Love Never Fails
August 14, 2019
According to wikipedia, love is defined as: “a feeling of strong attraction and emotional attachment.” But according to Jesus, love is not primarily an emotion motivated by personal desire. Love is something you do. My favorite speaker, Tim Mackie, describes love as “a settled purpose to act in a way that brings about the well-being of others, regardless of emotion; it is a choice to put others desires before your own.”
If we love others with the motivation to fulfill our own desires (self-seeking), we have not truly loved. The more we (unselfishly) love and give ourselves to others, the more beautiful we are + the more we become who we truly are.
1st Corinthians 13:4-8a
Love is patient, love is kind. It does not envy, it does not boast, it is not proud.
It is not rude, it is not self-seeking, it is not easily angered, it keeps no record of wrongs.
Love does not delight in evil but rejoices with the truth.
It always protects, always trusts, always hopes, always perseveres.
Love never fails.
In these verses, Paul states 16 short definitions of what love is + is not. To this day, these verses still hold tremendous value in our culture among believers and non-believers alike. To fully understand this poem, we must zoom out to get the full picture. Before disclosing what love is, Paul explains to the church how we should use our unique abilities or spiritual gifts.
1st Corinthians 13:1-3
If I speak in the tongues of men or of angels, but do not have love, I am only a resounding gong or a clanging cymbal.
If I have the gift of prophecy and can fathom all mysteries and all knowledge, and if I have a faith that can move mountains, but do not have love, I am nothing.
If I give all I possess to the poor and give over my body to hardship that I may boast, but do not have love, I gain nothing.
These verses remind me of a significant critique I received last quarter in one of my studio classes pertaining to a spiritual work about love that I had just presented. Near the end of my forty minute critique, my professor asked, “Why do you have to say the name Jesus (if the theme is love)? Why can’t you just hint at it?” And I replied, “Because there is no point in giving love if you do not mention the name from which it comes.” Jesus was the very (physical) manifestation of God’s love for us! Think about it.
God loved us humans so much, that He gave us LIFE. God loved us so much, that He gave us a CHOICE. God loved us so much, that He gave us HIMSELF by HUMBLING HIMSELF in the form of A MAN. God loved us so much, that He gave us HIS LIFE. God DIED for us. This is why Love never fails. This is why good always trumps evil. Because the Creator of all things DIED for us humans. And ROSE AGAIN so that we may also rise again.
1st Corinthians 13:8-13
Love never fails. But where there are prophecies, they will cease; where there are tongues, they will be stilled; where there is knowledge, it will pass away.
For we know in part and we prophesy in part,
but when completeness comes, what is in part disappears.
When I was a child, I talked like a child, I thought like a child, I reasoned like a child. When I became a man, I put the ways of childhood behind me.
For now we see only a reflection as in a mirror; then we shall see face to face. Now I know in part; then I shall know fully, even as I am fully known.
And now these three remain: faith, hope and love. But the greatest of these is love.
As followers of Jesus, we are called to understand love as: an unselfish act of constantly seeking the best for others, and by serving others (always giving our very best effort) using our God-given gifts.
But the greatest of these is love.
