Love is the Golden Chain of All the Virtues (or The Greatest of These is Love)
by admin ~ October 27th, 2009
Love is the highest among the spiritual gifts because it is the only one which is eternal.
How is that? Because all the other gifts have an end. In Heaven, what is the need for prophecy, or for tongues? Nor for knowledge such as is now given by the Spirit, for it is a partial thing, which will give place in Heaven to that which is complete.
Grasp this incredible thought as well–in God Himself there is not even place for faith nor hope, there is only love.
Truly love is the only thing which has been from all eternity, and will continue to be to all eternity. Therefore, it really is greater even than faith and hope (though our redemption is dependent on faith and hope, without which we cannot achieve this love).
Love is indeed the thing of eternity which, in our mortal state, man can truly possess here and now in its true essence.
As you immerse yourself in such humbling truth, contemplate the immense glory of God’s wondrous and amazing love as we provide a few verses for meditation. . .
1 Corinthians 13:7-8a – Love knows no limit to its endurance, no end to its trust, no fading of its hope; it can outlast anything. It is, in fact, the one thing that still stands when all else has fallen.
All gifts except love will be superseded one day
13:8b-10 – For if there are prophecies they will be fulfilled and done with, if there are “tongues” the need for them will disappear, if there is knowledge it will be swallowed up in truth. For our knowledge is always incomplete and our prophecy is always incomplete, and when the complete comes, that is the end of the incomplete.
13:13 – In this life we have three great lasting qualities—faith, hope and love. But the greatest of them is love.
14:1a – Follow, then, the way of love, while you set your heart on the gifts of the Spirit.
Christian love – the highest and best gift
12:31b – And now I will show you what is the highest way of all.
13:1-3 – If I speak with the eloquence of men and of angels, but have no love, I become no more than blaring brass or crashing cymbal. If I have the gift of foretelling the future and hold in my mind not only all human knowledge but the very secrets of God, and if I also have that absolute faith which can move mountains, but have no love, I amount to nothing at all. If I dispose of all that I possess, yes, even if I give my own body to be burned, but have no love, I achieve precisely nothing.
13:4 – This love of which I speak is slow to lose patience—it looks for a way of being constructive. It is not possessive: it is neither anxious to impress nor does it cherish inflated ideas of its own importance.
13:5-6 – Love has good manners and does not pursue selfish advantage. It is not touchy. It does not keep account of evil or gloat over the wickedness of other people. On the contrary, it is glad with all good men when truth prevails.
And try and live the love described in these words
Colossians 3:12-14 – As, therefore, God’s hand-picked representatives of the new humanity, purified and beloved of God himself, be merciful in action, kindly in heart, humble in mind. Accept life, and be most patient and tolerant with one another, always ready to forgive if you have a difference with anyone. Forgive as freely as the Lord has forgiven you. And, above everything else, be truly loving, for love is the golden chain of all the virtues.
We encourage you to search out the truth of these matters. . .
We discuss such teachings regularly in our writings and other Ministry services, especially in our Daily Scripture Reading Service, where each day we go in depth as we wrap the Daily Scripture Reading with an informative and spirit-filled Inductive Bible Study. The amazing love of God is always at the core of each ten minute daily podcast, and the doctrine is always in support of the culmination of God’s love—the Gospel of Salvation, as fully, finally and completely revealed to us in Scripture and portrayed so powerfully in the writings of the Early Church Fathers (and in many of the continuing traditions of the Church). You can learn more at: http://www.cjrpress.com.
(c) Copyright – Paul Rakowicz. All Rights Reserved Worldwide.
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