though I give my body to be burned, but have not love, it profits me nothing.

Love suffers long;  love does not envy; love does not parade itself, is not puffed up;does not behave rudely, does not seek its own, is not provoked, thinks no evil; does not rejoice in iniquity, but rejoices in the truth; bears all things, believes all things, hopes all things, endures all things. Love never fails.”

Love is the greatest of Christian virtues (1 Cor 13:13). Without it faith and hope do not matter. But what is the love that the bible speaks of? It is very different from what the world thinks of as love. It is closely tied to our faith and our hope and involves many of the characteristics the scriptures teach that the followers of Christ are to have.

The love we are to have for one another as Christians is like the love that God has for us in some ways, but our love cannot compare with the vastness of the love He has for us.Love is something that is felt from the heart but more than just feeling it is a spiritual expression of our inner being if indeed Christ dwells in us.

We are to love one another even as Christ loved us and gave His life for us (1 John 4:7-11). We can only know love through God, so let’s not harbor the world’s definition of love as being something physical or carnal, but adopt the love that is through God and is spiritual in nature. Love should be so penetrating in our hearts that we are nothing without it. We all need Gods’s love and to love others as He teaches us to love one another.

Can we develop the characteristics of love that 1 Corinthians 13 and 1 John 4 teach that we should have. With hard work and prayer we can do it. Our goal is to become as much like Christ as we can and a study of the gospels shows us that He had all of the characteristics of love that are described in these two passages.

There is more to godly love than can be discussed in this short post. Read and study all of John’s epistles as He deals a lot with the subject and referred to himself as the disciple whom Jesus loved in the gospel account he wrote. He is a much-loved apostle and we should all learn to be like him and Paul as the latter taught us to love in 1 Corinthians 13 and elsewhere.

Remember, if we have great faith and have not love for God, our brethren in Christ and our fellow-man we are as nothing. We must develop this love to be of use to God in His kingdom and bringing others to the truth. Faith and hope will not do this for us.

May God bless and keep you until next time.