Love Takes Center Stage

The Apostle Paul, one of the greatest intellectual minds of all time, was deeply concerned about people. In chapter 16 of his first letter to the church at Corinth he gave a number of important commands to pay attention to and then said, “all that you do must be done in love” (16:14). Slow down and read that again – “ALL THAT YOU DO MUST BE DONE IN LOVE.” What a convicting statement! If you were asked to put a number on how much you do in love, what would you say? 75%, 50%, 25%? In his letter to the Romans, Paul discusses the core values of life and not surprisingly, love takes center stage. It immediately dominates the scene as Paul emphasizes the attitude of those in the body of Christ as they exercise their spiritual gifts. His point is that love is the circulatory system of the spiritual body. Biblical love is seeking the highest good of another person. It’s putting others first which is radically different than the world’s idea of love which is almost always self-centered.

In our technologically driven culture, we lack real meaningful relationships. We are increasingly attached to our devices and not to each other. We have artificial relationships through our phones. We’re a lonely, broken, struggling body of people and it’s the best-kept secret. We don’t want people to know what’s really going on in our lives.

Let down your guard and reach out to one another in love. The basis for loving other people isn’t how they’ve treated you (good or bad), loving someone is a choice and the basis of the choice to love them is how God loves you. The measure of a successful church is not the size of the membership but how well the members love each other, forgive each other, listen to one another, support and pray for each other, and reach out to those in need around them. Press On! Pastor Brian Richard