I Corinthians 13 has been called “the chapter on love.” It could also be renamed “the chapter about no-love,” because it deals with our limitations and the way they affect our love. It speaks of limited and pointless knowledge, as well as ministries which are ineffective. A man once defined salt: “Salt is what makes the potatoes taste flat when there isn’t any.” This can be applied spiritually: When the salt of love is missing, the ministries are ineffective.
I Corinthians 13 begins with the theme of “no-love.” If I speak with the tongues of men and of angels, but do not have love, I have become a noisy gong or a clanging cymbal. And if I have the gift of prophecy, and know all mysteries and all knowledge; and if I have all faith, so as to remove mountains, but do not have love, I am nothing. And if I give all my possessions to feed the poor, and if I deliver my body to be burned, but do not have love, it profits me nothing. Although a very good definition of love follows in verses 4 through 7, most of the remainder of the chapter speaks of our limitations.
How strange it is that we rarely look to see what is really behind our times of failure and ineffectiveness. We may think that we need a greater ministry, more prophecy, more revelation, more deep discernment. But the truth is that we can have all of those gifts, and yet they will be very ineffective if God’s love is not coming through them.
Throughout the New Testament we see the very definite relationship between love and our progress in revelation. It is doubtful whether we ever have the revelation of our own need until we come into a greater flow of love. This seems like an enigma, but it is true: The more you love your brother, the more revelation you have of yourself and your own need. When you have deep love and you move in that love, your revelation mounts up to new heights.
In his prayer in Ephesians 3, Paul spoke of the love which surpasses knowledge.… I bow my knees before the Father, from whom every family in heaven and on earth derives its name, that He would grant you, according to the riches of His glory, to be strengthened with power through His Spirit in the inner man; so that Christ may dwell in your hearts through faith; and that you … may be able to comprehend … and to know the love of Christ which surpasses knowledge, that you may be filled up to all the fulness of God. Verses 14–19. You can have a revelation of your need which exceeds your understanding of it.
I Corinthians 13:2 is saying, in effect, “If I have a gift of prophecy and know all mysteries, all knowledge, everything there is to know in the way of revelation, but I do not have love, I am nothing.” Everything that the Spirit speaks through you can bring revelation to another man’s heart if you have love for him. Yet, one of the deepest sermons in the world will not reach a man if you do not love him. He will take offense at things which should not offend him, unless you inject love into what you say and do. If you do express love in your words, you can break his heart. Proverbs 27:6 says, “Faithful are the wounds of a friend.” You can “come on heavy,” and it will meet his heart, if you love your brother and he knows absolutely that your love is an unfailing love. Only the provocation of love will make him respond in openness to you. We are told to provoke one another to love and to good works (Hebrews 10:24).
We have a great deal to learn, and one essential truth is that everything will go smoother if we show more love. This is not denying that we love each other as members of the Father’s family; but the more love we each have, the more we will be able to appropriate the truths that God brings to us. The minute we are limited in love, we are limited also in our capacity to comprehend. We do not accurately comprehend without love.
If you want to unlock the mysteries of God to your own heart, then you must take down the barriers, and love—I mean LOVE. When the quality of your love is limited, and you hold the idea toward someone, “He did certain things to me and I forgave him, but I’m not going to forget about it,” then, whether you realize it or not, you are barricading yourself and locking yourself into limitations right at that point. You are doing it to yourself.
Relationships are limited because people get crabby and complain. They develop a certain pattern of thinking, and they grumble. All they have to do is to stop doing that and start loving. As they do, love will help them to bring forth the ministry, so that others can be reached by it. Do you know someone who is limited in spiritual understanding? You may be tempted to give him a real revelation, to tell him something he needs to hear, going right down the line, point one, two, three, and four. However, it will not mean one thing if you do not first penetrate his barriers with love. If fact, if you do not have love, it is questionable whether you will even have the right slant in your revelation that you want to tell him. And if you are not speaking with love, you will not reach him with whatever revelation you do have.
Love is not just the frosting on the cake. Love is the basic factor in our ministry to one another. It is a sign that we have passed from death into life, because we love the brethren (I John 3:14). To whatever extent the love of God in your life is limited, to that extent you are limited.
I Corinthians 13:4–7 gives the definition of love. Let us take a little liberty with this passage, not to misquote it, but to make it very real. By paraphrasing these verses and presenting the negative side, we can find a clear definition of no-love.
“No-love is impatient. No-love is unkind. No-love is jealous. No-love brags and is arrogant. No-love is always doing some dumb, unbecoming thing. No-love is always grabbing for its own interests. No-love is mad all the time, and is always provoked. No-love never forgets when someone does it a wrong. No-love can jump up and down for joy when it sees something done wrong, and the guilty one exposed. No-love does not stand for any nonsense. Instead of believing for a brother and standing with him, no-love first waits to see whether or not they will make it. No-love is always despairing; it does not hope for a thing. No-love will not endure anything. No-love ‘strikes out’ and fails every time.”
