Love Contrasted Lesson 2

This is the second lesson in the series. In this lesson Paul contrasts Love with all of the other things that men hold dear in the church today.

Paul begins by contrasting Love with other things that men in those days thought much of. I shall not attempt to go over these things in detail. Their inferiority is already obvious.

He contrasts it with eloquence. And what a noble gift it is, the power of playing upon the souls and wills of men, and rousing them to lofty purposes and holy deeds! Paul says, “If I speak with the tongues of men and of angels, and have not love, I am become sounding brass, or a tinkling cymbal.” We all know why. We have all felt the brazenness of words without emotion, the hollowness, the unaccountable unpersuasiveness, of eloquence behind which lies no Love.

He contrasts it with prophecy. He contrasts it with mysteries. He contrasts it with faith. He contrasts it with charity. Why is Love greater than faith? Because the end is greater than the means. And why is it greater than charity? Because the whole is greater than the part.

Love contrasted here with your gifts and abilities. That is at first almost insulting, for you can take those gifts and abilities and use them to express your love. Right? The point is that you cannot simply apply love to the gift. You must instead love beyond the gift. What about you, does your love go beyond your gifts?

Love is greater than faith, because the end is greater than the means. What is the use of having faith? It is to connect the soul with God. And what is the object of connecting man with God? That he may become like God. But God is Love. Hence Faith, the means, is in order to Love, the end. Love, therefore, obviously is greater than faith. “If I have all faith, so as to remove mountains, but have not love, I am nothing.”

Which passion rules your life? Is it Faith? or is it Love? Are you known as a person of faith or a person of love?

It is greater than charity, again, because the whole is greater than a part. Charity is only a little bit of Love, one of the innumerable avenues of Love, and there may even be, and there is, a great deal of charity without Love. It is a very easy thing to toss a copper to a beggar on the street; it is generally an easier thing than not to do it. Yet Love is just as often in the withholding. We purchase relief from the sympathetic feelings roused by the spectacle of misery, at the copper’s cost. It is too cheap—too cheap for us, and often too dear for the beggar. If we really loved him we would either do more for him, or less. Hence, “If I bestow all my goods to feed the poor, but have not love it profiteth me nothing.”

Think about your acts of “charity”. Do they serve the needs of the other person or simply still the sympathetic feelings aroused by the thought?

Then Paul contrasts it with sacrifice and martyrdom: “If I give my body to be burned, but have not love, it profiteth me nothing.” Missionaries can take nothing greater to the heathen world than the impress and reflection of the Love of God upon their own character. That is the universal language. It will take them years to speak in Chinese, or in the dialects of India. From the day they land, that language of Love, understood by all, will be pouring forth its unconscious eloquence.

It is the man who is the missionary, it is not his words. His character is his message. In the heart of Africa, among the great Lakes, I have come across black men and women who remembered the only white man they ever saw before—David Livingstone; and as you cross his footsteps in that dark continent, MEN’S FACES LIGHT UP as they speak of the kind doctor who passed there years ago. They could not understand him; but they felt the love that beat in his heart. They knew that it was love, although he spoke no word.

Take into your sphere of labor, where you also mean to lay down your life, that simple charm, and your lifework must succeed. You can take nothing greater, you need take nothing less. You may take every accomplishment; you may be braced for every sacrifice; but if you give your body to be burned, and have not Love, it will profit you and the cause of Christ nothing.

Jesus said that it would be by love that all men would know that we are his disciples. How does that fact move you to make the decisions you make concerning fellow believers? How is that manifested in your church attitudes and attendance?

Spend the time until the next lesson reflecting on all of the things that you do because of your love for others. Make a list of those things. How many are completely dependent upon your gifts and abilities? Now ask God to show you which of those things are really done because of love and how many  are simply done because you are exercising your gifts/abilities. How would you manifest your love to others if you couldn’t use your gifts and abilities? Several years ago there was a very popular Christian song which said “they will know we are Christians by our love” How do people know about your faith in Christ? Is it because of your faith? Or is it because of your love? Jesus never said people would know His disciples by their faith.