I corinthians 13:4-6KJV:Charity suffereth long, and is kind; charity envieth not; charity vaunteth not itself, is not puffed up,Doth not behave itself unseemly, seeketh not her own, is not easily provoked, thinketh no evil; Rejoiceth not in iniquity, but rejoiceth in the truth;
Jesus and Paul focused the entire law into loving God and loving others, and the apostle John could hardly write a sentence without somehow including the term love. It is John’s Gospel that we learn that the mark of a Christian is love.
WHAT IS LOVE?
Love is sometimes seen as simplistic and preliminary and the ABCs of the Christian life, and it is sometimes defined by looking at American English — deep affection, and so
but Christian theology knows
(1) that God is love and that therefore
(2) love is defined by how God loves . I contend if we look at God-is-love and how God loves, we can see four elements in love.
Love though is not an abstract concept but a living reality. So after contrasting the indispensable virtue of love with words, spiritual gifts and sacrificial deeds, the Bible compresses in four very short verses an amazing descriptive analysis of what this supreme gift is. In our look at love we will find that it is made up of many elements. You may have seen a scientist take a ray of light and pass it through a crystal prism and seen it come out on the other side broken up into its component colors; orange, indigo, violet, yellow, red, blue and green –the colors of the rainbow (colors of the light spectrum).
Four elements of love when mapped on how God loves:
1. Love is a covenant, or translated in light of how God’s covenant love works, love is a rugged commitment to another person . Do you want to make a rugged commitment to your enemy?
2. Love is a rugged commitment to be with that person. This is the principle of presence, time spent with that person. Are you willing to be with that person over time?
3. Love is a rugged commitment to be with another person as someone who is for that person . This is the principle of advocacy (not tolerance), the principle that the other person deeply knows that you are in that person’s corner. Does that person know that you are in their corner?
4. Love is a rugged commitment to be with another person as for that person as both of us seek to become what God wants of us, that is, Christlikeness . This is the principle of direction or the teleological dimension of love. Love entails wanting that person, in relationship, to become God’s Christlike design for that person (and for the one who is loving to grow in the same direction). Are you seeking Christlikeness together?
The order matters: one can’t expect #4 until one has made #1 a reality, until #2 follows #1, and until #2 creates #3.
When I was a kid we sang “What the world needs now is love.” What the church needs is love, and it begins with me and with you. Now.
In the same way God takes love and passes it through Paul’s inspired intellect and it comes out broken down into its elements. In these few words we have what one might call The element of Love ( or the analysis of love). Will you observe what its elements are? Will you grasp their common names and practice their virtues that make up the supreme gift of love? All of love’s virtuous actions relate to persons and to life. They are concerned primarily with the here and now of daily life.
In conclusion, The books of the Bible are many and varied, but if there was a single thread running through them all, it might be love. God not only has love - God is love
(1 John 4:8).AMP:He who does not love has not become acquainted with God [does not and never did know Him], for God is love.