Paul speaks in I Corinthians 13:8–13 about the limitations that are found in the gifts.… if there are gifts of prophecy, they will be done away; if there are tongues, they will cease; if there is knowledge, it will be done away. For we know in part, and we prophesy in part; but when the perfect comes, the partial will be done away. When I was a child, I used to speak as a child, think as a child, reason as a child; when I became a man, I did away with childish things (or immaturity). For now we see in a mirror dimly, but then face to face; now I know in part, but then I shall know fully just as I also have been fully known. But now abide faith, hope, love, these three; but the greatest of these is love.
The picture of no-love presented in this chapter is related to our spiritual immaturity and the limitations on the gifts of the Spirit. We are not ministering half as efficiently as we could right now. But studying about the gifts and learning how to expand our ministries is not the answer. We need to humble ourselves before the Lord and get rid of this no-love by appropriating His love and letting it fill our hearts. Actually, we need no more visitations or revelations, we need no new sermons or tapes or books to move the whole world for God, if we can only break down the limitation in our love. However, with unlimited love we would also have greater visitations and revelations from God.
People reveal their immaturity when they become impatient with one another and pick at little things. It is impossible to be mature without love. You invariably revert back to a childish evaluation of things. You think as a child, you act as a child, you go back into the realm of emotions and react immaturely if you do not have love.
We are constantly looking for the Holy Spirit to lead us into greater revelation. There is no better way to get a greater revelation of the Lord Jesus Christ than to love Him. We read about this in John 14:21, 23–26. “He who has My commandments and keeps them, he it is who loves Me; and he who loves Me shall be loved by My Father, and I will love him, and will disclose Myself to him.… If anyone loves Me, he will keep My word; and My Father will love him, and We will come to him, and make Our abode with him. He who does not love Me does not keep My words; and the word which you hear is not Mine, but the Father’s who sent Me. These things I have spoken to you, while abiding with you. But the Helper, the Holy Spirit, whom the Father will send in My name, He will teach you all things, and bring to your remembrance all that I said to you.”
In verse 26 Jesus gave the promise of the Holy Spirit, but the two preceding verses show that the people who are led by the Holy Spirit are those who are loving. The motivation of heart determines whether or not a man comes into a fruitful ministry. When a brother is ambitious for a gift of the Spirit because he is on an ego trip and wants to have an important place, God frowns on him. That brother wants a ministry without love. Conversely, someone who does not want a place will find that God blesses him, and there is a flow of the Holy Spirit through him. He does not worry about having a ministry; he is motivated by the love of God, and therefore he does have a ministry.
We believe in superior gifts and see them manifested occasionally; however, we do not yet see even one percent of the miracle power we could see with the endowments that we already have, such as prophecy, intercession, and personal ministry. We do not really see these functioning as they should, simply because the correct motivation is often not present.
What makes a prophecy effective? Six men in a row could prophesy the very same word, but only the one who has enough motivation of love behind his words will knock down the impasse. Because he loves God with all of his heart, that love reaches out to his brothers and sisters and ministers an anointing that mows down every barrier, every barricade, and looses the people into God. Without love, you could be as orthodox as Moses himself, proclaiming all the right doctrines, and yet no flow of life would ever come out of it. The Pharisees were more orthodox than any people who ever lived, and Jesus said to them, “You are of your father, the devil.”
John 8 records Jesus’ confrontation with the Pharisees. Verses 31–44: Jesus therefore was saying to those Jews who had believed Him, “If you abide in My word, then you are truly disciples of Mine; and you shall know the truth, and the truth shall make you free.” They answered Him, “We are Abraham’s offspring, and have never yet been enslaved to anyone; how is it that You say, ‘You shall become free’?” What a lie! Israel had often been enslaved. The Romans, the Greeks, the Babylonians, the Egyptians, the Philistines, and other nations had all taken a turn at making Israel bow down.
Jesus answered them, “Truly, truly, I say to you, every one who commits sin is the slave of sin. And the slave does not remain in the house forever, the son does remain forever. If therefore the Son shall make you free, you shall be free indeed. I know that you are Abraham’s offspring, yet you seek to kill Me, because My word has no place in you.” The Pharisees’ hatred of Jesus corresponded to their rejection of His Word. Jesus said to His disciples, “If they love Me, they will love you. If they hate Me, they will hate you. If they love My Word, they will love your word. They will keep your word if they keep My Word” (John 15:20–21). It is all tied in together.
We are facing a period of evangelism just ahead, and the big problem will not be that of talking people into doctrines and teachings, experiences and gifts. Instead, we had better excel in love. They will listen to our prophecies if there is a great force of love behind them.
