Starting 2007

A famine of blog entries and then one too many... but this holiday just gives me a lil more time to collect my thoughts... so well here i am again, with my second post of the day :p

STILL reading Spirit of Truth by David Jackman for QT (i know! hopelessly slow reader...), at his exposition on 1 Cor 12:27-14:1 ~ Love- the Spirit's Lifestyle, today. Remembered at PT's conference some years back, how that sermon challenged everything i know about love. And as Xun recounted- it's a common sight for people to be breaking down when singing worship songs as part of the emotional experience, but there at the conference people were paralysed, convicted, breaking down hearing and being confronted with the Word. The Spirit using the Living Word when faithfully taught to cut hearts and turn them to Him...

And reading it again today, it stirs up not just memories, but more strongly the desire to know Love deeper, to know how to love deeper... so starting 2007, with love... just a couple of gems to share with you.

So, when Paul tells the Corinthian church that spiritual gifts exercised without Christian love are a contradiction in terms, this is not just a narrow opinion designed to deal with a local incident. The whole prupose and privilege of New Covenant Christianity is at stake. Only the indwelling Spirit can create the love which is the mark of authentic Christ-likeness. ... Only love counts with God, because that alone is the hallmark of the Holy Spirit's activity. The vitality of a church then is not measured by its size, or the commitment of its members. Nor are its doctrinal soundess, its properity, or even its manifestation of spiritual gifts the ultimate criteria of its worth, before God. All these goals or standards are nothing, without love.

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Love always protects, trusts, hopes and perseveres. This is the Spirit's lifestyle. Christian love upholds and supports everyone within the fellowship, in every situation. It never loses faith. This does not mean that Christian love is endlessly gullible, but, in Calvin's words, "it would rather be deceived by its gentleness of heart than injure a brother by suspicion."
The characteristic of love is that it is always ready to think the best, to put the most favorable construction on everything. This is why love never fails. It is indestructible; nothing can overcome it. No hardship or rebuff ever makes such love stop loving. The essence of "agape", the distinctive NT term which originates in and is modeled on God's love for us, is that it looks neither for worthiness in the object of its love nor for reciprocation from it. God loves because he is love and we love because he first loved us.

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The gifts are needed now, and graciously provided by God, to meet certain needs, but at their very best they can do so only imperfectly. When perfection comes, they will be obsolete. But love will not! That is Paul's point in v13. Love alone remains eternally. ...
Paul's argument is that gifts will cease. They are part of this world, not of the eternal realities. How foolish it would be, then, to major on what is temporal and transient, rather than on the eternal reality of love. That will never end. Even now faith, hope and love matter more than gifts or ministries. But faith will be replaced by sight and hope will be lost in fulfillment. Only love lasts forever, because it is the currency of heaven, the Spirit's life-style. The Kingdom of God is eternal, present-tense love, which is why love is the most excellent way.

"Love ever lives, forgives, outlives,

And ever stands, with open hands,
And while it lives, it gives,
And while it gives, it lives,
For this is love's prerogative-
To give and give and give."