The Greatest of these is Love

October 22, 2015

by Erin Bird

1 Corinthians 13:13 says: 

"And now these three remain: faith, hope, and love. But the greatest of these is love."

Since I have written here on the blog the past two weeks about Faith and Hope, it only makes sense to talk about Love this week.

And what better way to talk about love than to allow the Scriptures themselves define it. Let's look at God's Word together. Don't skim these well-known passages, but truly read them this week, letting their truth soak into your heart and mind...

Love Is... (1 Corinthians 13:1-8a)

"If I speak with the tongues of men and of angels, but do not have love, I have become a noisy gong or a clanging cymbal. If I have the gift of prophecy, and know all mysteries and all knowledge; and if I have all faith, so as to remove mountains, but do not have love, I am nothing. And if I give all my possessions to feed the poor, and if I surrender my body to be burned, but do not have love, it profits me nothing.

Love is patient,
love is kind and is not jealous;
love does not brag and is not arrogant,
does not act unbecomingly;
it does not seek its own,
is not provoked,
does not take into account a wrong suffered,
does not rejoice in unrighteousness, but rejoices with the truth;
bears all things, believes all things, hopes all things, endures all things.
Love never fails..."

God Is Love, So Let Us Love (1 John 4:7-11)

"Dear friends, let us love one another, because love is from God, and everyone who loves has been fathered by God and knows God. The person who does not love does not know God, because God is love. By this the love of God is revealed in us: that God has sent his one and only Son into the world so that we may live through him. In this is love: not that we have loved God, but that he loved us and sent his Son to be the atoning sacrifice for our sins.

Dear friends, if God so loved us, then we also ought to love one another."

----

May the Love of Christ fill your heart and mind this day and each day. And as you realize God's lavish love for you, may it compel you to purely love those God has put in your life.

In other words, may you love as Jesus loved.

Erin Bird Lead Pastor - Riverwood Church

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Riverwood Church, Waverly Iowa

We are on a mission to help people love like Jesus loved and live like Jesus lived.

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