LOVE: THE BEST OF ALL

A Letter from a Pastor #7

Pastor Dennis Clanton

Woodland Church

Sunday, August 11, 2024

(1 Corinthians 13, NLT) “So you should earnestly desire the most helpful gifts. But now let me show you a way of life that is best of all. 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. 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. 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 rejoices whenever 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! 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. Love is supreme over all the gifts of the Holy Spirit

(Galatians 5:13–14, NLT) “Use your freedom to serve one another in love. For the whole law can be summed up in this one command: “Love your neighbor as yourself.”

“Do you wish to be free? Then above all things, love God, love your neighbor, love one another, love the common weal; then you will have true liberty.” – Girolamo Savonarola

a. Without love my words are worth nothing

(1 Corinthians 13:1, NLT) “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.”

b. Without Love I would be nothing

(1 Corinthians 13:2, NLT) “I would be nothing.”

c. Without love I will have gained nothing

(1 Corinthians 13:3, NLT) “I would have gained nothing.”

2. I can experience the true love of God in Christ

(Ephesians 2:4–5, CEV) “But God was merciful! We were dead because of our sins, but God loved us so much that he made us alive with Christ, and God’s wonderful kindness is what saves you.”

(Ephesians 3:18–19, NCV) “And I pray that you and all God’s holy people will have the power to understand the greatness of Christ’s love—how wide and how long and how high and how deep that love is. Christ’s love is greater than anyone can ever know, but I pray that you will be able to know that love. Then you can be filled with the fullness of God.”

a. I don’t deserve God’s love

(Romans 5:8, NLT) “God showed his great love for us by sending Christ to die for us while we were still sinners.”

b. God will never stop loving me

(1 John 4:10, NLT) “This is real love—not that we loved God, but that he loved us and sent his Son as a sacrifice to take away our sins.”

(Song of Solomon 2:4, ESV) “He brought me to the banqueting house, and his banner over me was love.”

GROWTHWORK

1. Pray daily, “Jesus, increase my capacity to love.”

(1 John 4:16, NLT) “We know how much God loves us, and we have put our trust in his love. God is love, and all who live in love live in God, and God lives in them.”

2. Memorize how to love

“Duty makes us do things well; love makes us do things beautifully.” – Phillip Brooks

(1 Corinthians 13:4–7, NLT) “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 rejoices whenever the truth wins out. Love never gives up, never loses faith, is always hopeful, and endures through every circumstance.”

3. Conscientiously practice living a life of love

(1 John 4:7, LB) “Dear friends, let us practice loving each other, for love comes from God and those who are loving and kind show that they are the children of God, and that they are getting to know him better.”

(1 Corinthians 13:13, NLT) “Three things will last forever—faith, hope, and love—and the greatest of these is love.”