The Centrality of LOVE in salvation.

It's so odd how God gives joy to believers. When we lose our lives, we gain life. wha???
When we lay down the desire to be honored and adored, and spend time wondering how to bless others, and how we might make Jesus known among those who've heard his name but never seen His heart in actions........surpisingly - JOY happens.

Edwards' take on the most commonly used text at make-believer weddings, is just amazing.
1 Cor 13:1
"If I speak in the tongues of men and of angels, but have not love, I am a noisy gong or a clanging cymbal. And if I have prophetic powers, and understand all mysteries and all knowledge, and if I have all faith, so as to remove mountains, but have not love, I am nothing. If I give away all I have, and if I deliver up my body to be burned, but have not love, I gain nothing.

Love is patient and kind; love does not envy or boast; it is not arrogant or rude. It does not insist on its own way; it is not irritable or resentful; it does not rejoice at wrongdoing, but rejoices with the truth. Love bears all things, believes all things, hopes all things, endures all things.

Love never ends. As for prophecies, they will pass away; as for tongues, they will cease; as for knowledge, it will pass away. For we know in part and we prophesy in part, but when the perfect comes, the partial will pass away. When I was a child, I spoke like a child, I thought like a child, I reasoned like a child. When I became a man, I gave up childish ways. For now we see in a mirror dimly, but then face to face. Now I know in part; then I shall know fully, even as I have been fully known.

So now faith, hope, and love abide, these three; but the greatest of these is love. "
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I had heard it said when I first was saved that "you can put the word Jesus in place of the word "love" in this text."
And while that would be fully true..........Christ is more described as the wisdom and knowledge of God in the scriptures........and the Holy Spirit seems to be the Love of God in the bible.

That love is the Holy Spirit. So we can have all kinds of "knowledge" and even a kind of faith.......but if we have not Love (the Holy Spirit) it profits us nothing......which makes sense, if you think about it - because
Mark 8:36 "For what does it profit a man to gain the whole world and forfeit his life?"
What good is knowledge if you do not have salvation !!!?
What good is being able to speak in tongues if you have not love for your brother as EVIDENCE that you are born of God???!!!

It profits us nothing.

Being born of the spirit is a mysterious thing........but the scripture tells us that one born of God will have corresponding fruit....ie..love to God and to others that is supernatural.
And since Love never ends.......it is eternal...it is GOD himself ruling in the soul of a believer that their actions are the affects of the Headship of the Living God in our lives.

1 John 4:8
"Anyone who does not love does not know God, because God is love."

1 John 4:16
"So we have come to know and to believe the love that God has for us. God is love, and whoever abides in love abides in God, and God abides in him."

God didn't mince words, he said love for our brothers and sisters is great evidence that we are abiding in Him, we are His children, and have recieved the Holy Spirit.

Gal 5:22
"But the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness and self control, against such things there is no law."

Romans 13:8
"Owe no one anything, except to love each other, for the one who loves another has fulfilled the law."

Romans 13:10
"Love does no wrong to a neighbor; therefore love is the fulfilling of the law."

Gal 5:14
"For the whole law is fulfilled in one word: "You shall love your neighbor as yourself."

Peaced out, broken and empty vessel that needs the Lord to fill me up with love for His people............
what a joyful place to be,

Love from Above and in truth ~
Jen2