The Greatest of These...
The Greatest of These
by Thomas Hastings
Love, I want you to think for a moment about the idea of love, the word love. Who do you love? Do they know that, do you show them or tell them? What do you love? Why is that? In our culture we seem to use the word “love” very frequently. I think sometimes we like to use the word “love” much more often than we like to show the action of “love”. It’s so easy to tell someone we love them and as soon as their back is turned we completely forget what has just left our mouth. Loving deeply and intentionally and consistently is hard. Despite the difficulty, intense, selfless love is how we ought to behave toward everyone. 1st Corinthians 13:13 says, ”But these three remain: faith, hope and love, but the greatest of these is love.” Paul says earlier that if I don’t have love, I am nothing.
The Church at Ephesus missed this. Revelation 2 says that this Church was doing great things, they were pursuing doctrinal purity, they were discerning real teachers from false ones on the outside, they looked like a healthy thriving Church, but then came the “nevertheless”. Jesus says you are doing some really good things yet despite all that, you have left your first love. I take this to mean you have left the passionate love you first had for God, for people, for the Word, and for sharing the good news. Jesus makes it clear, the good of pursuing doctrinal purity, did not outweigh the bad of having left their first love.
We really ought to be people that love like crazy. Do people look at your life and think that there must be something special about you? Do they see the way you treat people and think, the world needs more of this? I want to encourage you to love harder this week, love more. Be intentional with sharing the love of God, and really love people dont just say that you do. Without real, genuine, authentic love we are nothing.
by Thomas Hastings
Love, I want you to think for a moment about the idea of love, the word love. Who do you love? Do they know that, do you show them or tell them? What do you love? Why is that? In our culture we seem to use the word “love” very frequently. I think sometimes we like to use the word “love” much more often than we like to show the action of “love”. It’s so easy to tell someone we love them and as soon as their back is turned we completely forget what has just left our mouth. Loving deeply and intentionally and consistently is hard. Despite the difficulty, intense, selfless love is how we ought to behave toward everyone. 1st Corinthians 13:13 says, ”But these three remain: faith, hope and love, but the greatest of these is love.” Paul says earlier that if I don’t have love, I am nothing.
The Church at Ephesus missed this. Revelation 2 says that this Church was doing great things, they were pursuing doctrinal purity, they were discerning real teachers from false ones on the outside, they looked like a healthy thriving Church, but then came the “nevertheless”. Jesus says you are doing some really good things yet despite all that, you have left your first love. I take this to mean you have left the passionate love you first had for God, for people, for the Word, and for sharing the good news. Jesus makes it clear, the good of pursuing doctrinal purity, did not outweigh the bad of having left their first love.
We really ought to be people that love like crazy. Do people look at your life and think that there must be something special about you? Do they see the way you treat people and think, the world needs more of this? I want to encourage you to love harder this week, love more. Be intentional with sharing the love of God, and really love people dont just say that you do. Without real, genuine, authentic love we are nothing.
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