“I speak the things which I have seen with My Father; therefore you also do the things which you heard from your father.” (Just who was talking to those Pharisees?) They answered and said to Him, “Abraham is our father.” Jesus said to them, “If you are Abraham’s children, do the deeds of Abraham. But as it is, you are seeking to kill Me, a man who has told you the truth, which I heard from God, this Abraham did not do. You are doing the deeds of your father.” They said to Him, “We were not born of fornication; we have one Father, even God.” Jesus said to them, “If God were your Father, you would love Me; for I proceeded forth and have come from God, for I have not even come on My own initiative, but He sent Me. Why do you not understand what I am saying? It is because you cannot hear My word. You are of your father the devil…”
People are locked into deception when the hatred that Satan produces finds fertile soil in their hearts. That hatred is generally born in the religious world. Jesus would never have been crucified if it had been left entirely to the Romans; they did their best to squirm out of it. It was the religious people who plotted behind closed doors to put a price on His head and betray Him, and then get rid of Him. They were impeccably religious, but without any love. Nothing locks a man into deception and the rule of Satan in his heart, nothing limits him so totally from revelation, as being religious without love.
A nice, religious smile and a tolerant facial expression often has no love behind it. What is needed is more of God’s love. The love of God changes situations and unlocks people’s lives; therefore, you will have to love them. This does not mean that you are to be tolerant of their sin. You can hate the sin, and try to deliver them out of it. But remember, it is one thing to preach against sin, and it is another to preach against sinners. We do not have any brief to preach against sinners. Instead, we are to love them. Whenever someone is locked into a vindictive attitude toward sinners, it is because the love of God is not ruling his heart as it should. Like the Laodicean church, he does not know that he is spiritually wretched, miserable, blind, and naked (Revelation 3:17). When you are not aware of your need, then you do not seek God for an impartation to meet it.
To some degree, even the hungriest seekers of God are not open to a revelation of their need. To some degree you are limited in understanding. There is some portion in your life that is not quite open to receive what the Lord would say to you in this Word. Your capacity to receive revelation is not all black or white. To the extent that you are continually opening up to obey the Lord, to love Him and to serve Him, to that extent your revelation keeps expanding. But your revelation stops at the same level that your dedication stops. At a certain point, the disciples were totally incapable of further revelation until they moved on in God. Jesus told them, “I have many things to tell you, but you cannot bear them now” (John 16:12).
How difficult it is for a true man of God to lead people into deeper revelation. All the while he is reaching into God to lead His people, he must be careful to give them only as much revelation as they can assimilate without stumbling. He would like to open up and tell them all that God is revealing to his heart, but he cannot do it because he loves them too much and does not want to destroy them.
Extensive discernment of personal problems is often unnecessary. Problems diminish, shrink, and eventually disappear on the higher levels. When you wait before God until His love sweeps over your heart, then all the things that were plaguing you on a lower level will disappear. Your problems always loom up when you are on a lower spiritual level, not loving God enough. It comes right back to a negligence in following the first commandment. You are to love Him with all your heart, all your soul, all your mind, and all your strength (Deuteronomy 6:5). If more attention were given to walking in the love of God, there would be less need to explain all the intricacies of the teachings and doctrines set before us in the Word.
you have in obedience to the truth purified your souls for a sincere love of the brethren, fervently love one another from the heart. I Peter 1:22. Your growth, your sanctification, your obedience are all for the purpose that you reach in to love one another fervently from the heart. Do you see that this is a necessity in every relationship? Love each other just a little bit more. Express it; tell each other that you love each other. Do the best you can to reach into God for an impartation of His love.
Do you believe that God can turn you loose from your limited loving? Do you think He can do it right now? It is the answer to murmuring, complaining, misunderstanding, and getting your nose out of joint over some stupid little thing that you know should never bother you. Do not allow such insignificant things to distract you from walking with God.
Love has a reciprocal quality. We love God because He first loved us. We believe in the love that God has shed abroad in our hearts (Romans 5:5). God’s love is not ambivalent, like human love, which when jealous or disappointed can turn into hatred. God’s love does not turn to hatred. John said of Jesus, … having loved His own who were in the world, He loved them to the end. John 13:1. Never once did He waver or love them any less, no matter what they did.
In relationships between husbands and wives, parents and children, among brethren, and among those of different age levels, you may feel that certain ones do not love you, and this is probably the truth. What can you do so that they will start loving you? Because love has a reciprocal effect, you take the first step and love them so much that soon God’s love will be beamed from their hearts right back to you. When you are aware that certain ones are not reaching out to you, not loving you, do not react on a human level and back off and withdraw. Remember that love on the human level is suspicious, quick to draw lying conclusions, easily deceived. Instead, come into divine love, where the more perfect revelation is found. According to I Corinthians 13:12, that is the way we will know fully, even as we are known.