Spiritual Gifts + Love (by JR BAKER)

The buildup In chapters 12 and 14 of this same book, Paul is really doing a lot of clarification for the people of Corinth, in regards to spiritual gifts and what they’re all about. he’s very clear and firm on the issues they had struggled with and wants to be sure that they understand, as clearly as possible, what this is truly all about.

most excellent and greatest

Now, as Paul is flowing into the chapter 13, the one on love, he starts out by mentioning that the way of love is the most excellent way.  he wants you to know, right off the bat, that even though living out all these spiritual gifts is crucial to the body and an absolute part of life in Christ, that a life of love is the most excellent way to live. 

and just to make sure that we don’t miss it, he ends the chapter by coming back to the fact that love is the most excellent way and he says that after all the gifts have faded away, that faith, hope and love will remain, but the greatest of these is love.  Paul starts and ends the chapter on love, making sure we are fully aware of the fact that love is absolutely imperative to all of these other things we have been discussing.

in fact, living a life of love is so vital to the life of the church and of the believer that he goes on a little bit of a rant pointing out just how much you’d be lacking if you went out and did all these incredibly spiritual things but did them without love.  he talks about how you can be a spiritual giant, and do so much for so many, and yet be completely missing it if you don’t have love as the foundation.

i told the story about how in seminary, i was doing all these good little church things with all of my free time, i was preaching and leading bible studies, i was mentoring college guys and discipling folks, and yet my competitive nature led me to get so upset about a flipping volleyball game, that i actually made the referee cry…i, the pastor, made this sweet, little, girl referee cry⎯i am a horrible human being.

the reality is that the lost of the world couldn’t care less about all your great spiritual accolades and wonderful community service and awesome prayers if they don’t see and experience the love in your life.  i hope you’re getting the point that love is absolutely fundamental to our lives.

The focus
in our culture, love is often misconstrued and it gets mixed up with so many other things.  we confuse emotions and feelings and lust and movie-love and the list goes on, with what God is actually desiring for us to live out with each other, in the body of Christ.

because of this problem, Paul does something extremely helpful and gives us this nice little checklist of what exactly the love of Christ is to look like.  He tells us exactly what this love is and it’s a pretty thorough list of challenging things.  it is a list that i know for a fact that i have not mastered and chances are, will never come close.  we can definitely take out the word love and try putting our name in the blank and see just how well we measure up.  unfortunately, most of us would not stack up to well with Christ.

essentially this list is the perfect description of a beautiful, selfless, sacrificial love that puts others before ourselves.  it goes right back to the Greatest Commandment and the simple point that Jesus makes about us loving God first and then loving our neighbor.  we have got to improve on this because the world around us is dying and it desperately needs to see the beautiful love of Christ that we see so clearly in the cross.

and i hate to be the bearer of bad news and please don’t shoot the messenger, but the truth is…love is difficult.  it is hard to live this out, it is a challenge to live this out, it is something that each and everyone of us need to actively seek out and pray about on a regular basis, so that we can try and be more and more like Christ. 

we’ve got work to do, so lets quit making excuses and get on with it.

challenges and discussion

* pray for the group and one another and that the Spirit would show you where you need to improve in these areas and how you can practically be more loving

* which attribute of love do you struggle the most with? why do you think this is?

* if you were to remove love from that list and put your name in its place, how would you stack up to the ideal?

* do pray for the ability to be more loving as often as you pray for yourself, your friends, your spiritual gifts, etc.?

* if Jesus said that love was the greatest commandment and numerous other authors throughout scripture say this as well, why do you think we choose to focus on so many other things more than we do the aspect of love?

* the beatles have a famous song that says, “all you need is love”…how can this concept that love is “all you need” be dangerous to us in the church? or do you think it is great?

* what is one thing from the sermon that you really felt like God was speaking directly to you and whispering right in your ear?

* in Galatians 5:22, love is the first attribute listed in the fruits of the spirit…do you think that it is listed first for a reason? why or why not?

* this week, try your hardest to love those where it doesn’t come naturally.  it is easy to love my wife, my best friend, my family, etc., but what about those others? be intentional in stepping out in love in new and powerful ways.