July 15, 2023
Love Never Fails
Mark 12:30 tells us, “And thou shalt love the Lord thy God with all thy heart, and with all thy soul, and with all thy mind, and with thy strength: this is the first commandment.”
1 Corinthians 13:8a says, “Charity [the love of God] never faileth…”
Verse 13 tells us, “And now abideth faith, hope, charity, these three; but the greatest of these is charity [the love of God].”
Love is a word we’ve heard with mixed uses and in a multitude of contexts for most of our lives. You could probably get a gazillion definitions of love if you were to ask around.
The love of God is different! The love of God is a spiritual reality and it’s only available to those who are born again of God’s spirit. You ask, what is the difference? It comes from God. It’s a spiritual thing so you can’t comprehend it with your five senses, therefore, the man of the senses will not understand.
For the most part, the world wants to put sex into the mix when it comes to love and sex can get perversive, especially in the pornographic community. That was not and is not God’s intention with the love of God. That happens because the Devil wants to trick us from the reality of how the love of God will work in our hearts, so he throws up all kinds of diversions.
John 3:16 tells us, “For God so loved the world that He gave His only begotten Son, that whosoever believeth in him should not perish, but have everlasting life.”
God created love. The Bible states that God is spirit and God can only give out that which He is, which is spirit, which establishes the love of God as a spiritual reality.
We, as active believers, operate that love of God when we are in fellowship with God and it’s pretty easy to know when you are in fellowship. When we are in fellowship with God, we will do and speak godly things. Jesus Christ was the world’s greatest lover. All you have to do to see the love of God in action is to read the records in the Gospels. The Gospels are jam packed and yet, they are only a portion of what Jesus Christ did in his less than a year earthly ministry.
Sometimes we think of the love of God as soft and gentle and so on. It quite often is; and yet, when you read records in the Book of Acts regarding Paul and Peter and Stephen and others, there is a lot of violence involved in their walk as they confront various types of spirits trying to impede the movement of God’s Word.
There is a record in Acts 5 regarding a husband and wife name Ananias and Sapphira who were being dishonest in their dealings with God and they both dropped dead on the spot when confronted by Peter regarding their actions. That’s pretty violent, and yet Peter was walking with the love of God. He had to be operating the manifestations of the spirit.
Jesus was quite often having to deal with the violence and negativism of his surroundings. In John 8:42-44, he had to deal with religious leaders and their antagonism, ultimately telling them in Verse 44a “Ye are of your father the devil, and the lusts of you father ye will do.” It took a lot of love for him to stay his mind in this situation and to deal with it as he did.
In Acts 7, Stephen was dealing with the High Priest and other Judeans with him, who just didn’t get it after he had given them a wonderful outline of how God had worked with and taken care of His people from Abraham on up. To show their appreciation, they ended up stoning Stephen, and in Verse 60, it says, “And he [Stephen] kneeled down, and cried with a loud voice, Lord, lay not this sin to their charge. And when he had said this, he fell asleep.” Even when dying, he had enough love of God in his heart to forgive his murderers.
It’s unlikely that in our time, we will die for what we believe, but here we have a few examples of how the love of God worked in the lives of certain men. It’s not just the (phileo) – human kind of love; it’s a state of rest once we’ve worked God’s Word in our lives and it can only come from our loving, heavenly Father.
Philippians 4:8 tells us, “Finally brethren, whatsoever things are true, whatsoever things are honest, whatsoever things are just, whatsoever things are pure, whatsoever things are lovely, whatsoever things are of good report; if there be any virtue, and if there be any praise, think on these things.” These things all show the love of God and they are fun to think on because it’s fun to think godly thoughts.
So there you have a few thoughts on the love of God which can only come from God.
Thanks for reading! Respectfully submitted. Will Grove