“Let all that you do be done in love…If anyone has no love for the Lord, let him be accursed. Our Lord, come!” (1 Cor. 16:14, 22)
It is no exaggeration to say that the virtue of love is absolutely preeminent in the Christian life.
Love is foundational. Love is central. Love is nonnegotiable.
In fact, without love, Paul says, we are “nothing.” Not simply that we are deficient, lacking, or immature: we are nothing. So, despite whatever other accolades and achievements we may have (or think we have), if we “have not charity,” all our boasting is simply dust and straw, a clanging cymbal and a noisy gong.
Love for Christ and love for others, then, is the very substance of the Christian life: “Let all that you do be done in love,” and, “If anyone has no love for the Lord, let him be accursed.” Love is the litmus test of our profession of faith, the very measure of our genuineness and maturity.
Once we grant the preeminence of love, however, a very unsettling thing begins to happen—our sin and self-obsession begin to come into clearer view, and the hypocrisy we didn’t see before begins to shine. In other words, in the light of love we realize that what is required of us is not simply word and talk, as John says, but deed and truth. Thus, we can’t comfort ourselves with how much we know, or how much we talk, or the bad things we avoid and refuse to do. These are fig leaves at best and signs of complete self-deception at worst. Scripture is clear, the only thing that counts is faith working through love: genuine, concrete deeds of love, produced through faith in Christ and the power of His Spirit.
Now, for anyone with even a remotely functional conscience, this realization will produce a sinking sensation in the gut. Very likely it will also stir up a dozen memories of instances where we completely failed in our duty to love: memories where we were quick to serve ourselves and slow to serve the needs of others; memories of affection for Christ being quickly crowded out by a thousand lesser cares and concerns.
If that’s you, then I invite you now to turn your heart to the cross of Jesus Christ, which stands both as the clearest display of love the world has ever seen, and also the place where our sin and lovelessness were decisively paid for and forgiven. Consider Christ, who, as John says, “loves us” (note the present tense) and “has freed us from our sins by His blood” (Rev. 1:5), and take heart that through His life, death, and resurrection from the dead our loveless and wretched souls have been redeemed.
Through Him and the quickening, enlivening power of His Spirit, we can learn to “walk in love”, imitating our God as His beloved children (Eph. 5:1-2).