Read: 1 Corinthians 13: 1-3
Focus: 1 Corinthians 13: 3

Verse 3: “If I give all I possess to the poor and surrender my body to the flames, but have not love, I gain nothing.”

God has gifted us with the ability to achieve many many great things. We can acquire wealth. We can show compassion on those in need. We can rally people up to give to a very meaningful cause. We can give our time, resources and energy to the church, or any other cause that may seem Godly.

The people around us may thank us and we may receive a lot of positive feedback because of what we have done but if we did it without the love that God instills in us – we have nothing.

We need to realise that the almighty God created us. He created us in His image. Surely that means that we can do pretty incredible things in our own strength. Bill Gates designed windows and subsequently became the richest man in the world earning millions a day. He did that on his own. Hitler raged a war on the Jewish nation that shocks the world even to this day. He did that on his own. Oprah Winfrey has become the most influential women in the world and she did that on her own.

People are beautiful creations and are capable of many great things. That’s how God created us! However, like we have seen in the previous verses, without love guiding our thoughts and actions, without love guiding us to obedience, without love moulding our success – we have nothing.

We can look at it another way as well. God created us in His image. Is it possible then that we are designed perfectly to carry the love of God? I believe we are, and I believe that our primary purpose is to display God’s love to the people around us. As we obey God in loving those around us, we love God in our obedience to Him.

You see, unless we are fulfilling the purpose we were created for, the purpose God created us for – we have achieved nothing in the eyes of our God. That’s because ‘love is our purpose.’ in Matthew this is commanded to us by Jesus as the Greatest Commandment (Matt 22: 36-38)

“”Teacher, which is the greatest commandment in the Law?” Jesus replied: ” ‘Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind.’ This is the first and greatest commandment.”

Related Posts

1. Finding Purpose Through Love: Talk is Cheap!
2. Finding Purpose Through Love: The Most Excellent Way!!
3. Love each other – Intro

READ: 1 Corinthians 13: 1-3
FOCUS: 1 Corinthians 13: 1

“Verse 1: If I speak in the tongues of men and of angels, but have not love, I am only a resounding gong or a clanging cymbal”

A man decides that he wants to marry the girl that he is currently dating. He surprises her with tickets to Cape Town for the weekend and they spend the Saturday driving around the garden route and stop for lunch at a quiet wine estate. That afternoon they are driving back the Cape Town and the gentleman surprises her once again with a Hot Air Balloon ride. She has always dreamed of this moment and now it is finally happening.

Up in the balloon with the Ocean on the one side, lapping the shore beneath them, and the Cape Winelands stretching out on the other side. He turns to her and recites a poem that he has been struggling to write for the last few months. The words are the most eloquent words she has ever heard, they touch her deep in her heart. She feels so much in love with the man before her. He asks her to marry him and she accepts.

Heres the hiccup:

Later on in life the man becomes complacent and his new wife starts to feel unloved because of his selfish behavior. As much as he says he loves her she will not feel loved. He can buy her all the presents in the world and she will not feel loved. What she needs is obedience… That man promised to love her, to care for her, to respect her, to build her up, to help her and to support her.
As he became complacent in their relationship he started spending more time at work, less time with his wife, more time with friends on the weekends and less time helping her around the house, more time in front of the TV and less time talking to her like they used to.

This man has become disobedient to the very promise that he made to his wife.

My wife once said to me when I told her I loved her that I don’t need to tell her, but rather my actions towards her would tell her that I love her. (This is why I love her so much!!)

How often do we proclaim our love to God. We sing “How Great is our God”, “I Love You Lord” and “Blessed be your name.” But it is our obedience to the laws in His Word that gives those words meaning, that brings those words to life in Gods eyes.

Our words and even the words of angels are a resounding gong. A loud harsh noise that only attracts the attention of those around us. If we want our words to mean something more than a ‘resounding gong’ to your heavenly father then we should make sure that our lives are obedient to His laws, to His ideals, to His will, so that He can see that we really mean the words we say to him.

ACTIONS SPEAK LOUDER THAN WORDS!!

1 John 5:3 gives us a litmus test of how our love for God is shown to God.

“This is love for God: to obey His commands. And His commands are not burdensome.”

Everything you do at church or at home in your attempt to show God that you love Him will only been seen as love if your heart is in such a place that you are not burdened by God’s commands. Rather you see the purpose of His commands and how they actually set you free.

Note: God’s commands are not designed to restrict us but rather to aid us in living fuller lives in Christ who saved us and the God who loves us

Related Posts

1. Finding Purpose Through Love: The Most Excellent Way!!
2. Finding Purpose in Love: Our Motive is Never Hidden from God
3. Love each other… How – Sacrifice…

READ: 1 Corinthians 12 & 13: 1-3
FOCUS: 1 Corinthians 13: 1-3

“If I speak in the tongues of men and of angels, but have not love, I am only a resounding gong or a clanging cymbal. If I have the gift of prophecy and can fathom all mysteries and all knowledge, and if I have a faith that can move mountains, but have not love, I am nothing. If I give all I possess to the poor and surrender my body to the flames, but have not love, I gain nothing.”

Have you ever wondered about God’s plan? Asked yourself where you fit in? How you fit in or even if you fit into God will? This passage of scripture we are looking at today should help you answer that question.

Paul, the most well known apostle today, talks about our spiritual gifts in chapter 12. We are told to use our gifts and that we should not desire those gifts that God has not given us, but to rather commit to those things that God has called us to. God gives us gifts in order to give us a place in His will. It is this place in God’s will that so many Christians are struggling to find.

In looking at our purpose our questions should not be ‘What am I supposed to be doing?’ but rather ‘Who am I doing this for?’. You see these two questions will lead us to very different answers. The first question asks about ‘me’ and focuses on ‘me’, and the second question asks about God and focuses on God. We cannot find our purpose in God unless we let go of ourselves and allow God to do His work in us.

Here’s an example from Chapter 12:

If we search for what we should be doing then we focus on our ability to get something done. We say things like, “That cant be God’s will, I am no good at that!” or we become proud because we are good at the purpose we discovered. This pride becomes a problem in ministry but so does the lack of involvement when we don’t feel equipped. Both of these mindsets can create a problem because they focus on ’self’ rather than God.

So Paul shows us in Chapter 12 that we should not pursue the gifts we would like but rather to focus on the gifts and roles that God calls us to. That way we all end up working together towards a common purpose and we stop trying to out do each other with our own spirituality and abilities.

So how do we find our purpose if we are not meant to look for our gifting? What’s interesting is that as Paul discusses the intricacies of finding God’s will in our lives in chapter 12 he suddenly describes to us THE MOST EXCELLENT WAY.  This is the MOST EXCELLENT WAY to find your purpose in God’s will.

Quite simply Paul says in no uncertain terms that Love is the way that we find our purpose. We need to take our focus away from trying to find our gifts and purpose and simply love God. In fact, our primary purpose is to love God.

We often look at this passage (1 Cor 13) in an attempt to understand love. We normally gloss over the comparison section (verses 1-3) and skip straight to the ‘love is patient’ section. The problem with this is that the comparison part of this scripture is the section that shows us HOW to love. More importantly it shows us how to love God.  Paul is basically telling us that our gifting is not our purpose. We will never find our purpose in finding our gifts and talents. Our purpose is greater than doing what we are gifted at, our purpose is to love God.

In the next few studies we will look at a few aspects of loving God as we continue to look at 1 Corinthians 13:1-3

Related Posts

1. Finding Purpose in Love: Our Motive is Never Hidden from God
2. Finding Purpose Through Love: Talk is Cheap!
3. Love each other – Intro