Love Comes First

[Grayson Jacks]

“And though I bestow all my goods to feed the poor, and though I give my body to be burned, but have not love, it profits me nothing.” – 1 Corinthians 13:3

         

        In the Church, we are so quick to preach and teach practical examples of serving others and serving God. This isn’t a bad thing. Although, having said that, if we don’t teach people to be rooted and grounded in love first then we are doing them an extreme disservice. We are not called to lay down our lives so that we get a good feeling or gain favor with anyone. God is interested with the heart more than the physical action. Love is what edifies and not the action in the natural. When we are rooted and grounded in love then we walk in it and never leave it. If we are not walking in love, then it becomes something we do and not something we have become. If love were just an action, then it would be relegated to fleeting moments that pass away and love would only be temporal and not eternal. Love manifests itself in an action. The love isn't the action itself. Without love the action means nothing.

^“that Christ may dwell in your hearts through faith; that you, being rooted and grounded in love,  may be able to comprehend with all the saints what is the width and length and depth and height— to know the love of Christ which passes knowledge; that you may be filled with all the fullness of God.” – Ephesians 3: 17-19

“We love because He first loved us.” – 1 John 4:19

         I cannot effectively serve and love others without knowing His love first. We were taught love by the world and the love of the world is not even close to the mark. For the longest time I wondered, “How can I know the love of Christ if it passes understanding?” Then God put in my Spirit “Greater love has no one than this, than to lay down one’s life for his friends.” -John 15:13 The revelation hit me like a freight-train. When I’m rooted and grounded in the finished work of the Cross and know this love, I am filled and flooded with all of God’s fullness. We are flooded with all His love. The love comes from God first. In this place I become the image of God and His love. Then the love becomes who you are and not just an act. I’m not rooted and grounded in an act. I am rooted and grounded in the love of Christ, and because of that, the fullness of God.

     

       It is so easy to get caught up and seek to serve others because of a good feeling achieved from it or because it’s just what you’re supposed to do. This, in its nature, is seeking thine own and cannot be love. The heart is not pure because there is something sought for personal gain and only the pure in heart can see God. To genuinely love one must become love. Be rooted and grounded in it. Until the heart of the Father and His ways become who we are, we do not walk worthy of the calling. We can die for the Gospel, we can give everything have to the poor, we can have the faith to move mountains and heal any disease but if we are not doing it from a pure heart. From love. Then it means absolutely nothing. Becoming love comes first and it is what produces, in the natural, the acts of love.

By: Grayson Jacks