The Expression Of Love Series

Predicting the unpredictable is what weather forecasting is all about. There are so many

variables that nobody can be sure what tomorrow holds. Back in 1816 Mt. Tambora in what

is now Indonesia erupted with a blast 80 times greater than that of Mt. St. Helens, and sent a

massive cloud of volcanic dust into the atmosphere that affected the weather of the Eastern

United States. It affected it so much that 1816 was called the year without a summer. The

temperature rarely got above 50 degrees. On July 4th in normally sultry Savannah, Georgia

the high was 46. Snow, sleet, and ice caused crop damage as far West as Illinois. Such

radical variations from the norm are impossible to predict, but even the normal variations

make weather hard to nail down

Love is like the weather in many ways. It is always a popular subject, and it affects all of

us, and it is also hard to predict, for it too has many variations. Love is as mysterious as the

weather. Adam and Eve had it made in the shade. They had a love enhancing environment,

and even then the enemy of love was able to cloud their minds and seduce them into an

unloving choice. This made the first storm that came to spoil the perfect sunshine of their

relationship to God.

In that fallen family, however, there was still a lot of love, and Adam and Eve loved each

other, and there was love for God, as well as love for their children. Love was still a major

ingredient in their lives. But without all of the divisions of modern life even that small family

developed bad relationships, and Cain, like lightening, struck down his brother Abel, and

man's environment of love was invaded again by a storm of anti-love. And that is the pattern

of the rest of history. It is like the weather, and you can be basking in the sunshine of love,

and all of a sudden the clouds cover the sun, and you are plunged into darkness and the

storm. David is basking in the sunshine of great victories over his enemies. God loves him,

the people love him, and he has a loving family and lovely loyal wives. In the midst of all that

love the storm of temptation strikes, and a flood of lust washes him off the road of

righteousness, and David's life is never the same.

We could go on with illustration after illustration of how people can have the experience

of love, and yet lack the ability to come through on the other end with the expression of love.

Judas was so loved by Jesus that never once did Jesus embarrass him, even though he knew

his heart was not right. He experienced an inflow of love like few in all of history, and yet his

outflow was unloving betrayal. The major problem of life, therefore, which makes love as

unpredictable as the weather is man's inability in the area of expression of love.

When Paul says, if one does not have love he is a sounding gong or clanging symbol, or if

one does not have love he is nothing, he is referring to the outflow and not the inflow. The

Corinthians had experienced the love of God and the love of Christ. They had experienced

salvation, and they had experienced the multiple gifts of the Holy Spirit. They had all kinds

of experiences of love, and yet their lives were tossed and troubled by the storms of

non-loving behavior. The problem was not that they were unloved, for they were, and had

abundant evidence of it. The problem was for them, as it was for Adam and Eve, David, and

Judas, and every other human being, the expression of love. They had love in the sense of

being objects of God's love, but they did not know how to express it.

God inspired Paul to give them this great love song as the greatest tool in history to aid

men in the expression of love. Paul tells us what love does, and what it does not do. He

reveals to us how to express love. This makes it clear that love has to be learned. Love is not

automatic. It takes time and effort to learn how to express love. Love is patient Paul says. If

Adam and Eve had just taken some time to talk over the temptation of Satan with God, they

would have been expressing love, and that would have led to understanding and victory over

the deceiver. Had David not acted on impulse, and had been patient in dealing with his

temptation, he could have resolved it in love rather than lust. Had Judas shared his

impatience with Jesus, and gotten his greed off his chest, he could have been released from