Love

1 Corinthians 13:1-3

If I had such faith that I could move mountains, but didn’t love others, I would be nothing. (1 Corinthians 13:2)

SCRIPTURE TELLS US TO MAKE love our highest goal (1 Corinthians 14:1)—that if we don’t have love, everything else we do is pointless (1 Corinthians 13:1-3), that love is central to Jesus’ will for his followers (Matthew 22:36-40; John 15:12-17), that it is the evidence that we have passed from death to life (1 John 3:14), and that followers of Jesus will be known by this one overarching characteristic (John 13:34-35). In other words, our love is a really big deal.

If God is love (1 John 4:8, 16), that makes sense. He is our source of life and calls us to be like him, so it would be shocking if love were not central to our lives in him. All of the characteristics of God we are told about in the Bible flow out of this core attribute—this perfect, zealous, breathtaking love that burns brightly within him and, the more we experience him, within his people. If we get nothing else from Scripture, if we never progress any further in the Christian life than this, understanding and showing his love would be better than understanding all else. Nothing else puts us in sync with God’s heart; all other pursuits are pointless without it. If we don’t love, we are not living the Christian life.

If that’s true—and every indication from Scripture and the life of Jesus says it is—then we really need to know what love looks like. Is it a feeling, an attitude, an action, or all of the above? Does it always make the other person feel good, or is it tender at some times and tough at others? Does it even have to be expressed, or is it enough just to have it? The Bible and our own experience tell us a lot of these things, giving us not only instructions but also examples and models to follow. For those who want to be influential in this world—even for those who just want to know God—this becomes priority number one. Above all else, we must be known as those who love well.

{Lord, teach me love. Fill me with it, train me in it, make me a fountain of it. May I overflow with love—just like you. Amen.