In Christ We Learn the Way of Love (Part Six)

PRAYER OF CONSECRATION

Wake up, sleeper, rise from the dead, and Christ will shine on you. 

Jesus, I belong to you.

I lift up my heart to you.
I set my mind on you.
I fix my eyes on you.
I offer my body to you as a living sacrifice.

Jesus, we belong to you. 

Praying in the name of the Father, and the Son, and the Holy Spirit, amen. 

1 Corinthians 13:8b–12a

But where there are prophecies, they will cease; where there are tongues, they will be stilled; where there is knowledge, it will pass away. For we know in part and we prophesy in part, but when completeness comes, what is in part disappears. When I was a child, I talked like a child, I thought like a child, I reasoned like a child. When I became a man, I put the ways of childhood behind me. For now we see only a reflection as in a mirror; then we shall see face to face. 

CONSIDER THIS

Just thirty minutes of watching the Academy Awards or the Grammy Awards will make it clear. We live in a day and in a culture where the talented, impressive, skilled, and passionate are elevated in status.

We put their faces on billboards, pay them well, and gape, scream, or bow when they walk out on a red carpet. We make celebrities out of the capable and confident, and heroes out of actors, actresses, athletes, musicians, and politicians—many whose lives may ring hollow when it comes to Christlike love.

As for the rest of us who live outside of the brightest limelight, we are subtly encouraged to show off our talents and skills in order to step into a little limelight all our own. It almost goes without saying that people should see just how remarkable we are, and give us praise.

In the body of Christ, there are versions of this social malady that can creep in and erode our capacity to live wholly in fellowship with Christ and one another. Celebrity culture can manifest itself as blatant elevation of one Christian leader’s personality and teaching over another, or it can manifest itself in what we might call “spiritual one-upmanship” in the local church.

For example, my spiritual giftedness is better than your spiritual giftedness. We may never say that out loud, but the idea may still have a hold on our hearts as we swim in today’s cultural waters.

Paul knew the Corinthian tendency to be led astray by false idols (1 Cor. 12:2). He also knew that they tended to miss Christ as they followed Christian leaders (1 Cor. 1:11–13). Both of these tendencies characterize our age as well.

To address these and other issues with the Corinthians, Paul decides that he will pause in his explanations of spiritual gifts in 1 Corinthians 12 to give a family lesson on how love works in chapter 13. Paul is convinced that Christ lives within us and from that vantage point, he speaks truth to the subtle corruptions of the heart so common to us.

In 1 Corinthians 12:31b and 13:8, Paul contextualizes all spiritual gifts in their relationship to the “most excellent way”: love. For Paul, without Christ’s love at work in us, spiritual gifts can mesmerize us into believing they are the point—rather than the pointer. Gifts are intended to point to love.

In other words, Paul puts loving well in a higher spiritual category than expressing gifts well or performing well.

Prophecies? They will end. Tongues? They’ll be stilled. Knowledge? It will go away. In each case, prefaced by the statement, “Love never fails” (v. 8), public displays of spiritual or intellectual prowess are categorized as temporal and limited. 

But love? It is eternal.

Love is the quality of a Christian in his or her most mature and complete state. The spiritually immature may talk about spiritual gifts as if they are the sign and signal of Christian maturity.

No, Paul says. Only love is the mark of full maturity in Christ.

To become a vessel of love means that we must put away childish things. As a pastor, I watched this affection for stages and visibility (rationalized and perpetuated even by leaders in the name of reach and influence) confuse many. Please don’t get me wrong. We need well-known saints. We need strong, faithful, and visible leaders. We need to do things well, serve with great acts of creative excellence, and curate platforms for faithful messages.

What we don’t need is for the church to make celebrities of people, making them out to be somehow more valuable to God or us than the hidden saint who is faithfully caring for one person in loving obedience to Christ.

We must put childish ways behind us. We see through a glass dimly for now, but one day we will see the fullness of Love blazing in all his eternal glory. Then we will understand. Then all the things we now celebrate with such zeal will come into perspective. 

In union with Jesus, we will learn the humble and hidden art of loving well, the most supreme of all kingdom activities.

Today, you and I can welcome Jesus to stir our hearts to appreciate what will truly last—acts of love touching hearts in the name of Jesus.

THE PRAYER 

Lord Jesus, I am in you and you are in me. If I have elevated more public gifts, either in my own life or by over-celebrating them in others, please wash my heart clean. I want to love in your way, according to your nature. Love through me, Jesus. Love through me. In Christ Jesus, I pray, amen.

THE QUESTIONS

Have you ever found yourself comparing yourself to someone more outwardly gifted, minimizing the work of God in you because of that comparison? What could you do, today, to put loving well in a higher category than performing well?

For the Awakening,
Dan Wilt 

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