Culture makes it harder for usto understand love

“Meanwhile, these three remain: faith, hope and love; and the greatest of these is love.” (1 Corinthians 13:13, GNB)

The greatest of these is love.

That’s an amazing statement about love, considering the other two virtues the Apostle Paul mentions to the church at Corinth.

Faith in Christ is what gets us to heaven. Hope sustains us in life’s roughest waters. Without either, we’re eternally sunk! Yet love is greater still?

Unlike faith and hope, love is eternal.

One day, when this life is over, faith and hope will be historic virtues from our viewpoint in heaven. As Christians, our faith will have been completed, and our hope secured.

No longer will we need to live by faith, or hope for heaven; we will have arrived. Love, however, is enduring into eternity.

Heaven is a place where perfect love is expressed. The Bible says this life is merely a warm-up session, an endless process of learning to love as God loves.

That’s why Paul later tells the Corinthian believers to pursue love above all else.

Love is more important than any other virtue or worthy Christian work. It is the catalyst for good works that have any value in God’s eyes: “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 be of no value whatsoever.” (1 Corinthians 13:3, NLT).

Regrettably, today’s culture clouds our understanding of love. In the coming days, millions of dollars will be spent on flowers and chocolates and hotel rooms in the name of love. That’s a good thing; God invented romance.

But in some cases, those expressions will not be of godly love but something else, something man-made, something that frankly will not endure.

The Bible says genuine, God-sized love is “patient and kind. Love is not jealous or boastful or proud or rude. Love does not demand its own way. Love is not irritable, and it keeps no record when it has been wronged. It is never glad about injustice, but rejoices whenever the truth wins out. Love never gives up, never loses faith, is always hopeful, and endures through every circumstance.” (1 Corinthians 13:4-7, NLT).

This amazing, selfless love is what God demonstrated when he sent his own son, Jesus, to the cross to pay man’s debt of sin. And it is precisely the kind of love Christians are encouraged to emulate above all else.

Perhaps in no other relationship is this love better demonstrated than within marriage. The Bible tells us that marriage is a bond that depicts Christ’s love for his church. It’s a bond not intended to be broken.

It saddens me to know that there is no appreciable difference in the divorce rate among Christians and non-Christians.

It seems those who have been blessed with divine, sacrificial love have just as hard a time expressing it as those who have not. The results for families and our society have been tragic.

I wonder if we believe the world’s lies about love and marriage. The world tells us to find the right person, fall in love, and center our hopes and dreams in that person. It is a recipe for failure.

Our spouse will fail us in some way, at some time, just as we will fail them. Bank on it.

If our love is all tied up in who they are, or what they do, we’re in big trouble. Ask any divorce lawyer.

God’s word, instead, tells us to be the right person. We’re to be grounded in relationship with the Lord Jesus Christ above everyone and everything else.

Then we’re to walk in the love of Christ, selflessly giving ourselves to our spouse. Walking in love is all about sacrifice and commitment, not getting someone to change into our preferred image of how they should be.

God loves us so much, he gave us what we needed most when we deserved it the least – unconditional love and forgiveness. That’s our model for love in marriage.

God’s word also encourages us to place our hope in him and please him through our relationships.

I’ll never forget my wedding day, almost 16 years ago. My wife, Pam, was so beautiful as she walked down the aisle toward me. That was bliss.

But it pales in comparison to the view I now have of her heart, a heart that loves the Lord Jesus, and as a result is compelled to share that love with me.

The makers of candies, cards and candles would help me express my feelings for her this time of year. But of all the options out there, I really believe “the greatest of these is love.”