Love = The Character of God

⁴ Love suffers long and is kind; love does not envy; love does not parade itself, is not puffed up; ⁵ does not behave rudely, does not seek its own, is not provoked, thinks no evil; ⁶ does not rejoice in iniquity, but rejoices in the truth; ⁷ bears all things, believes all things, hopes all things, endures all things.

⁸ Love never fails. But whether there are prophecies, they will fail; whether there are tongues, they will cease; whether there is knowledge, it will vanish away. ⁹ For we know in part and we prophesy in part. ¹⁰ But when that which is perfect has come, then that which is in part will be done away.

1 Corinthians 13:4-10

Love... Throughout the Bible we see various commands and directions telling us the importance of love. Jesus told us that the two greatest commandments in all of the old testament have to do with love:

³⁶ “Teacher, which is the great commandment in the law?”

³⁷ Jesus said to him, “‘You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, with all your soul, and with all your mind.’ ³⁸ This is the first and great commandment. ³⁹ And the second is like it: ‘You shall love your neighbor as yourself.’ ⁴⁰ On these two commandments hang all the Law and the Prophets.”

 Matthew 22:36-40

John tells us shows us that it is impossible to love God and simultaneously hate our brother:

²⁰ If someone says, “I love God,” and hates his brother, he is a liar; for he who does not love his brother whom he has seen, how can he love God whom he has not seen? 

1 John 4:20

And there are many other scriptures telling us the importance of love, including 1 Corinthians 13. 

Reading the above passage in context shows us that Paul had a specific motivation to provide such a detailed version of what true love is. We can see that the church in Corinth was operating in the spiritual gifts and seeking after manifestations of the Spirit, but they had forgotten their motive. It seems that they were motivated by a desire to seem the most spiritual. This caused much chaos and division in their meetings and hindered the Spirit of God from truly moving because they were not acting in love towards each other. In the beginning of chapter 13 Paul reminds them that the manifestation of spiritual gifts mean absolutely nothing if we do not even love our brothers and sisters who we are trying to minister to. 

Obviously this is an important message and a reminder of how we are supposed to treat each other but there is another message that I see in this passage. John also said that "...God is love." 1 John 4:8. In other words God is the perfect manifestation of 1 Corinthians 13! Taking it a step further the Bible tells us that we are the recipients of God's love (John 3:16; Romans 8:37-39; Ephesians 4:2-5; Romans 5:8). 

 If you want to know how God feels and acts towards you read 1 Corinthians 13!

You could even take the above scripture and replace "love" with "God" because remember "God is love". If you would like to learn His character I encourage you to read the following out loud:

⁴ [God] suffers long and is kind; [God] does not envy; [God] does not parade [Himself], is not puffed up; ⁵ does not behave rudely, does not seek [His] own, is not provoked, thinks no evil; ⁶ does not rejoice in iniquity, but rejoices in the truth; ⁷ bears all things, believes all things, hopes all things, endures all things.

⁸ [God] never fails. But whether there are prophecies, they will fail; whether there are tongues, they will cease; whether there is knowledge, it will vanish away. ⁹ For we know in part and we prophesy in part. ¹⁰ But when that which is perfect has come, then that which is in part will be done away.

1 Corinthians 13:4-10