Today’s Bible Study, Authored by Arthur
Cincotti. 05/29/2022
Listen to our Bible
Study Discussion at: Love Podcast
Or watch the Video Zoom Session of our Study on YouTube: Love Podcast Zoom Video on YouTube!
Love
“And now abide faith,
hope, and love, these three; but the greatest of these is love.” I Cor. 13:13
Our Trinitarian God
exalts His own character by giving us equations of threes. Three is an
interesting number because it requires three legs, or points of contact to form
a firm footing.
Three elements of a love
relationship, I believe, are choice, sacrifice and trust; and they are always
reciprocal.
If you consider our
relationship with Christ:
Choice: “Even before He made the world, God loved us and chose us…” Eph 1:4
But we
also made a choice also, “whoever calls on the name of he Lord shall be saved.” Rom.
10:13
Sacrifice: “For indeed Christ, our Passover, was sacrificed
for us.” I Co. 5:7 and “who for the joy
that was set before Him endured the cross.” Heb.
12:2
But
we are called to, “present your bodies a living sacrifice,
holy, acceptable to God,” Rom 12:1
And
to bring a, “sacrifice of praise into the house of the LORD.” Jer. 33:11
Trust: We are called to, “Trust in the LORD with all your heart, And lean not on your own understanding.” Pro. 3:5
“Now then,
we are ambassadors for Christ, as though God were pleading through us” II Cor. 5:20
But there is a problem with love, a purpose for
love and a presence of love.
The problem with love is that it can be easily faked or
sentimentalized.
I Jn. 4:20 says, “if someone says, ‘I love God,’ and hates
is brother, he is a liar; for he who does not love his brother whom he has
seen, how can he love God whom he has not seen?”
James is more particular
when he says, “With (the tongue) we bless our God and father, and with it we
curse men, who have been made in the similitude of God. Ja. 3:9
Finally, Paul says,
“though I bestow all my foods to feed the poor, and though I give my body to be
burned, but have not love…I Cor. 13:3
From this we see that we
can be double minded with our love and down right deceitful by demonstrating a
form of love without truth.
The purpose of love is that we would be like God. I Jn. 4:8, “God is
love.” I Jn. 3:2 goes on to say, “but we know that when He is revealed, we
shall be like Him, for we shall see Him as He is.” And finally, I Jn. 4:16
says, “we have known and believed the love that God has for us. God is love,
and he who abides in love abides in God, and God in him.”
Dr. Michael Heiser is
fond of saying, “God want’s a family” Any good father want’s his kids to be
like him particularly in their noblest attributes.
The presence of love brings us back to the word “abide”.
We see it all over these
verses in I Jn. The dynamic of abiding speaks of a presence in the present
tense; hear and now. “And now abide faith, hope, and love…” I
Cor. 13:13
We can’t give out of an
empty bank account. I Jn. 2:5,6, “But whoever keeps His word, truly the love of
God is perfected in him. By this we know that we are in Him. He who says he
abides in Him ought himself also to walk just as He walked.”
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Encouragement for the Path of Christian Discipleship
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