As Myself
“And now these three remain: faith, hope and love. But the greatest of these is love.”
Today’s Text: 1 Corinthians 13:8-13 (Living Life Daily Devotional)
Faith is what saves us, and so you would think that “the greatest of these” would be faith. Paul could be talking about faithfulness rather than faith, though. In the Greek, the words are the same.
And that would actually make more sense. Faithfulness, hope, and love are the products of faith. Faithfulness refers to our steadfast devotion to the Lord, because of faith. Hope refers to a state of expectancy that is grounded in God’s faithfulness in this life and in the next—and that too, because of faith. Love refers to acts of kindness and service to others for their well-being, again because of faith. Some translations say “charity”; the Greek word is agape.
We could look at those words in the following way: faithfulness is for the Lord, hope is for ourselves, and love is for others.
And the greatest of these is love.
Even from a purely humanistic perspective, it is not difficult to understand how important and significant love is. But the Apostle Paul tells us that “the greatest of these is love.” In other words, love carries with it a divine significance and importance, a divine priority for our lives.
And the word of God confirms the priority of love.
For the entire law is fulfilled in keeping this one command: “Love your neighbor as yourself.”
— Galatians 5:14
There is no doubt, however, that loving our neighbors can be difficult sometimes. Sometimes, we meet people that we just naturally connect with. The things they say make total sense to me. The things I say make total sense to them. We don’t have to work that hard to connect and communicate.
Other times … whew! … everything they say feels antagonistic; everything they say feels like a challenge; everything they say feels like confrontation. And that goes both ways. Connecting with such people is just hard work.
The command to love does not really apply to those we easily connect with. That would be like a command to breathe. No. The command to love applies when we are faced with people we do not easily connect with.
Jesus Himself said so:
“If you love those who love you, what credit is that to you? Even sinners love those who love them. And if you do good to those who are good to you, what credit is that to you? Even sinners do that.”
— Luke 6:32-33
The word of God demands that loving people who are difficult to love (our EGRs) be the priority of our lives. Why? Because it is on the basis of such love that we build up the church of Jesus Christ according to the word of God and by the power of the Holy Spirit.
Instead, speaking the truth in love, we will grow to become in every respect the mature body of Him who is the Head, that is, Christ. From Him the whole body, joined and held together by every supporting ligament, grows and builds itself up in love, as each part does its work.
— Ephesians 4:15-16
The work is to love one another. The compensation is love. The result is the church.
Father, You are love. You are chesed. Your lovingkindness, faithfulness, and mercy endure forever. We need Your love in our lives. We need the knowledge of Your love in our lives so that we might have the power to obey Your commands through the Holy Spirit. Make us to love as You have called us to love. For Your glory. In Jesus’s name. Amen.
