“The Greatest of These – part 2”
February 12, 2012
1 Corinthians 13
1 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. 2 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. 3 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.
4 Love is patient, love is kind. It does not envy, it does not boast, it is not proud. 5 It does not dishonor others, it is not self-seeking, it is not easily angered, it keeps no record of wrongs. 6 Love does not delight in evil but rejoices with the truth. 7 It always protects, always trusts, always hopes, always perseveres.
8 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. 9 For we know in part and we prophesy in part, 10 but when completeness comes, what is in part disappears. 11 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. 12 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.
13 And now these three remain: faith, hope and love. But the greatest of these is love.”
Three eternal things, faith, hope and love, and the greatest of all the divine attributes is love. I saw a poll the other day that asked this question, “Would you rather live life without love or not live at all.” Two thirds of those interviewed responded that they would rather not live at all - than to live without love. I think God put it in our DNA to need love. We need to be loved and we need to love. If not we are incomplete and unfulfilled. The Beatles sang, “All we need is Love”. I don’t think they had a clue as to what they were singing, but essentially they were correct. All the other fruits of the Spirit flow from love.
Harry Frederick Harlow was an American psychologist best known for his maternal-separation and social isolation experiments on monkeys. In Harlow's classic experiment, two groups of baby monkeys were removed from their mothers. In the first group, a terrycloth mother provided no food, while a wire mother did, in the form of an attached baby bottle containing milk. In the second group, a terrycloth mother provided food; the wire mother did not. It was found that the young monkeys clung to the terrycloth mother whether or not it provided them with food, and that the young monkeys chose the wire surrogate only when it provided food.
Whenever a frightening stimulus was brought into the cage, the monkeys ran to the cloth mother for protection and comfort, no matter which mother provided them with food.
When the monkeys were placed in an unfamiliar room with their cloth surrogate, they clung to it until they felt secure enough to explore. Once they began to explore, they occasionally returned to the cloth mother for comfort. Monkeys placed in an unfamiliar room without their cloth mothers acted very differently. They froze in fear and cried, crouched down, or sucked their thumbs. Some even ran from object to object, crying and screaming, apparently searching for the cloth mother. Monkeys placed in this situation with their wire mothers exhibited the same behavior as the monkeys with no mother.
The study found that monkeys who were raised with either a wire mother or a cloth mother gained weight at the same rate. However, the monkeys that had only a wire mother had trouble digesting the milk and suffered from diarrhea more frequently. Harlow's interpretation of this behavior, which is still widely accepted, was that a lack of contact comfort is psychologically stressful to the monkeys.
It doesn’t take a scientist or a genius to realize that humans need love and contact as well. Latch key kids, children of alcoholic parents, and kids with drug addicts for parents fare no better than the monkeys with wire mesh mothers. We are created with a deep need for love.
From 1986 to 1990, Frank Reed was held hostage in a Lebanon cell. For months at a time, Reed was blindfolded, living in complete darkness or chained to a wall and kept in absolute silence. On one occasion, he was moved to another room, and, although blindfolded, he could sense others in the room. Yet it was three weeks before he dared peek out to discover he was chained next to Terry Anderson and Tom Sutherland.
Although he was beaten, made ill, and tormented, Reed felt most the lack of anyone caring. He said in an interview with Time, "Nothing I did mattered to anyone. I began to realize how withering it is to exist with not a single expression of caring around me... I learned one overriding fact: caring is a powerful force. If no one cares, you are truly alone." I wonder how many people feel all alone in our community and in our neighborhood?
Life without love. Our Scriptures says “if we don’t have love we are like a clanging cymbal. We are just making noise with no beauty, no purpose, no rhyme or reason. Peter says we have no power without love. He says,
“Husbands, be considerate as you live with your wives, and treat them with respect as the weaker partner and as heirs with you of the gracious gift of life, so that nothing will hinder your prayers.” 1 Peter 3:7
If we are not loving to our mates – it hinders our prayers. No prayer means no power. Jesus said the same thing,
“…if you are offering your gift at the altar and there remember that your brother or sister has something against you, leave your gift there in front of the altar. First go and be reconciled to them; then come and offer your gift.”
Matthew 5:23-24
“But if you do not forgive others their sins, your Father will not forgive your sins.” Matthew 6:15
We need to learn to love, we need to learn to be like God in love. The Bible says that love is a fruit of the Holy Spirit working in our life. It says that love is the very essence of God – God is love. So this is one fruit we need to absolutely develop in our lives.
