You’ve heard this repeated at weddings; sometimes it’s printed right on the wedding bulletin. Here’s the funny thing….it doesn’t have anything to do with weddings.
Chapter 13 is commonly known as the “love” chapter. Obviously because it speaks about the importance of love. And again, obviously… love is important in marriage. In fact, everything that Paul says here can be applied to marriage without any problems. But he didn’t offer this advice to people getting married. He offered it to people serving the Lord in the context of the local church.
Chapter 13 is the second of three chapters on spiritual gifts. Much like the meat in a sandwich, it is the most important of the three. While chapters 12 and 14 talk about what gifts we have and why they are important, this chapter talks about how they are used. It doesn’t matter what gift you have if you don’t use it correctly. In fact, spiritual gifts can do more harm than good if they are used inappropriately.
Paul tells the church that unless they are filled with God’s love, they will not be able to use their gifts in the manner they were intended to be used. Okay, how do we “get filled with God’s love” then?
1. Obedience. Jesus says “this is how I will know that you love me, if you obey my commands”. As we obey, our love will grow.
2. Prayer. Not prayer about sicknesses and things like that. Prayer that asks for the fruit of the Spirit in our lives. Galatians 5:22 talks about the fruit of the Spirit. The fruit of the Spirit is evident in our lives when we ask to be filled with the Spirit. We should pray to be “Spirit filled”. You cannot love in the way 1 Cor 13 talks about without being filled with the Spirit, and modeling this fruit. By the way, it’s all one, with many different facets. You can’t pray for kindness without patience, or joy without love.
3. Practice. You won’t always get it right the first time…but you will get it right. God loves you, and because He does, he is patient and kind and longsuffering. He will stick with you and help you get it right.
4. Community. Community has to be practiced as well. Gifts can’t be used correctly without any interaction with others, so we need to be around people in order for this to work.
When I was a few years younger I was learning to downhill ski. A friend was trying to teach me how to turn my skis, and I was finding it very difficult. Then he said “it’s a lot easier to do when you are going downhill” And I found that to be true. It was a little scarier, but easier also. Spiritual gifts and operating in love work best when we are in community, doing something that brings glory to Jesus. If you are trying to understand them completely from a classroom setting, you will find them hard to handle. Use them, and make sure you are soaking in Jesus every day, so that the fragrance of His presence always permeates your gifts.
looking forward to basking in Jesus,
PR