Love Cannot Quit

I remember sitting on the couch in the livingroom with Daddy reading the Bible aloud and the rest of us reading along in our Bibles. Daddy would read a verse and then explain it to the best of his ability.  The problem was, I didn't always agree with him in his assessment.  I remember one time in particular when Daddy read about gifts of the Holy Spirit and said they were no longer relevant. I had not yet given my life to following Christ Jesus, but I believed the Bible as the true word of God.  I remember thinking, "If that is true, then something has changed and it wasn't God.  So what was it?"

I the LORD do not change.  Malachi 3:6

The only conclusion I could come up with was, "God doesn't change, so we must have.  He doesn't draw away from us, but we do draw away from Him.  We must have drawn so far away as to make it impossible to receive His gifts."  I found what was to me proof of my thought processes. 

It is the Lord who goes before you. He will be with you; he will not leave you or forsake you. Do not fear or be dismayed.  Deuteronomy 31:8
We all, like sheep, have gone astray, each of us has turned to our own way; and the LORD has laid on him the iniquity of us all.  Isaiah 53:6
I continued to reason that if it was our drawing away from God that robbed us of the ability to receive His gifts of the Spirit, then drawing closer to Him would make it possible for us to receive once again.  After I decided to follow Christ I thought back in amazement that I had had these thoughts even before I received Him as my personal Savior and Lord.  The better I get to know Him, the less I am amazed by it, but instead see that it only makes sense.  He was wooing me to Himself in love. 

Before going any further, as he continued studying God's word, Daddy changed his mind about the Holy Spirit giving gifts to believers.  He was simply regurgitating what he had heard being preached commonly at that time.  The reason for this was the big charismatic movement of the day made people fearful.  Some said you had to have particular gifts of the Spirit or you weren't God's true child.  Others said that if you had these same gifts, you were being deceived.  This battle and others like it still go on today, even though God's word warns us to stay away from these types of disputes.
Don’t have anything to do with foolish and stupid arguments, because you know they produce quarrels. And the Lord’s servant must not be quarrelsome but must be kind to everyone, able to teach, not resentful. II Timothy 2:23-24
However, there is a gift of the Spirit that God tells us we must have or we are none of His.  However, it is not "speaking in tongues of angels," "gift of healing," "gift of evangelism," or any other the other wonderful gifts mentioned by Paul in the New Testament.  It is the greatest gift of all - Love - agape love - God's love.

If I [can] speak in the tongues of men and [even] of angels, but have not love (that reasoning, intentional, spiritual devotion such as is inspired by God’s love for and in us), I am only a noisy gong or a clanging cymbal. And if I have prophetic powers  ( the gift of interpreting the divine will and purpose), and understand all the secret truths and mysteries and possess all knowledge, and if I have [sufficient] faith so that I can remove mountains, but have not love (God’s love in me) I am nothing (a useless nobody). Even if I dole out all that I have [to the poor in providing] food, and if I surrender my body to be burned or in order that I may glory, but have not love (God’s love in me), I gain nothing.  I Corinthians 13:1-3
Without love (agape - an act of self-sacrifice, not a feeling. There's no such thing as agape without action.) every other gift is a waste of energy.  Without love, we cannot walk in wisdom.  When I came to this realization, I wanted nothing more than to receive God's love and to walk in His wisdom rather than my own.  I had been walking in my own long enough.  It had gotten me nowhere, but had given me some special gifts, like fear, anxiety, a feeling of belonging nowhere and to no one, the need to do more, be more, prove myself, etc.  Once I cried out to God for forgiveness and asked Him to pour out His love and wisdom on me, fear was replace with passion for God's word, anxiety was replaced with the peace of knowing that I did indeed belong to Someone and there is no one greater than He.  I no longer had to prove myself, but learned to accept who I was created to be and marveled that He found me worthy of His calling on my life.  Life, though it still has ups and downs, became a journey of excitement and seeking adventure at every turn.  I learned that there is always good to be found in every situation if we will but ask Him to help us find it.  I am not saying that I never experience fear, heartache, bereavement, etc. but rather that He has given me the sense to know that even in my worst of times He is with me, carrying me, loving me and giving me the strength to carry on. When my beloved daddy passed away on my son's wedding day, I wanted to simply collapse in my bed, cover my head and sob.  Another part of me wanted to run to my momma and throw my arms around her neck and sob. I cried out to God, felt His presence and was given words of comfort and then he sent one of my nephews and his family to our door. Peace and joy flooded my heart and even though I was almost overwhelmed with grief, because of God's presence, I was able to go to the wedding with a smile on my face. 

Without knowing Him I would be unable to see the love He has for His creation, especially those He created to spend eternity with Him, and I would not sense the longing He has for them to come to truly know Him and experience His grace.  Nor would my heart ache in love so that I am obliged to tell people about His love for them and I would stand by and simply watch them choose to spend eternity without Him in misery.
Paul was not simply making a generalized comment when he wrote, "Now abide these three: Faith, Hope and Love; and the greatest of these is Love." I Corinthians 13:13  Without love, faith and hope are dead.
Father, You are the only One that makes this life worth living, for You are Love.  Without You we are lost, fearful, wandering around forlorn and feeling forsaken.  You have made it clear in Your word that this is not Your desire for us.  You want us to spend eternity with You beginning now, not some time in the distant future.  We sometimes get it into our heads that we have to struggle through this life on our own until we get to heaven.  It makes us want to give up and quit.  We do not have that luxury.  Time is short and most are headed for an eternity without You.  They do not even fear that because they do not understand what that entails, because they do not know You.  If they realized that eternity without You means eternity with everything that is opposite of You, fear would draw them to You.  This is partly why You have told us that "Fear of the Lord is the beginning of wisdom."  Proverbs 9:10.  Understanding that You are everything good from the tiniest thought of goodwill to the extravagant love lavished on mankind through Jesus' death on the cross, brings us to the conclusion that without You there is only evil, hatred, pain, loneliness, fear, agony, every other negative thing we can think of and much much worse.  The fear of not having You in our lives should dominate our thoughts and actions and cause us to strive all the more to reach others for Your kingdom.  Quitting brings only loss.  You have told us that the victory is Yours and has already been won, therefore we cannot, we must not give up and quit. When we are tempted to give up, help us recognize our responsibilities and keep going unless and until You give us the signal to pack up and leave.  Help us to rely on Your strength rather than our own, for You will never fail us, for You are love. 
God is love  I John 4:8    Love never fails.  I Corinthians 13:8