Love Never Fails
If someone told you that love never fails, maybe you’d laugh or even cry because you’ve experienced the failure of love. You’ve felt the sting of death with a loved one. Or maybe you’ve felt betrayed by someone you loved.
We know that human love does fail. Just as human beings do. So my love can fail. Yours too. What did Paul mean when he wrote the passage below?
‘it will pass away’
Love never fails. But where there are prophecies, they will cease; where there are tongues, they will be stilled; where there is knowledge, it will pass away. 1
Corinthians 13:8 NIV
God’s love never fails
The love that never fails comes from God, not you or me. Our human love ends when we die. When we die, our tongues are stilled. Our knowledge passes away. Even our love for family and friends on earth ceases.
Our love for God does not end because our spirit returns to God when we die. How can we tell whether the love we have will live or die? Paul shows us that true love manifests in amazing, almost unattainable forms.
Love is patient, love is kind. It does not envy, it does not boast, it is not proud. 5 It does not dishonor others, it is not self-seeking, it is not easily angered, it keeps no record of wrongs. 6 Love does not delight in evil but rejoices with the truth. 7 It always protects, always trusts, always hopes, always perseveres.
1 Corinthians 13:4-7 NIV
What love is…and isn’t
Do you have this kind of love: patient, kindly love? Love that keeps no record of wrongs? Not many of us do.
Yet God can grant us this kind of love. For His love never fails or ends. Someday this world will be complete. When that day comes, everything will be revealed, and we will bask in the warm glow of God’s presence and His love.
Later in life, John had to be carried into church for his legs had weakened. Yet he still wanted to share the simplest, most basic message from Jesus.
‘A New Command’
…I am not writing you a new command but one we have had from the beginning. I ask that we love one another. 6And this is love: that we walk in obedience to his commands…
2 John 1:5b-6a NIV
This message, John’s message, could not have been simpler. Love one another. Follow the commands of Jesus Christ, just as John did.
Shortly after writing these words, John died. We know him best as the beloved disciple. Also as the man who wrote the Gospel of John, the letters of John, and the Book of Revelation.
P.S. If you’d like a lesson on love from the greatest dog ever, click below:
The Greatest Dog Ever Gives Us a Lesson on Love
