The apostle John described God at His very being as “love” (1 John 4:6). It is perhaps His most visible attribute, and therefore it ought to be ours as well! Yet in this church at Corinth, “love” was missing. Oh, they did not lack any spiritual gift, nor were they in error in any major doctrine, neither were they lazy in their efforts to reach the world, but love was absent!
Why is this so difficult for us Christians? We are not alone in our failure to live a life of love. Jesus rebuked the Church at Ephesus, which He first approved of for their:
•Labor under extreme trial
•Their purity
•The fact that they weren’t complainers
Then He said that they left their first love! They had become so busy maintaining separation that they neglected their adoration of Him. Paul is going to set us straight on “love,” but it is going to be God’s love, not what the world calls love.
This love is going to be defined for us, and we shall see that it is not mere “attraction” or “affection” that Paul is speaking of here, but rather he is speaking of “commitment”!
You will recall Paul said in his last sentence of chapter 12 that he would show us a “more excellent way.”
In 1 Corinthians 13:1-3, Paul speaks on the preeminence of love over every other gift. By doing so, he elevates the “fruit of the Spirit” above that of the “gifts of the Spirit,” because “love” is the motive or goal of the gifts, and it was what was missing in the church in Corinth. Someone has well said that agape love is the “circulatory system” of the body of Christ.
In Paul’s letter to the Galatians, he wrote of the fruit of the Spirit as “love,” which manifests itself in eight ways:
•Joy is love enjoying itself
•Peace is love resting
•Longsuffering is love waiting
•Kindness is love’s reaction
•Goodness is love’s choice
•Faithfulness is love keeping its word
•Gentleness is love’s empathy
•Self-control is love resisting temptation