In the Name of Love

We just finished a sermon series on 1 Corinthians 13:1-8 with Paul’s statement that “Love never fails.” Toward the end of delivering the message I suddenly felt—like has occasionally happened in the past—that there was something missing. I realized, as I was standing there at the end of my sermon outline that I had shared, as God had asked me to, all about the various aspects of God’s love—what that love looks like and what our loving response ought to look like. But I felt, in that moment, that I had not managed to convey just how important LOVE really is.
 
I’m not sure that I even could communicate just how important it is. Sometimes, I confess, my heart and mind just feel like they are going to burst within me because there is something fundamental that I just can’t put into words. 
 
This happens sometimes too when I’m painting or drawing. There ends up being something there that I could not possibly describe in words. It is sometimes quite frustrating! It makes me feel like I’d like to grab folks by their collars and say, “Don’t you get it!?! This is the most important thing in the universe!” 
 
It’s in moments like that that I understand why Paul, in the midst of writing his letters could break into a poetic interlude praising God for who He is and what He has done/is doing/will do. Read what Paul write in Phil. 2:5-11
 

In your relationships with one another, have the same mindset as Christ Jesus:

Who, being in very nature God,
did not consider equality with God something to be used to his own advantage;
rather, he made himself nothing
by taking the very nature of a servant,
being made in human likeness.
And being found in appearance as a man,
he humbled himself
by becoming obedient to death—
even death on a cross!
Therefore God exalted him to the highest place
and gave him the name that is above every name,
that at the name of Jesus every knee should bow,
in heaven and on earth and under the earth,
and every tongue acknowledge that Jesus Christ is Lord,

to the glory of God the Father (NIV)
Yes! Praise be to God our Father who has given us every good thing through Jesus Christ. 
 
GOD LOVES YOU!!! Yes, even you—even me. And through His love we can be healed. We can LOVE because he first loved us. Praise God.