ZPCBlog

Be on your guard; stand firm in the faith; be courageous; be strong. Do everything in love.
1 Corinthians 16:13-14

This passage starts off with powerful, invigorating calls to action, commanding us to be strong and courageous, among other things. However, the last sentence conveys a very different type of message. We're instructed to "do everything in love." Tacking love on the end to a series of such commands seems counterintuitive. After all, we typically associate love with a very passive, lovey-dovey sort of feeling. Love is something we tend to think of as a feeling or experience rather than an action. And yet Paul instructs us to love with the same intensity and boldness with which we are to complete the other tasks we’re assigned in the passage. 

This type of love Paul says is required of us is very different than the type of love we are used to. This love isn’t weak or passive, on the contrary, it’s the most powerful action humans can make. This kind of love is most famously described just three chapters earlier in 1st Corinthians (“Love is patient, love is kind...”), but it’s a love that we are completely incapable of producing and sharing on our own. Although we are created in God’s image, sin has separated us from God and his perfect plan in a way that won’t be completely fixed until Jesus returns. 

However, when Jesus enters the picture, everything changes. God is the source of all love, and nowhere is this more evident than in his incarnation and birth. The fact that the most perfect being in all of existence could love us—even though we are far from perfect—enough to descend to earth and become human among us, ultimately saving us from condemnation, is an idea we can never fully comprehend. Yet it completely transforms the reason behind our command to love so radically.

God, who radically loved us, enables us to radically love others so that they, in turn, may be able to glimpse the source of all love itself and the greatest example of love in the world, Jesus. 

Activity

Listen to the song “Eden” by Jervis Campbell. Reflect on how you’ve felt the kind of love from God that’s described in the song, and how that can inspire you to love others in a similar manner. 

Prayer

Lord,
Thank you for your incredible love that has altered the path of humanity forever. I pray that you would show me opportunities today where I can love others the same way that you love us, and thank you for all the people in my life who have loved me like you’ve called them to. 
In Jesus’ name, Amen.