More Love To, From, and In Thee

Love is the most excellent way.  But it is also an impossible way.

None of us loves like 1 Corinthians 13, at least not fully and constantly.  Only One has ever lived in this more excellent way.  Only one  man has ever loved like this.  Only one person will love you like this.  “Beloved, let us love one another, for love is from God, and whoever loves has been born of God and knows God.  Anyone who does not love does not know God, because God is love.  In this the love of God was made manifest among us, that God sent his only Son into the world, so that we might live through him.  In this is love, not that we have loved God but that he loved us and sent his Son to be the propitiation for our sins” (1 John 4:7-10).

Some people say a loving God would not pour out his wrath on his Son for sins he didn’t commit. They think they are protecting the love by opposing penal substitutionary atonement. But really they are poaching it. Those who hate propitiation hate what God considers the epitome of love. It’s only in the sacrifice of the Son of God that we know what love is really like.  “God shows his love for us in that while we were still sinners, Christ died for us” (Rom. 5:8).

You will never live out your marriage vows or live life to the glory of God unless you learn to love.  And you will not learn to love unless you learn to love Jesus.  And you will not learn to love Jesus unless you learn to embrace his dying love on the cross for sinners. Greater love has no one than this, that someone lay down his perfect life for his friends. 1 Corinthians 13 in the flesh.

Jesus is patient and kind.  Jesus does not envy or boast.  Jesus is not arrogant or rude.  Jesus did not insist on his own way, but submitted himself to his Father in heaven.  Jesus is not irritable or resentful.  Jesus never rejoices at wrong-doing, but always rejoices with the truth.  Jesus bears all things, believes all things, hopes all things; and for our salvation, he endured all things.  Jesus never fails.