SPIRITUAL GROWTH ENHANCERS
REF: 013
1 Corinthians 13:13, CSB: "Now these three remain: faith, hope, and love--but the greatest of these is love."
LET LOVE LEAD
Christianity is built on three strong characters. These great characters form the basis of the Christian ministry. Without faith, hope and love, Christianity is bogus and absurd.
There is no way Christianity will make any reasonable sense without the foundation of these three strong characters.
In this passage, Paul responds to the Corinthians' over-emphasis on certain spiritual gifts by showing them that all gifts are worthless and senseless if not practised through godly love.
The apostle Paul insists that love is greater even than these two bedrock virtues. Any reason to that? Continue reading with me as we look at this critical textual analysis constructively.
With this phrase, Paul wraps up this section explaining why godly, self-sacrificing agape love is required to fully express spiritual gifts.
Love is the foundation for healthy Church growth and the hallmark for the practice of our spiritual gifts. The absence of love is hatred and hatred breeds the division that stampedes the growth of the local church.
The King James Version (KJV) of Proverbs 10:12 reads, "Hatred stirreth up strifes: But love covereth all sins".
Let us explore the various versions to ascertain a fuller understanding.
Proverbs 10:12 — The New International Version (NIV) "Hatred stirs up conflict, but love covers over all wrongs".
Proverbs 10:12 — New Living Translation (NLT) "Hatred stirs up quarrels, but love makes up for all offenses".
Proverbs 10:12 — New Century Version (NCV) "Hatred stirs up trouble, but love forgives all wrongs".
Proverbs 10:12 — GOD’S WORD Translation (GW) "Hate starts quarrels, but love covers every wrong".
Proverbs 10:12 — The Holman Christian Standard Bible (HCSB) "Hatred stirs up conflicts, but love covers all offenses".
Proverbs 10:12 — New International Reader’s Version (NIrV) "Hate stirs up fights. But love erases all sins by forgiving them".
We all sin, we all go wrong, we all make mistakes, we all steps on the toes of others — it happens. However, love wins in the battle of hatred, sin, wrong and evil, so in everything you do, let love lead. Act with love!
To err is human, to forgive is divine. So they say and beautiful and sweet is the phrase. It refreshingly travels across the tongue like a river when mentioning it. But without the virtue of love in operation you cannot forgive your brother's sins.
This is because forgiveness is divine and so is love. God is loving and forgiving, always loving us and forgiving our sins. Love and forgiveness is God's own very nature. The Bible tells us that our God is a Spirit. That means He's divine. Therefore forgiveness and loving as God's very own nature are an acts of divinity.
Loving your brothers and sisters in Christ will help you to live a gracious and faithful life. Nothing can come between you and the love of God. When times get tough, remember that. His love is available to you always.
To reciprocate this unending love of God, you must continue to let love lead in your day to day confrontation of all persons.
The Lord is the ultimate form of love and loyalty. He forgives and cares about His people even when they make mistakes. His love should be modeled towards everyone in your life.
The Bible warns a lot about those who breed hatred, division and strife in the Lord's Church. A Church is unhealthy when its members are full of hatred for themselves.
Such a Church will never please God. Hatred fuels bitterness, gossips and lies. The end results of these unhealthy fruits breeds troubles, uncertainties and divisions in the Christian Church.
Paul's bottom line in this chapter is that, of course, faith and hope are great and essential tools for Christianity. But love is greater even than faith and hope.
Undoubtedly, spiritual gifts are essential for the church to grow, but the thing is, the Corinthians had put too much emphasis on them as evidence of personal glory or achievement.
The gifts must be applied with love, or they become meaningless, hypocritical or even destructive.
Does this suggest that faith and hope are less important of a value in Christianity? That's a very brilliant but dicey question.
The transliteration and translation of this phrase by Paul has been misconstrued and turned into a grotesque subject leading some Christians to conclude that faith and hope is of less value in Christianity. Let me quickly rush in to correct the misconceptions surrounding these textual glib.
A baker will tell you that the critical elements of bread are yeast, water, flour, and salt.
A cosmetic scientist will also tell you that the critical elements of good quality soap are base, salt, colorant, parfum and water. But among these five, water is the most essential element. In the same way, a baker will say that the critical ingredients of bread are yeast, flour, salt and water. But water is the most crucial of all.
Now, does this suggest that the rest of the ingredients do not hold any value of importance as compared to water in the mixture? Does this concept suggest to you that only water is enough to make a good quality soap or bread?
