Let Everything Be Done in Love

Imagine the ultimate athletic achievement. The crowd goes wild, the jersey comes off, the celebration erupts; until the referee blows the whistle to call offside. The goal didn't count. The effort was there, the execution was flawless, but it meant absolutely nothing.

This leads us to a deeper problem in our spiritual lives. We can preach with eloquence, serve until we are exhausted, and give away everything we own. But if we do it without the defining mark of the Christian faith, it is spiritually offside.

The Apostle Paul wasn't writing a romantic poem for a wedding ceremony; he was writing a surgical critique to a deeply flawed community. The church in Corinth wasn't lacking in spiritual gifts, but they were using those gifts to show off. They played favorites, insisted on their own way, and even rushed ahead at the Lord's table so the poor were left hungry. They had the mechanics of religion, but they completely missed the heartbeat.

Let's reframe that for a second. Paul is telling them, and us, that it doesn't matter how successful our ministry is. Without love, we gain nothing.

But with God's love working in us and through us, we have everything.

Agape is the active love of God. It doesn't wait for a feeling or withhold itself until the conditions are perfect. When we read the famous list of what love is in 1 Corinthians 13, it is easy to read it as a scorecard where we are constantly failing. But it's not simply a list of demands; it is a portrait of how God actively loves us.

God is patient with your progress.

Look at how often we measure our spiritual growth against someone else. We see the person ahead of us; the 64-year-old runner sprinting past us at the end of a half-marathon, or the saint waking up at dawn to read their Bible while we struggle to simply stop scrolling on our phones. And we get profoundly frustrated with ourselves. We assume God is tapping His watch, irritated by our slow development.

Consider the reality of that in the Gospels. Jesus miraculously fed 5,000 people with five loaves and two fish. Just a few weeks later, a crowd of 4,000 is hungry, and the disciples panic all over again, asking where they could possibly get enough bread. Jesus had every right to be infuriated by their lack of faith. Instead, He simply directed the crowd to sit down, gave thanks, and fed them.

He didn't lecture. He provided.

Your spiritual progress may not be as fast as you would like, and your faith might ebb and flow through changing seasons. But God is not annoyed with your lack of progress. What God began in you, He will bring to completion.

God gives when you want to get.

Human nature constantly looks for an angle. We envy because we want what someone else possesses. We boast because we want the praise they are receiving. We insist on our own way to ensure we get exactly what we want. We even approach God with this transactional mindset, acting like a toddler who demands a drink of water and a bedtime story, but stubbornly tells her father to "kiss yourself" when asked for a hug. We want the benefits without the relationship.

Yet, Jesus meets us right in our selfishness. When James and John audaciously approached Jesus to demand He do for them whatever they asked, Jesus didn't cast them out. He simply asked, "What do you want me to do for you?".

God sees us grasping for control, trying to build our lives without Him at the center. But when we finally turn to Him, He doesn't hold back. He has already given us His life, dying the death we deserved, and He is always ready to give us more of Himself.

God doesn't keep score of your sins.

To keep a record of wrongs is easy. It feels justified. But keeping score is inherently unkind and resentful, and true love does not rejoice in wrongdoing.

Think about Peter. He boldly declared his loyalty to Jesus, only to deny Him three times in His darkest hour, explicitly rejecting Jesus's prayer for him. When Jesus rose from the grave and reunited with Peter on the beach, there was a glaring omission in His conversation. Jesus completely restored Peter without ever uttering the phrase, "I told you so".

True love never thrills at the thought of lecturing someone on their failure.

You might be keeping a meticulous score of your own sins, convinced that God is holding a ledger against you. But if you are in Christ, that record has been thrown out and washed by the blood of Jesus.

God believes the best in you.

It is exhausting to live in a world where people are constantly giving up on each other. We disqualify ourselves and dismiss our own potential. But love believes all things, hopes all things, and endures all things, which means it is always looking for the best in each one.

How can God look for the best in us when we are so profoundly broken? Because the best in you is Christ in you.

As Galatians 2:20 reminds us, we have been crucified with Christ, and it is no longer we who live, but Christ who lives in us. God will never get tired of supporting you. He will never run out of hope for your future. He will never, ever give up on you.