If you were to ask me to simplify the definition of love I could do it in one word – caring. To love someone is to care about them. Caring is the real test of love. Do you care what your mate does? Do you care what your children do? Do you care what God thinks? Do you care that your neighbor will spend eternity in hell without Christ? We need to care more than we do. Paul said,
“For the entire law is fulfilled in keeping this one command: “Love your neighbor as yourself.” If you bite and devour each other, watch out or you will be destroyed by each other.” Galatians 5: 14-15
“Carry each other’s burdens, and in this way you will fulfill the law of Christ.” Galatians 6:2
Jesus gave one new law – one new commandment. That was to love. (John 13:34-35) But it’s so hard to care. So hard to love. Ortberg notes this about the inability to love: The most serious sign of hurry sickness is a diminished capacity to love. Love and hurry are fundamentally incompatible. Love always takes time, and time is one thing hurried people don’t have. The truth is, look around at our society, hurried people cannot love because they are always in a hurry!
Ortberg adds this thought about the hurry sickness or sometimes called ‘the lack of patience syndrome’. It is because it kills love that hurry is the great enemy of spiritual life. Hurry lies behind much of the anger and frustration of modern life. Hurry prevents us from receiving love from the Father or giving it to His children. That’s why Jesus never hurried. If we are to follow Jesus, we must ruthlessly eliminate hurry from our lives-because, by definition, we can’t move faster than the one we are following.
God said, “Be still and know I am God.” (Ps. 46:10) We need to make time for prayer and Bible study. We need to make time to be still – and KNOW God (or to be intimate with God). If we want to learn to love – we have to learn to know God. A killer of love in us is to be too busy to care; to busy to love.
And if we don’t take the time to love – someone else will. Charles Manson collected followers from the lost and lonely youth living on the streets in San Francisco. Their desperation to be loved made them vulnerable to just about anything he suggested. David Berg, disenchanted with organized religion, started a coffee house in Southern California, and began to find a following among the hippy youth that lived there. Within a short time he had a large group of converts. At first he was pretty mainstream – but as time when on he became more and more bizarre. He began to refer to himself as God or Jesus and the only one who knew real truth. Berg began saying the traditional church had gone astray in their puritanical teachings about sex. “To the pure all things are pure,” he would ague. In one of his letters he said, “The private family system is the basis of the selfish capitalistic private enterprise system and all its selfish evils.” He wrote, “God is the greatest destroyer of home and family of anybody. We are Revolutionary! We are not hesitating to destroy marriages that don’t glory God and put Him and His work first!”
Using biblical terminology to justify his actions, Berg renamed the group the Family of Love. He began to promote fornication, polygamy, incest, and adultery as free expressions of God’s love. Berg said, “No, I don’t have to keep the Ten Commandments! All I have to do is love and do whatever I do in love!”
(Angels of Deceit, p. 158-159)
There are so many lonely, hurting people out there than need a friend; need fellowship; need love. The enemy of their souls preys on them in their vulnerability and ignorance. What we need to do is to love them with the love of the Lord and bring them to the Source of Truth and the Creator of love – Jesus Christ.
But love is a choice. It is so much easier sometimes to remain isolated from the hurting world. It is easier to be content with our needs being fulfilled within our little group and not caring about others that Jesus also died for. Love is a choice – and we need to choose to love better. We need to choose to grow in love. Our Scripture says,
“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.” V.11
Have you ever noticed how selfish and self-centered a child is? They only think of themselves and their needs! Let’s grow up and begin to love as God wants us to. Speak lovingly, the Bible says. Tell people you love them. The Bible says to greet each other with a holy kiss. In their culture that was a little peck on each side of the cheek. I’m not advocating that – but a hug is nice. Don’t be afraid to express love for one another. It makes us vulnerable and mean people could use that against us – but true love is sacrificial. Take a chance. True love is also trustworthy. You can trust someone who truly loves you. They have your back. Like Jonathan and David loved one another and watched out for one another – we need to do the same. Love protects!
Jesus said, “By this everyone will know that you are my disciples, if you love one another.” John 13:35
My prayer is that people will be able to say that about us. Let’s love one another. The closest we can come to God in this life is to love. Our mission is to be Christ-like. We are being transformed into His image. The more like Christ we become – the more loving we will become.
Would you ask God to reveal to you someone who needs you to love them this week? I guarantee that there is someone you know; someone you will meet this week; someone who is desperate for love. Let God love them through YOU! Lend a helping hand. Speak a loving word. Write a love note. Take your eyes off yourself and your needs and love with the love of the Lord.
SONG: ‘”They’ll Know we Are Christians by our Love”
