Christian Living

---

The Greatest Thing Is Love
By: Rick L. King
February 15, 2011

1Co 13:13 And now abideth faith, hope, charity, these three; but the greatest of these is charity (love).

Charity: 26. αγαπη agape ag-ah’-pay; from 25; love, i.e. affection or benevolence; specially (plural) a love-feast: — (feast of) charity([-ably]), dear, love.

Have you ever been in love? Wasn’t that the greatest thing that ever had happened to you? Wasn’t there such joy and happiness and you felt so complete? Didn’t you find a strength that you didn’t know that you could have? I can think back of how being in love was so awesome. I felt like I was on the top of the world.

I remember the times that I was so in love with the Lord. I longed to worship and praise Him. I would raise my arms and worship and just get lost in His presence. Nothing else mattered. I remember the time that I went to a praise gathering in a coliseum. When I worshiped I didn’t care who was around or who saw me. I just seemed to get lost in His presence. This was the most beautiful time that I ever had. Not knowing that I was being observed by pastors up on the platform, I was amazed at the end of the meeting that a pastor came down and told me that he had been so blessed just watching me worship the Lord. That was a real blessing to me that it touched someone. Yet I wasn’t doing it for that reason. I was just in love with the Lord and wanted to show him with my whole heart.

Unfortunately, things creep in. Our focus changes and we seem to not even realize that it has. We get our focus on our health, on money, on problems, etc. When we are not feeling well or our body is sick or hurting we tend to focus on that. Once the Holy Spirit told me that He could heal anyone at any time or at any place, but why do it if they just go on doing the things that they want to do. I thought of this concerning others but I didn’t realize that I was doing the same thing. I thought that all I wanted to do was to be used of Him, and have a few nice things. I wanted a mate and someone to love on this earth. Little did I realize that this was a lateral focus. Scripture says:

Mr 4:19 And the cares of this world, and the deceitfulness of riches, and the lusts of other things entering in, choke the word, and it becometh unfruitful.

Consider this. All of the things that mean something to us are actually the cares of this world. The ministry, the mate, the money, the material things and our health, are all the same. None of these will matter from an eternal perspective. All of these will pass away. The only eternal thing will be our love relationship with the Lord. God can use anyone in ministry. He spoke through a donkey didn’t he? So we are not really important or that it is imperative that He uses us. He chooses to do so, but He does not have too. He is God and all powerful. He can pour out His Spirit any time He chooses and bring all of mankind to their knees in an instant. He is the one that adds to the church daily such as should be saved. He does it. He chooses to allow us to partner with Him but he is not limited to this partnership to get what He wants to do, done. The mate we will not have in Heaven. He uses the mate to show us what love is and how beautiful that it can be to love. Yet there is no marriage in Heaven. We will love only Him gladly. Of course the money and material things will all pass away as they will not be needed. The only thing that will matter will be our love relationship with Jesus.

The statement I made about Him being able to heal at any time now brings a new perspective at least to me. I was having major physical problems. I knew that the problem was not with God but was with me somehow. I couldn’t figure out why He didn’t heal me. He used this to show me where I had stopped worshiping and loving Him with all my heart. I had gotten focussed on health, the need of a car, the need of money, the desire for a mate, and the desire to minister. Little to my knowledge these were all things that were choking out the Word and my worship and love for Him. Scripture says:

Col 2:10 And ye are complete in him, which is the head of all principality and power:

I was always complete in Him when I was in worship and had fallen in love with Him. I had need of nothing else. I was happy and always enjoying His presence. The enemy as we know is very sly. Somehow my focus got on all those other things and took me away from my love and worship. It is not that these things do not have value, but if they take us away from our love of Him, then there is a problem. God is a jealous God. Even if we never have anything of this world, we can be complete. If you have ever really entered into worship, and had tears of joy running down your face as you were so in love with Him, then you would understand how awesome and beautiful that it really is. There is nothing of this world. There is nothing that the devil can provide. There is no mate or money or material thing that can ever even come close to the fulfillment that comes when we are in love with Jesus and worship Him.

At least for me, I have realized that I must do as this scripture says:

Re 2:4 Nevertheless I have somewhat against thee, because thou hast left thy first love.

Many things just do not happen for us because of this.

Jer 5:25 Your iniquities have turned away these things, and your sins have withholden good things from you.

I was aware of this scripture but just couldn’t figure out what my iniquity or sin was. Now I know. If my focus is not to,

De 6:5 And thou shalt love the LORD thy God with all thine heart, and with all thy soul, and with all thy might.

Then the Lord has reason and right to withhold anything from me.

Father, teach me how to fall in love with you once again. I desire to love you and worship you with all of my heart, soul, and might. I know that this is eternal and everything else will pass away. Forgive me where I have gotten sidetracked and allowed the cares of this world and the deceitfulness of riches to choke you out. I ask for your mercy and grace to get me back on track that I may be complete in you and become as Paul when he said that he learned to be content with or without. I realize now that my contentment will always be there no matter the circumstance or need as long as I keep my love relationship with you intact and always my priority. In Jesus name
Amen.


Comments?
Please send all comments to my email address as I cannot receive messages on this site as I am not a paid member. [email protected] (please notice that between the r and the k in my email addy that there is an underscore ( _ ). Thank you.

---

PLEASE ENCOURAGE AUTHOR BELOW LEAVE COMMENT ON ARTICLE