All You Need Is Love...

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1 Corinthians 13:4–7 (NASB) Love is patient, love is kind and is not jealous; love does not brag and is not arrogant, does not act unbecomingly; it does not seek its own, is not provoked, does not take into account a wrong suffered, does not rejoice in unrighteousness, but rejoices with the truth; love bears all things, believes all things, hopes all things, endures all things.

What It Is Speaking to Me

If I were to ask you when you first heard this set of verses, playing the odds I would say it was either at church or at a wedding. They are popular wedding verses, and for good reason. Marriage partners that love each other in this way will not have to worry about a good marriage. They have it.

But Paul didn't write these verses as a marriage liturgy or just to husbands and wives. He wrote it to the church. First the Corinthian church, and then by extension to us. Let me tell you, if you didn't already know, the Corinthian church was a mess. And when I say a mess, I really mean it.

They had:

• Factions over preachers

• A man sleeping with his stepmother, and the church was proud about it

• Members suing each other in secular courts

• Sexual immorality treated as spiritually irrelevant

• Confusion about marriage, singleness, and divorce

• Abusing the Lord's Supper, with folks getting drunk on communion wine and rich members feasting while poor members went hungry

• Spiritual gift competitions and abuse, especially tongues as a status symbol

• Some members denying the bodily resurrection of Jesus altogether

If you or I visited a church like that, we would run screaming for the hills. Yet Paul writes them 1 Corinthians to try and help them clean up this huge mess. What is one of the things he brings into focus for them?

Love.

The kind of love Paul defined is powerful. It builds the body of Christ together. It binds up wounds and at the same time keeps new wounds from forming. If I am living out this kind of love for my church family, my nuclear family, my neighbors, my coworkers...what does that look like?

• Can I get impatient, rude, or jealous with them? No.

• Can I get easily angered or annoyed with them? No.

• Can I get arrogant, selfish, or bitter with them? No.

• Can I give up or believe the worst of them? No.

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If you stop to think about it, just about every disagreement, fight, spat, or tiff you have with someone boils down to one issue. One or both of you is not loving the other enough. I didn't say not at all. I said enough.

I am not trying to call anyone to the carpet by saying this. In fact, I see it as an encouragement. My problems with others are really simple. I need to love them more. And they may need to love me more. If we do that...problem solved. So, so many problems solved. And if we keep loving each other, problems don't come back. Paul's letter helped the Christians in Corinth. And it can help us today.

Love.

Maybe The Beatles were onto something...

What Is It Saying to You?

• Which one of these facets of love do you do well? Which one...not so much?

• Think of a time you had a love problem, not a person problem.

• Do you have one happening now? How can you love them better?

What Are We Going to Do About It?

Choose one specific phrase from this passage (e.g., "Love is not easily angered") and apply it to your most difficult relationship today.