Of course not, water alone is irrelevant without the combination of the other ingredients in the mixing bowl.
Water alone although it is the most essential element of the other ingredients cannot make any soap or bread on its own. They all need to combine to make a uniform solution that creates a scientific quality and safe product for human consumption.
Do you see the thing? The moment you place your emphasis on water alone because the food and cosmetic scientist said that water is the greatest concentration of the other ingredients, then we are fast running into problems with our soap and bread as we pay less attention to adding the other essential ingredients in the mixing bowl.
We need to add all the essentials together with the water that is agreed to be the most essential of all, so that we can get the right balance and proportion in our finished product. Finding the right balance and proportion for our recipe can get us a standard product the FDA considers as safe for use.
If the usage proportion of our mixing ingredients are not balanced with the correct concentration then we will make a bad and toxic product that will be rejected by the FDA.
Likewise, love that is not balanced by faith and hope undermines the very definition of biblical love.
The reason why the scientist believes that water is the most crucial element of formulation is because the water acts as the motherboard or the bedrock that uniformly combines all the other ingredients together in other to get a hundred percent formulating design.
Water plays the most important part in soapmaking. It is the medium through which the chemical process of soap making occurs. Water is used to dilute lye crystals and acts as a carrier for the lye.
In other words, water is used to dissolve the sodium hydroxide lye so it can interact with the soaping oils to begin the saponification process. What is more important to the chemistry of saponification is the amount of water in proportion to the alkali (NaOH or KOH).
This is because water modifies how fast the alkali can attack the fat molecules. The water serves as the mother ingredient that will hold all the other ingredients together to produce the desirable type of quality soap.
Back from illustration to the context, the reason why Paul said love precedes the two (faith and hope) is that love is the only ingredient that binds the two together. It is the glue that combines the two to form a very uniform and powerful force that will put satan in check and check him out of the boxing ring.
If in a company we say water is the chief executive officer in the highest ranking. Although the highest, the chief executive officer is functionless without the unifying force of the subordinate officers.
In Christendom, we say love is the chief executive officer of the local assembly in collaboration with faith and hope as the subordinate officers to run a safe and healthy ministry.
All that Paul intends to tell us is that in the exercise of our spiritual gifting or the exhibit of our faith and hope in Christ Jesus, we should let love lead. Love must be centric on the professing of our faith and hope.
Love should be the bedrock, the motherboard and super glue that motivates us in the exercise of our Christian faith and hope in the Lord Jesus. Let Love Lead!
1 John 4:21, NIV: "And he has given us this command: Anyone who loves God must also love their brother and sister.
You don't have to be related to someone to show them the same care you'd show your parents or siblings. Everyone is worthy of love.
It's not enough to just show love and respect to God, you have to be just as kind to those around you. Your literal brothers and sisters deserve that as well as your brothers and sisters in Christ.
Romans 12:9, NLT: "Don't just pretend to love others. Love them. Hate what is wrong. Hold tightly to what is good."
Your love for one another must be genuine, pure and sincere. There should be no room for pretence. The Word of God does not make room for faking love. Fake love should be discouraged in the Christian churches.
Agape love must be encouraged and practised by all standards and at all costs.
You can show love to one another because you have been shown love by God. Give that feeling to others by showing them how much you care as well.
There are many rules God wants you to follow, but chief among them is to love one another. You can never go wrong spreading love.
You can share your love in many ways — and words of affirmation are important — but you can also show how caring you are through your actions. Perhaps you can take on some charity work, go out of your way to be there for a friend, or call up a loved one for a nice chat. It's easy to pay kindness forward in word and deed. Remember, a friend in need is a friend indeed!
There is nothing stronger than love — even death. In the darkest of times during your life, love will lift you and carry you forward. This is the love of the Lord and the love of others around you. Forgiveness comes out of the love you have for one another, and even in the hardest times, we remember how Christ forgives us for our sins, too.
Let us hear the summary of the whole matter: Love God, love your fellow humans and love yourself. That's what the Lord wants for you. Faith, hope, and love are three key virtues of the Christian religion.
But without love, faith and hope would almost be useless. Once we truly believe in love (as God loved us as his children from the beginning of creation), then the virtues of faith and hope will be fully realized. Carry yourself through your life like Jesus would — leading with love first in all things.
©Oasis WordBank/Social Media Ministry Command
