Spiritual Gifts – Love, the More Excellent Way (1 Cor. 12:27-13:13)

[Sung Psalm: 102]

Have you ever noticed how often faith, hope, and love go together?

In Colossians 1:4, Paul says that he thanks God, “since we heard of your faith in Christ Jesus and of the love that you have for all the saints, because of the hope laid up for you in heaven.”

We used Romans 5:1-5 as our declaration of pardon – a passage that starts with how we have been justified by faith (v1), and how we rejoice in hope of the glory of God (v2), because God’s love has been poured into our hearts through the HS (v5).

And that’s just a start!

In Romans 5, Paul emphasizes faith – highlighting the fact that faith is the starting point. Without faith, you’ll never around to hope and love!

And in Colossians 1, hope is the key – the “hope laid up for you in heaven” “the hope of the gospel that you heard” (1:23) which is the energizing power behind our faith! After all, without hope (without something that you are looking forward to) you'll never persevere in faith and love.

But of course, in 1 Corinthians 13, Paul insists that the greatest of these is love – because there will come a day when faith will become sight – and our hope will be seen with our very eyes (and who hopes for what he already has!).

Love cannot get you into the kingdom (only faith can do that!).
Love cannot energize you to persevere (only hope can do that!).
But love is the greatest of these three – because love never ends.