If I could speak all the languages of earth and of angels, but didn’t love others, I would only be a noisy gong or a clanging cymbal. If I had the gift of prophecy, and if I understood all of God’s secret plans and possessed all knowledge, and if I had such faith that I could move mountains, but didn’t love others, I would be nothing.
1 Corinthians 13:1-3 NLT
If I gave everything I have to the poor and even sacrificed my body, I could boast about it; but if I didn’t love others, I would have gained nothing.
Paul begins this chapter by describing just how useless, even destructive, spiritual gifts are when not applied from the standpoint of love. Displays of tongues, prophetic powers, and supernatural spiritual knowledge may be impressive, but they are worthless if not used as intended by God, out of a heart of love for Him and other believers. Even the most spiritual of activities, selling everything to give to the poor and sacrificing one’s life to be burned for the sake of others, gains a person nothing if not given in love.
If every gift must be exercised in love, how is love directing your gifts? Share about that.
Charity directs the use of all other gifts. How does this statement make you feel?
Love is patient and kind. Love is not jealous or boastful or proud or rude. It does not demand its own way. It is not irritable, and it keeps no record of being wronged. It does not rejoice about injustice but rejoiceswhenever the truth wins out. Love never gives up, never loses faith, is always hopeful, and endures through every circumstance. Prophecy and speaking in unknown languages and special knowledge will become useless. But love will last forever!
1 Corinthians 13:4-8 NLT
Paul sums it up: Love never fails. Christians may fail to love, as the Corinthians have clearly demonstrated, but God’s kind of love will always be effective. And unlike spiritual gifts, which will no longer be needed when Christ comes, love will last forever.
Love forgets self and concentrates on others. Is this you? Share.
Why can’t love think badly about someone else?
Can you share an example of where love endured bad times, knowing God’s good times where coming?
Now our knowledge is partial and incomplete, and even the gift of prophecy reveals only part of the whole picture! But when the time of perfection comes, these partial things will become useless. When I was a child, I spoke and thought and reasoned as a child. But when I grew up, I put away childish things. Now we see things imperfectly, like puzzling reflections in a mirror, but then we will see everything with perfect clarity. All that I know now is partial and incomplete, but then I will know everything completely, just as God now knows me completely. Three things will last forever—faith, hope, and love—and the greatest of these is love.
1 Corinthians 13:9-13 NLT
On that day, Christians will know even as God knows us now. Until then, spiritual gifts provide a partial knowledge of what is to come. Both now and then, love will remain the greatest of all the virtues.
Paul is telling us that love naturally matures, how has your love naturally matured over the years?
Love looks to the future for fulfillment… what does that mean to you?
Dear children, let’s not merely say that we love each other; let us show the truth by our actions. Our actions will show that we belong to the truth, so we will be confident when we stand before God.
1 John 3:18-19 NLT
Dear friends, let us continue to love one another, for love comes from God. Anyone who loves is a child of God and knows God. But anyone who does not love does not know God, for God is love.
1 John 4:7-8 NLT
Do either one of these scripture references above challenge your love for God? For others?