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In Christ, Mark
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The scriptures. May God bless the reading of His holy word.
Love never fails.
1 Corinthians 13:8a
This ends this reading from God's holy word. Thanks be to God.
God’s Word is inerrant, perfectly true, and without flaw. One affirmation of this is in the Book of Proverbs, chapter 30, verse 5:
Every word of God is flawless.
We also see this in the 119th chapter of the Book of Psalms:
See how I love Your precepts; preserve my life, Lord, in accordance with Your love. All Your words are true. Vv. 159-160a
Finally, while praying for His disciples, Jesus said these words to His Father God:
“My prayer is not that You take them out of the world but that You protect them from the evil one. They are not of the world, even as I am not of it. Sanctify them by the truth; Your word is truth.” John 17:15-17
Now, you might be wondering why this message on love, the third of this short series as we wrap up the season of Advent, would begin with a discussion about the complete infallibility of the scriptures. Well, we need to establish and verify this because of these three very important words found within what is known as the Bible’s love chapter: 1 Corinthians, chapter 13.
Love never fails. v.8a
It really doesn’t.
You see, we are the ones who fail. We fail to properly exercise the faultless love of the Bible in our dealings with one another, a love that first begins by giving all our devotion to God, every bit of it from our heart and soul and mind. As we saw in the first message in this series, we’re commanded to do this and when we’re obedient to that command, giving the Lord our full devotion, then His love becomes our love as we are completely yoked with Him. We can then go onto fulfill the second great commandment spoken by Jesus to love our neighbors (Matthew 24:34-39).
Friends, the love that comes from God is as indefective as His Word and when shared with others, this love never fails. Going back to 1 Corinthians 13, it’s a love that looks like this:
Love is patient, love is kind. It does not envy, it does not boast, it is not proud. It does not dishonor others, it is not self-seeking, it is not easily angered, it keeps no record of wrongs. Love does not delight in evil but rejoices with the truth. It always protects, always trusts, always hopes, always perseveres. Vv. 4-7
These verses show us where things go wrong in our relationship with God and the people of this world. For we are the ones who are imperfect and therefore to blame when the love we’re commanded to doesn’t work out, not that love itself.
And so if we’re ever going to hope to love as we should, to love in a way that never fails, then we need to love as Jesus did for as we know, He was God in the flesh, a truth that started with His birth in Bethlehem’s manger, a birth we’re ready to celebrate with great joy and excitement in two days.
Before I close, let me address one more thing that’s very important. For what do we do when we extend the love prescribed by the scriptures to someone and they don’t love us back in return?
The answer is simple.
Don’t stop loving that person because we know that love never fails.
Here’s a real life illustration for you, one that’s very personal for me.
My wife, Grace, and I just celebrated our 33rd wedding anniversary, a testimony to how the Lord’s love endures between two people over time, bringing abundant blessings within a relationship between a man and woman who truly become one flesh. And although it has been a joyous ride together, things didn’t exactly begin in storybook fashion for we faced a major dilemma at the very beginning of our relationship.
You see, Grace and I are a bi-racial couple. She is black and I am white...and although skin color obviously wasn’t a big deal for us as we were fell in love with one another, it surprisingly became an issue with my parents, especially my father who essentially excommunicated me.
And so my dad didn’t attend our wedding, although my mother did and after that, Grace and I went north to visit several times but my father conveniently left the house, leaving us to just visit with my mom. To say it was hurtful is an understatement and if I’m honest, I was angry, angry that I was never raised with a bias that obviously was under the surface of what my dad believed.
With all this, I wasn’t sure how to respond.
On one hand, the world and Satan were urging me to respond in kind to my father. An eye for an eye. If he didn’t want me (us) in his life, then I can do likewise.
But the Lord had other things in mind and I was drawn to the love chapter in 1 Corinthians, chapter 13, specifically to those three magic words:
Love never fails.
And so the Lord, through His perfect Word, led me to keep loving my father, even if he didn’t love us back. I sent him cards on his birthday and Christmas with gifts inside, letting him know that I (we) loved him. There was never reciprocation but I refused to give up.
Finally, I was contacted by my sister who lives about an hour from my parents and asked if we would attend a family reunion she was coordinating. My other siblings were all going to be able to attend and of course my first concern was regarding my father and how he would receive us. My sister told me that he wanted to reconcile.
And so we made an eight hour drive to attend the reunion and when we arrived at my parent’s home, my dad was inside and so I went in first as Grace opted to remain outside for the moment. I can honestly say that I had never seen my father so overcome with emotion. He was weeping inconsolably and so I went and sat next to him on the couch, put my arm around him, and told him it was okay, that I loved and forgave him.
He couldn’t understand that. How could I love him when he had treated me (us) so horribly?
In answer to his question, I told him that if God could love and forgive a sinner like me by willingly giving up His only Son to save me, then I could love and forgive anyone the same.
Then, Grace came into the house and met my dad for the very first time. He began sobbing again, much worse than the first time, and my wife did just what I did, embracing my father and letting him know she loved him.
Brothers and sisters, from that day on until his passing some twenty-one years later in 2011, my dad treated Grace as if she was one of his own. To this day, I believe he was really trying to make amends for what he had done and what helped this effort was the wonderful miracle that also came from that day. For my dad, who would only go to church if he was forced to on major holidays like Easter and Christmas, began attending a small church every single Sunday. He gave his life to Jesus and truly became a new creation through Him (2 Corinthians 5:17).
After this, I couldn’t help but think how either Grace or I or the both of us together could have messed things up if we hadn’t chosen the right option, to love and forgive as Christ does, a love and forgiveness that never fails.
I don’t know what your relationships look like as we get set to rejoice in the birth of our Savior but I pray that this message can offer you encouragement and hope where things may be strained or broken. In those instances, don’t ever stop loving as your commanded and never lose faith in what the Lord might be doing in the process because God’s Word is truth and His Word says that love never fails.
Amen.
In Christ,
Mark
PS: Feel free to leave a comment and please share this with anyone you feel might be blessed by it. Send any prayer requests to TheChristianWalkPrayers@gmail.com.
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