Jesus. Jesus and you!

Love is Greatest.

Love is the  greatest gift that Jesus has given to us, for without the love of Jesus coming down to us as the perfect and greatest gift from God, it would be impossible for us to enter the kingdom of heaven or to receive forgiveness of our sins.

"And now abide faith, hope, love, these three; but the greatest of these is love," 1 Corinthians 13:13. Jesus came and delivered these gifts to us, to abide in us - or to live in us. We are to be filled with faith, hope and love, but the best and greatest of all of these is love. We are to grow the fruits of the Spirit into our lives, and a quick look at the fruits of the Spirit reveal that these are all characteristics of true love. We are filled with His love and we are to let His live shine out from us as a light of love to the world. The love that is within us is greater than any faith that we may walk in.

If you are filled with faith and there is nothing that you are unable to believe for, even that you cast mountains into the sea, but yet you have not the love of Jesus shining through you, then you are nothing (1 Corinthians 13:2). If you spend all your time going out to feed the poor and sending money to feed the poor, but yet you do not have love, then you are nothing (Verse 3). Should you be highly spiritual and the greatest in the speaking of tongues and have not love, then you are nothing(Verse1).

In Matthew 22: 37 to 38, Jesus says that the greatest of all the commandments is that you Love God with all your heart and that the second is that you love your neighbour as yourself.  There is a scripture in Matthew 9:13 that is sadly seldom used in sermons, "I desire mercy and not sacrifice."  Mercy comes from the heart and is a product of love, whereas sacrifice tends to come from the brain and not the soul. Jesus requires that as the mercy of the Father was shown to us, by sending us the perfect gift of love, so too are we to show mercy to others around us in the form of His love shining through us.

Go out and let the light of love shine from within you into all the darkness that is around you.