The Greatest of These
The overarching reason you exist is to learn to love – to love God with all your heart, mind, soul and strength, and to love your neighbor as yourself.
We often hear that the purpose of man is to glorify God and to enjoy His fellowship forever. B. ut these are just different descriptions of what it means to love Him. I Corinthians 13:1-3 explains that no matter what else you may achieve in life, if you do not learn to love, your whole existence is a total failure.
Someone may protest that learning to love is not more important than living a holy life. After all, holiness is God’s most defining attribute. Surely learning to obey His laws is at least as important as learning to love – if not more so.
But Jesus said that all the law and the prophets hang on the two most important commandments, which are to love God and others. And the Apostle Paul said that love is the fulfilling of the law. I Corinthians 13:6 says that love rejoiceth not in iniquity, but in the truth. So to the degree that we love, we do not sin, and when we sin, we have failed to love somehow.
Someone else may protest that learning to love is not more important than being filled with the Spirit. Surely walking in the Spirit and maturing in spiritual fruitfulness is the most important thing.
But if you compare the description of love in I Corinthians 13 with the fruit of the Spirit in Galatians 5:22-23, you’ll see that they’re describing the same thing. To the degree that you love, you are spiritually mature. And when you do not love, you are not filled with the Spirit.
The central purpose for which God gave you life and breath was so you would learn how to love. It is the great quest of every life, and it is the hardest thing that any of us will ever do. It takes a lifetime, and we never get it down perfectly in this world.
What the Bible Says About Relationships
So how do we learn to love? Well, we cannot love in isolation. The primary way that God teaches us to love is through relationships. The first relationship God ever created was the one between Himself and Adam. And to this day, the most important relationship that anyone can ever have is his relationship with God.
But the first relationship God created between humans was between Adam and Eve. And to this day, the most important relationship in this world is the one between a husband and wife.
But of course, that naturally leads to the third relationship – between parents and children. And beyond that are the relationships between extended family members, between friends, neighbors, coworkers, bosses and employees, pastors and their flocks, citizens and their governments, and so forth.
All these different relationships have their own unique nuances, but the common denominator among them is that they are meant to teach us various lessons about love. Every relationship comes with its own set of obligations, but you can summarize them all by saying that relationships are designed for people to meet each other’s needs. When we meet the needs inherent to each relationship, we fulfill our responsibilities to it, and we grow in love.
Of course, we’re not talking about “Hollywood love”. You know, where the moon is full, the lights are low, the violins are soft and two young faces are leaning closer and closer to each other. That’s what most people in our culture today think of when you mention love – but that’s really just hormones! If you get your advice about love from Hollywood, you’ll end up with a “Hollywood marriage”!
No, we’re talking about the kind of love the Bible describes. And whenever the Bible describes love, it always does so in terms of sacrifice.
John 3:16, For God so loved the world that he gave his only begotten Son…
John 15:13, Greater love hath no man than this, that a man lay down his life for his friends.
Galatians 2:20, I live by the faith of the Son of God who loved me and gave himself for me.
Ephesians 5:2, Christ also hath loved us, and hath given himself for us an offering and a sacrifice to God…
Ephesians 5:25, Husbands, love your wives, even as Christ also loved the church and gave himself for it.
I John 3:16, Hereby perceive we the love of God, because he laid down his life for us, and we ought to lay down our lives for the brethren.
I John 3:17, whoso hath this world’s good, and seeth his brother have need, and shutteth up his bowels of compassion from him, how dwelleth the love of God in him?
And on and on it goes.
The responsibilities of every relationship call upon us to meet the needs of others in ways that require sacrifices of time, resources, energy, thought, personal plans and preferences – there will always be times when relationships will inconvenience us in some way. But those times are just the growing pains of a maturing relationship. Sacrificing to meet the needs of another stretches us, deepens us, makes us stronger in love. Those who never go through this remain shallow souls. But sacrificially meeting the needs of others, fulfilling our obligations, that’s what turns an acquaintance into a relationship.
