There Must Be Love

By Gene Rogers

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     The predominant characteristic of Christianity is love. "So faith, hope, love abide, these three; but the greatest of these is love" (1 Corinthians 13:13).

     The reason that the predominant characteristic of Christianity is love is that "God is love" (1 John 4:8). It follows that if God has any influence in and upon our lives it will be for the purpose of making us over into an image of Himself. If God is at work in our lives "both to will and to work for His good pleasure," He will work so that our lives, like His, will be characterized by love.

     Love is of God and issues forth from the lives of those with whom God has anything to do. If God is within us working in any way whatsoever, the manifestation of His presence will issue forth in acts and deeds of love. Indeed, the predominant characteristic of that person who is born of God will be love. "Beloved, let us love one another; for love is of God, and he who loves is born of God and knows God. He who does not love does not know God; for God is love" (1 John 4:7,8).

LOVE IS THE FIRST FRUIT
     We hear a lot of talk today about the Holy Spirit of God at work in our lives. It is being said that the evidence of God being at work in one's life is to be seen in his speaking in tongues or healing or prophesying or showing forth some such manifestation of the Spirit. But let it be clearly understood that if God's Spirit is at work in a human life His presence will be evidenced by the manifestation of the fruit that He produces. The fruit of the Spirit is listed in Galatians 5:22 and the first to be mentioned is love.

     The first and sure evidence of the working of God's Spirit in a human life will not be in the form of speaking in tongues or in healing or any such comparable
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thing. It will be evidenced in a manifestation of love. If one asks, "Is God at work in my life?", he will not seek an affirmative answer by looking for secondary gifts of the Spirit operative in his life. He will witness that "God's love has been shed abroad in my heart and is operative within me showing itself forth in acts and deeds of love and kindness."

LOVE IS THE GREATEST
     After Paul finishes listing the gifts of the Spirit in 1 Corinthians 12, he concludes by saying, "But earnestly desire the higher gifts and I will show you a still more excellent way" (1 Corinthians 12:31). He is saying in effect, "I have listed for you some of the important gifts of the Spirit but if you would desire the greatest and best gift the Spirit has to offer, then desire the gift of love." Love is a gift from God. The type of love called for in the Christian ethic cannot be developed by unregenerate human nature. The type of which that nature is capable is described by Jesus, "You have heard that it was said, 'You shall love your neighbor and hate your enemy'" (Matthew 5:43).

     To love as God loves can become a possibility only as God becomes the dynamic within us enabling us to so love. The truth of the matter is that God has taken up residence within the Christian's heart to enable him to love with the same love with which He loves. In Romans 5:5 we read, "God's love has been poured into our hearts through the Holy Spirit which has been given to us." When the Holy Spirit takes up residence in our hearts at our new birth it is God that comes in, or better still, it is love that comes in, for "God is love." Therefore, with God present within us working out His will through us it will become our nature to love even as it is His nature to love.

     All those things that we hold important in the Christian faith are declared to be inferior and even unprofitable without the presence of love. The apostle says that love is greater than tongues, than prophetic powers, than spiritual understanding and insight, than the possession of all spiritual knowledge, faith or sacrifice (1 Corinthians 13:1-3). Indeed, love is the greatest of all of God's gifts to men.

LOVE'S CHECK LIST
     In 1 Corinthians 13:4-7 we have the gift of love analyzed as to content. It would do well in reading this passage to substitute the first person pronoun "I" in place of the word "love" in order to check yourself to see whether or not God's love has been shed abroad in your heart. To read it so would be to render it thus: "I am patient and kind; I am not jealous or boastful; I am not arrogant or rude. I do not insist on my own way; I am not irritable or resentful; I do not rejoice at wrong, but rejoice in the right. I bear all things, believe all things, hope all things, endure all things."

     What the church needs more than anything else is a greater working of this higher gift. The apostle Paul says, "The love of Christ controls us" (2 Corinthians 5:14). Can you imagine what influence the church would have on the world if every member was controlled by the love of Christ? The absence of this great gift is responsible for every bit of the bickering, fighting, fussing and splitting within the church. All of this results from a lack of love--from a lack of love for Christ, in the first place, for if one loved Christ as he should he could never become a part of division and strife; a lack of love for one another, in the second place, for if God was at work within us the first manifestation of such love would be a love for one another.

LOVE IS THE FIRST CALL
     Do you know that the New Testament calls upon us to love one another more than it calls upon us to do any other single thing? Consider these passages, starting with the call of Jesus in John 13:35, "By this shall all men know that you are my disciples if you have love for one another." "Love one another with brotherly affection" (Romans 12:10).
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"But concerning love of the brethren, you have no need to have anyone write to you because you yourselves have been taught by God to love one another" (1 Thessalonians 4:9). "Having purified your souls by obedience to the truth for a sincere love of the brethren, love one another earnestly from the heart" (1 Peter 1:22). "Above all, hold unfailing your love for one another, since love covers a multitude of sins" (1 Peter 4:8). "We know that we have passed out of death into life because we love the brethren; he who does not love remains in death" (1 John 3:14). "Beloved, let us love one another; for love is of God, and he who loves is born of God and knows God" (1 John 4:7).

     Why does God place such great emphasis upon our loving one another? The answer is an obvious one and is set forth in plain terms in one of the passages that we have just quoted (1 Peter 4:8), "Love covers a multitude of sins." You see, when a group of people are brought together into the intimacy which characterizes the Christian fellowship, friction and irritation are bound to result as they do similarity when a man and a woman unite their lives in the intimacy of marriage. Such closeness is bound to result in some stormy matrimonial seas.

     Likewise in the church, people have idiosyncrasies, personal traits, and ways of doing things that often irritate us and rub us the wrong way. If there is not that something overrides the friction and controls us, there are bound to be serious problems arise. That "something" is love; it is love that covers a multitude of sins; it is love that enables us to overlook the irritations, idiosyncrasies and personal traits of others that could divide. If a man and a woman plan to enter into marriage without love to bind them together so as to see them through the storms and problems that are sure to arise, there is little or no hope for their marriage. If we hope to be bound together and remain in the intimate union to which we are called in the fellowship of the church without the presence of God's love working in us, we also are doomed to failure. There can be no church without the abiding presence and working of the love of God.

     Editor's Note. Gene Rogers labors with Normandie Avenue Christian Church, 14521 South Normandie Avenue, Gardena, California 90247. He will appreciate hearing from you at that address.

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