Discussional 1, School Year 2007-2008

My hope in devotions over the next year is that we can dig deep into the Scriptures together and find greater meaning and greater calling from them, particularly in the area of our theme for the year: Made For Love. As such, we’re probably going to be visiting the same scripture over and over again, as many passages in the Bible or rich and full of meanings. I’ll try to point out a single direction for a conversation to take, and I would love it if a multitude of brothers and friends of STE could join in the conversations and enrich it with their own thoughts, in sights, beliefs, and knowledge. But I would ask that if you see another direction to go with the scripture that is not in that focus range, that you bring that to me privately, and we can have another devotion/discussion on that topic as well.

This is the case with September’s Devotion/Discussion. I’m going to be digging in a little bit of 1 Corinthians 13. Given what our theme for the year is, I’m willing to bet we can spend a lot of time finding plenty of topics here. So I’m going to focus on just one for now.

In fact, I’m going to focus on just one small portion of the chapter, though I encourage you to read and reread it, so you can “live in the chapter” as we discuss it. I’m going to be focusing on the last verse, which is verse 13. It reads: And now these three remain: faith, hope and love. But the greatest of these is love.

The question I want to ponder is the following: How great is love, and what does that inspire and cause us to do?

Let us start first by looking at what love is compared to here: faith and hope. These are the two other things that remain. And what do we know about these two?

Well, in Hebrews, we are told that faith is being certain of what we do not see. It’s a 180-degree turn from “seeing but not believing”. It’s going beyond trusting your eyesight, to trusting something greater (think about Luke Skywalker, being trained by Obi-Wan Kenobi during his first flight on the Falcon). The dictionary describes faith as: Confidence or trust in a person or thing, and belief that needs no proof. In the book of Matthew, we learn from Jesus himself that if we have faith (and faith that is only the size of a mustard seed), we can do great things, like moving mountains, and that nothing will be impossible.

And hope is not that dissimilar. The dictionary defines hope as: A person or thing on which expectations are centered, the feeling that what is wanted can be had or that events will turn out for the best, or to believe, desire, or trust. The contemporary rock band Skillet has a song entitled “You Are My Hope”, and from their lyrics, we get an understanding that hope is what gives us strength, live, and everything we could need, and that hope is the one thing that can rescue us when it seems nothing else can.

And yet, we are told that among these three, faith hope and love, that love is the greatest. That love is greater than the power to move mountains, and make the impossible possible. That love is greater than knowing things will turn out for the best, than knowing that a rescue is always possible, and our strength and life and all that we need.

What then, is love, that it is so powerful? How then, should we be motivated to show and share the love that has been given to us, that lives within all of us?

And what does the knowledge of how great love is compel, inspire, and cause us to do?

These are what I want to know. I wish to have a discussion with you on the power we have through love. I could give you my theories and what I believe are the answers, but I don’t think that’s good enough, because I know that all of us is smarter than any one of us.

So come, share, and give your thoughts …