By Nick (My Experience As...)
Love is the Greatest
1 If I could speak all the languages of earth and of angels, but didn’t love others, I would only be a noisy gong or a clanging cymbal. 2 If I had the gift of prophecy, and if I understood all of God’s secret plans and possessed all knowledge, and if I had such faith that I could move mountains, but didn’t love others, I would be nothing. 3 If I gave everything I have to the poor and even sacrificed my body, I could boast about it; but if I didn’t love others, I would have gained nothing.
4 Love is patient and kind. Love is not jealous or boastful or proud 5 or rude. It does not demand its own way. It is not irritable, and it keeps no record of being wronged. 6 It does not rejoice about injustice but rejoices whenever the truth wins out. 7 Love never gives up, never loses faith, is always hopeful, and endures through every circumstance.
8 Prophecy and speaking in unknown languages and special knowledge will become useless. But love will last forever! 9 Now our knowledge is partial and incomplete, and even the gift of prophecy reveals only part of the whole picture! 10 But when full understanding comes, these partial things will become useless.
11 When I was a child, I spoke and thought and reasoned as a child. But when I grew up, I put away childish things. 12 Now we see things imperfectly as in a cloudy mirror, but then we will see everything with perfect clarity. All that I know now is partial and incomplete, but then I will know everything completely, just as God now knows me completely.
13 Three things will last forever—faith, hope, and love—and the greatest of these is love.
If you have been a Christian for more than five seconds this is probably a familiar passage. My wife can quote it by heart, and often does. Not in the “you need to learn what love is so you can treat me right” kind of way (I probably deserve it but she gets the passage and know that would be missing the point). No, she tends to remind me when I’m getting bent out of shape on something trivial with someone else. She’s pretty compassionate like that.
I think this is all a lesson we want our children to learn too. I pray for my kids to know what real love is, so when they start dating (around 30) they won’t be fooled by someone telling them how much they “love” them.
The problem with some prayers, maybe most, is we can’t successfully pray for those things if we don’t do something to put our faith into action. Look at all the times Jesus moved. People put their faith into action. Three young men climbed a roof, pulled their paralyzed friend up, tore a hole in the roof and lowered their friend down to the feet of Jesus. Because of their faith the teen was healed. (I believe these were teens because I work with teens and have decided only a teenager would think to pull this off … well a teen or youth pastor). Another time a woman was suffering and did everything for healing, but in her desperation she pushed through the crowd and touched the edge of Christ’s garment. Her actions brought her healing.
Time and time again Jesus rewarded faith in action. I wonder how many silently prayed for healing and never received when Jesus walked past because they didn’t move?
What does this have to do with love? Simply this, if we merely pray that our children learn the love of God, they will never come to that place. We must pray, this is sure, but we must also demonstrate this love to them. Show them God’s love in how we treat them, and also others. In this God will honor our prayers and our children will never be the clanging gong of useless blather we see in this dead and loveless world.
[Editor's Note: This post is the fifth contribution to a wonderful series we are doing on Biblical virtues and praying for our children. I firmly believe that as parents, it is part of our responsibility, and an honor, to pray to our Father in heaven on behalf of our children. I pray you are blessed and encouraged by the words of these posts and that you will join me in my passion for growing strong, confident, loving, honorable and faithful children of God. If you missed the first four posts, be sure to go and read them: Love for God's Word, Salvation for the Next Generation, Praying for the Willingness and Ability to Work and Biblical Self-Esteem: I'm Good Enough, I'm Smart Enough... Or Am I?]
Nick is a husband and father to four children all of whom he loves dearly. He is also a youth pastor to over 50 students, a great writer and a whiz with computers. He has a fabulous blog where he shares his Experience as a Husband, Father, Youth Pastor, Geek and Jesus Freak. Be sure to go check it out.