How Can I Express Love? - 1 Corinthians 13

There is only one word that gives us the name of the most important person that has ever been a citizen of this earth. His name is God. There is one word that explains why God was the most important man that ever lived on this earth. That word is love. For God loved people so much that he gave his only son Jesus Christ to be crucified and to die for our sins.

In this 13th chapter of First Corinthians, Paul pens the most beautiful story in the bible regarding the importance of love—and leaves no doubt in any of our minds that without love we are nothing. We can truly say that in order to be Christ like—in order to be a Christian—we must have a deep love for our fellow man. Yes we must love people—even our enemies. We are not required to love what people do, but we are required to love the soles of man and have a desire to see everyone redeemed from their sinful nature. Our heart must be in tune with the heart of Christ whose desire is that none [no single person] should perish but that everyone should have everlasting life.

Paul begins by telling us that a man can possess all of the spiritual gifts except love and still be a useless being. We can speak with voices as beautiful as angels speak and without love in our hearts, it will sound as a resounding gong or a clanging cymbal and will be only an irritating noise. We can have a faith so great that we can remove mountains from their bedrock and cast them in the sea, but if there is no Agape love in our hearts that reaches out to our fellow man, and the Lord, we are worth nothing. In order to become a Christian and remain a Christian you must possess all three—faith, hope, and love; but the greatest of these is love.

One example stands out more for me as I write and it is something I read that said that Sir George Adam Smith once ask a member of the Greek Orthodox church, which had suffered tremendously at the hands Islam, why God had created so many Mohammedans. The answer he got was that they were created so hell would be full of people. [That is preaching a scare tactic, which may scare some but will save few, if any.] This fits in with my thoughts so well because I fear the teachings of Mohammed; I believe that Christians greatest fear should be aroused by the goals of the Islamic race.
They have stated their desire and committed goal is to kill all Christian infidels, especially those in America. The forefathers of Mohammed can be traced through Old Testament history and this history tells us that they have always been the enemies of God’s chosen people. However, it is their sinful nature that we must fear and hate but not their souls. We must acknowledge and believe in our hearts that Christ loved Mohammed and his followers so much that he died to save them. The bible teaches that [whom so ever—each and every person] that acknowledges Christ as Lord, repents of their sins and trusts Him, will be saved.

The secret to this lies in the definition of the word love which we are teaching in this lesson. This is not the same love we have for our spouse or our children—but it is agape love or a Christ like desire to see souls saved from the destruction that their sins bring on them. Paul says that we may have intellectual knowledge—or we may have a passionate faith—or we may practice what men call charity without love and it is nothing. Nothing would be more humiliating than for a Christian to dole out so called charity to a person that they do not love. This would be a deception.

Paul even goes so far as to say that “if I give all that I have to the poor and have not love it is nothing. He even says that if I give my body to be burned and have not love, I gain nothing.” I have wondered what he meant here. Maybe he was thinking about the Hebrew men, Shadrach, Meshach and Abed-ego who were cast into the fiery furnace, who loved God so much that they refused to bow down to an Idol and disgrace God.

Our society today confuses love with lust. Lust is a desire of our hearts; it is directed inward and not outward toward others. Agape love is directed toward our fellow man and is patient, kind, does not envy, does not boast, and is not proud, rude, or self-seeking. The best example I can give you of a forbidden love is where the bible tells us that the “love of money is the root of all evil.” This is an example of love that is directed inward…when man desires wealth for his own good above and beyond his desire to know God and be fruitful and giving.

I challenge you to examine your motives for the giving of your tithes and offerings to your church. Is it directed inwardly so that you can be proud of what you are doing for the church? Is your motive so that others will see you as a faithful supporter? Or, do you give because you love God, your church, and the lost souls that it may reach and fulfill the commandment that Christ gave to the church to go into the entire world and preach and teach and baptize the believers?

In closing this lesson, there can be no greater message than Paul preached in the closing words of this chapter on love. He in essence says that this subject is too deep for me [Paul] to fully understand. It is like a poor reflection in a mirror now but one day we will fully understand. We know in part [understand some things about the depth of agape love] but when we get to heaven we will fully understand…we will be fully known. Then he ends the 13th chapter by telling us that there are three very important gifts of the spirit that a Christian must have—these three remain: faith, hope and LOVE. But the greatest of these three is agape LOVE.

Request: This lesson is now being published by both the “White River Journal” and “The Sun Times” each week. I am requesting that you who receive it will pray that their readers will let them know that they are appreciated for their services. God bless. Thank you.