Psalm 18:20-36 (NIV)

¹ The Lord has dealt with me according to my righteousness; according to the cleanness of my hands he has rewarded me.  ²¹ For I have kept the ways of the Lord; I am not guilty of turning from my God.  ²² All his laws are before me; I have not turned away from his decrees.  ²³ I have been blameless before him and have kept myself from sin.  ²⁴ The Lord has rewarded me according to my righteousness, according to the cleanness of my hands in his sight.

²⁵ To the faithful you show yourself faithful, to the blameless you show yourself blameless, ²⁶ to the pure you show yourself pure, but to the devious you show yourself shrewd.  ²⁷ You save the humble but bring low those whose eyes are haughty.  ²⁸ You, Lord, keep my lamp burning; my God turns my darkness into light.  ²⁹ With your help I can advance against a troop; with my God I can scale a wall.

³⁰ As for God, his way is perfect: The Lord’s word is flawless; he shields all who take refuge in him.  ³¹ For who is God besides the Lord?  And who is the Rock except our God?  ³² It is God who arms me with strength and keeps my way secure.  ³³ He makes my feet like the feet of a deer; he causes me to stand on the heights.  ³⁴ He trains my hands for battle; my arms can bend a bow of bronze.  ³⁵ You make your saving help my shield, and your right hand sustains me; your help has made me great.  ³⁶ You provide a broad path for my feet, so that my ankles do not give way.

Paul answers a series of questions but then he addresses the problems, that messenger as told him about, questions the church hasn’t asked and perhaps doesn’t was Paul to necessarily know about.  The first half of the letter is answering questions.  The second half Paul addresses the issues that the messenger has told Paul about the church.

1 Corinthians 13:1-13 (NIV)

¹ If I speak in the tongues of men and of angels, but have not love, I am only a resounding gong or a clanging cymbal.  ² If I have the gift of prophesy and can fathom all mysteries and all knowledge, and if I have a faith that can move mountains, but have not love, I am nothing.  ³ If I give all I possess to the poor and surrender my body to the flames, but have not love, I gain nothing.

⁴ Love is patient, love is kind.  It does not envy, it does not boast, it is not proud.  ⁵ It is not rude, it is not self-seeking, it is not easily angered, it keeps no record of wrongs.  ⁶ Love does not delight in evil but rejoices with the truth.  ⁷ It always protects, always trusts, always hopes, always perseveres.

⁸ Love never fails.  But where there are prophesies, they will cease; where there are tongues, they will be stilled; where there is knowledge, it will pass away.  ⁹ For we know in part and we prophesy in part, ¹⁰ but when perfection comes, the imperfect disappears.  ¹¹ When I was a child, I talked like a child, I thought like a child, I reasoned like a child.  When I became a man, I put childish ways behind me.  ¹² Now we see but a poor reflection as in a mirror; then we shall see face to face.  Now I know in part; then I shall know fully, even as I am fully known.

¹³ And now these three remain: faith, hope and love.  But the greatest of these is love.

The problems that divided the church are centered around getting around the lack of love and holiness.

Recap about 1 Corinthians, Paul is telling the Corinthian Church that gifts don’t matter if they do not have love, or experience love.  Jesus and God characterizes love, and his followers will also mirror the love of Jesus and God.

Paul says love is patient, kind, and gentle.  Before we can give that love we have to experience it in Christ.  We have to learn from Christ that we are loved and how to love acts in many situations and then we display love a bit more like Jesus did.

Several things must happen: 1) We have to be judged by the definitions of love.  2) We have to be taken into the arms of love and then we can take Jesus power of love into our lives in order to give it out again.

Paul’s word picture of love is verses 7 & 8: It always protects, always trusts, always hopes, always perseveres.  Love never fails.  But where there are prophesies, they will cease; where there are tongues, they will be stilled; where there is knowledge, it will pass away.

Paul says if we really love, we will never give up.  We love the person in and of themselves.  God is delighted by the person who loves Him.  Paul is giving us a picture of what love looks like, and what it does.

Jesus’ love couldn’t have been perfect unless He was God and man.  When Jesus died on the Cross and the weight of the fallen world falls on Him.  He said, “Father, forgive them…” and I can add nothing to that moment, that love.  We have nothing God needs.

C.S. Lewis, “If we have a desire for something that doesn’t exist in the world, the only logical explanation is that we were not intended to live in this world with it.  This desire for unconditional love is an echo of creation.  It is an echo of the relationship we had with God at one point, only to have it sabotaged.”

Love is the pure gift of God.

Isaiah 49:15 & 16  Can a woman forget her nursing child, or show no compassion for the child of her womb?  Even these may forget, yet I will not forget you.  See, I have inscribed you on the palms of my hands; your walls are continually before me.

The demand of a baby can wear us down and out.  But God’s love is never worn down, never worn out.  His love never fails.  Isaiah 49:16 goes on to say, “See I have engraved you on the palm of my hands…”  We are God’s pride, His love, His joy.  Do you know that?  Does your soul soar at the thought of it?  If so, I think a couple things happen.  The first thing is our relationship with God grows.  Your adoration grows, according to the great preacher Jonathan Edwards.  You get to the point where you want God more than whatever you think He might have to offer.  You slowly stop going to God to get things, but instead to get God Himself.  One of the signs that this is true is that you start to look at, contemplate, God’s holiness.  You know why it’s holiness that real Christians start to think about?  Because all the other characteristics of God; His wisdom, His power, His love, His grace…  All those things benefit us, but holiness really doesn’t except in knowing God deeper and appreciating Him more.

A Christian loves holiness of God because that is who God is, without any benefit to us.  But to pray to God admiring His holiness, that’s a whole different level of intimacy and appreciation of love.  We go deeper into God’s heart and love, we simply want to be with God because He is good, because, for whatever unfact humble reason, He loves us.

Colossians 1:6  Which has come to you, even as it is in all the world and is bearing fruit and growing, as it does in you also, since the day you heard and knew the grace of God in truth.

The key is to speak the truth in love, truth without love is painful, and love without truth is a betrayal of friendship.  The key point, when we can say to God that we can’t please Him through the things we do, at this point God becomes pleased with us.

This week make the confession to God that you cannot please Him, and you are in need to accept His love and help in allowing His love to work in your heart and life.  God bless you in your journey of love with God.