Week 6
All About Love
Day
1
The
Weight of Love
God has a major transformative vision for
you: You are His workmanship, His masterpiece (Ephesians 2:8-10). You are His work of art, His re-creation
(Ephesians 4:23).
There is one inescapable center, linchpin, of
God’s vision for His masterpiece. This
centerpiece is agape, love. Love is the
highest standard of multiple New Testament spiritual formation passages. Love is the conclusion of the list of
qualities in 2 Peter 1:5-7, the grammar of which indicates that love is a final
goal, the culmination, the best of all.
Colossians 3 also has a progression that reads, Put
on then, as God's chosen ones, holy and beloved, compassionate
hearts, kindness, humility, meekness, and patience, 13 bearing with one another and, if one has a complaint against another, forgiving each other; as the Lord has forgiven you, so you also must forgive. 14 And above all these put on love, which binds everything together in perfect harmony. (Colossians
3:12-14). Note that
he says above all put on love, and that love is like the belt, the girdle, that
holds all the other qualities together.
Romans 5:1-5 reads, Therefore, since we have been declared
righteous by faith, we have peace[a] with God through our Lord Jesus Christ.2 We have also obtained access through Him by faith[b] into this grace in which we stand, and we rejoice in the hope of the glory of God. 3 And not only that, but we also rejoice in our afflictions, because we know that affliction produces endurance, 4 endurance produces proven character, and proven character produces hope. 5 This hope will not disappoint us, because God’s love has been poured out in our hearts through the Holy Spirit who was given to us. Note
that it is the love of God, through the Holy Spirit, that empowers this whole
growth process. So here love is the
fuel, the power behind our growth. Galatians
5 provides yet another key teaching on Christian character growth, known as the
fruit of the Spirit. In this case, love
is the first quality listed, the fruit of
the Spirit is love, joy… (Galatians 5:22).
When this passage is compared with 1 Corinthians 13:4-7, where the
aspects of the fruit of the Spirit from Galatians are said to be elements of
true love, it appears that love may be considered the “summary quality” which
undergirds and overarches and contains all the other aspects of the fruit of
the Spirit.
Love is also
the standard the Lord used in the Shema, 4 “Listen, Israel: The Lord our
God, the Lord is
One. 5 Love
the Lord your
God with all your heart, with all your soul, and with all your strength. (Deuteronomy
6:4-5). When asked what the greatest
commandment was, Jesus took the shema, added “with all your mind,” then added
Leviticus 19:28 as the second great commandment, so that it reads , Listen,
Israel! The Lord our
God, the Lord is One] 30 Love the Lord your God with all your heart, with all your soul, with
all your mind, and
with all your strength.” 31 “The second is: Love your neighbor as yourself.[r] There is no other
command greater than
these.” (Mark 12:29-31). Jesus was even more
specific about the centrality of love in Matthew’s account of the Great
Commandment, , where He declares that all of the Law and prophets (the Hebrew
Scriptures) hang on these two commands
(Matthew 22:40). Jesus later gave
what is known as the “new commandment,”
34 “A
new command I give you: Love one another. As
I have loved you, so you must love one another. 35 By this everyone will know that you are my
disciples, if you love one another.” (John 13:34-35). Jesus
defines love for one another as a key distinguishing mark of His
disciples. Let’s not forget the “Final
question” of Jesus to Peter, where He asked his fallen disciple three times,
“Do you love me?” Peter’s love for Jesus
was the key factor of His restoration and re-commission as Jesus lead apostle,
the central motivation for carrying out his calling (John 21:15-17).
How does
reading the above biblical teaching impact you?
Does the sheer weight placed upon love make youthink?______________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________
Prayer: Reflecting specifically on this devotional,
write out a prayer to God.
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