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Expectant Prayers ®

Jennifer Jo Weiss

The Greatest is Love

"And now these three remain: faith, hope and love.
But the greatest of these is love."

 1 Corinthians 13:13


In the past few days,  I have been writing about key issues that will strengthen our Christian walk for the hours ahead.  The first two I mentioned were faith and hope.  Walking hand in hand, faith and hope partner up through the power of the Holy Spirit to empower the believer.   They are essential in this hour and the enemy knows full well that if were to destroy our faith and hope, defeating us would not be too difficult.    Today I would like to discuss the greatest of all the keys to our Christian walk ...LOVE.

When I began to pray this morning over this blog, I got a vision in the Spirit of what faith, hope, and love do in a believer's life.   This can be viewed in a larger scale than what I saw, but I saw a blooming flower. 

Faith is the seed planted in the ground of our hearts and lives. That little seed (of faith) contains everything needed to make a strong healthy "plant".  It just needed good soil to grow, rained upon by the Holy Spirit, and for the Son to shine down upon it.  The seed is what becomes rooted and foundational.  Hope is the stalk of promise that slowly sprouts and begins to grow.  It's the shimmer of hope that what has been planted will come to full fruition.   Finally the plant will bloom and open up a beautiful flower.  The fruition has come!  The unfolded, fresh petals reveal something beautiful... and that's what love is.  The flower also contains the seeds, so as love come into fruition, it will perpetuate more of the same.  What a beautiful picture!   The evidence of what was hoped for!

Just as faith and hope are ultimately a work of the Spirit in us, so is love. It is one of the "fruits" that that proves what kind of creation we are.  If we don't have the fruit of love showing in our lives, then we are like the fig tree that didn't bear figs... and we all know what happened to the fig tree.  Jesus cursed it and it withered up!  He is the vine and we are the branches.  Any branch that doesn't bear fruit is pruned!

We tend to romanticize "love", but the truth is, there would be no love without God.    1 John 4:16 tells us, "God is love."  His love is made complete in us (1 John 4:12) and that nothing can separate us from His love (Romans 8:39).  Love  will endure forever.  1 Chronicles 16:34 says, "Give thanks to the LORD, for He is good; His love endures forever."     

  Isn't it amazing that the Creator of all things chose to instigate agape love toward us first?  We didn't earn it, we didn't deserve it, yet He lavishes it upon us.  Love gives us "worth".  When we are loved it validates our existence.1 Corinthians 8:3 says, "But the man who loves God is known by God."

We need to learn to love ourselves, others, and God more in these last days.  We cannot effectively love unless we know the love of God the Father - made complete in us. 

Let's refresh our memories by looking at 1 Corinthians 13:13 today from the Message:

1
If I speak with human eloquence and angelic ecstasy but don't love, I'm nothing but the creaking of a rusty gate. 2If I speak God's Word with power, revealing all His mysteries and making everything plain as day, and if I have faith that says to a mountain, "Jump," and it jumps, but I don't love, I'm nothing. 3-7If I give everything I own to the poor and even go to the stake to be burned as a martyr, but I don't love, I've gotten nowhere. So, no matter what I say, what I believe, and what I do, I'm bankrupt without love.

   Love never gives up.
   Love cares more for others than for self.
   Love doesn't want what it doesn't have.
   Love doesn't strut,
   Doesn't have a swelled head,
   Doesn't force itself on others,
   Isn't always "me first,"
   Doesn't fly off the handle,
   Doesn't keep score of the sins of others,
   Doesn't revel when others grovel,
   Takes pleasure in the flowering of truth,
   Puts up with anything,
   Trusts God always,
   Always looks for the best,
   Never looks back,
   But keeps going to the end.

 8-10Love never dies. Inspired speech will be over some day; praying in tongues will end; understanding will reach its limit. We know only a portion of the truth, and what we say about God is always incomplete. But when the Complete arrives, our incompletes will be canceled.

 11When I was an infant at my mother's breast, I gurgled and cooed like any infant. When I grew up, I left those infant ways for good.

 12We don't yet see things clearly. We're squinting in a fog, peering through a mist. But it won't be long before the weather clears and the sun shines bright! We'll see it all then, see it all as clearly as God sees us, knowing Him directly just as He knows us!

 13But for right now, until that completeness, we have three things to do to lead us toward that consummation: Trust steadily in God, hope unswervingly, love extravagantly. And the best of the three is love.


Lord, 

Help us to love you with all our mind, heart, soul, and strength so that we may overflow with your love to those around us.  We want love in our lives to be extravagant.  Love looks at things from Your perspective, not ours.   Teach us how to love and how to accept love when given to us.    We may be the only love of God that someone sees today.   Help me to radiate your love by the power of Your Spirit.  Draw men unto You through Your love today.  Amen.



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