Dear Friends,
What is the greatest thing in the world? There are a number of ways of answering that question truly. But we would be wide off the mark if one of our answers wasn’t ‘love’. In 1 Corinthians 13, the apostle Paul goes as far as to say that, among faith, hope and love, “the greatest of these is love”. Why should love be the greatest? It’s the one that God himself is and does; we are never told that ‘God is faith’, or ‘God is hope’, but we are told that “God is love”. And, because of that, it is the one thing we shall be doing for all eternity; when faith gives way to sight, and hope to possession, we shall carry on loving and being loved.
There was a famous address called The greatest thing in the world, given by Henry Drummond in the 19th century, expounding this very chapter. Here are some of his comments on the phrase “love is kind”: “Have you ever noticed how much Christ’s life was spent doing kind things – in merely doing kind things? … I wonder why it is that we are not all kinder than we are. How much the world needs it. How easily it is done. How instantaneously it acts. How infallibly it is remembered … God is love. Therefore love. Without distinction, without calculation, without procrastination.”
I ask myself, would I be known as a person who loves? Do I live as if the greatest thing in the world is indeed love? Or would I be known for something inferior?
Yours in Christ,
Chris Hobbs