I love this stanza from 1 Corinthians 13:
"When I was a child, I talked like a child, I thought like a child, I reasoned like a child. When I became a man, I put the ways of childhood behind me. For now we see only a reflection as in a mirror; then we shall see face to face. Now I know in part; then I shall know fully, even as I am fully known. And now these three remain: faith, hope and love. But the greatest of these is love."
And I know many people say, "Exactly! Loving others is the only thing that matters. I don't have to believe in the miracles or think that the Bible is the authoritative Word of God. Just sentimental love is what I want . . . Ahhhh . . . Wuv . . ."
But that is not a careful reading of the text. First Corinthians states, "These three remain: faith, hope, and love"—not "only love remains" or "don't worry about faith and hope," but all three matter, with love binding them all together. That is great Christianity, truly, but take one of the three out of the equation, and life's questions become very difficult to be solved, if at all.
Asked what the greatest commandment was, Jesus stated in Matthew 22,
"'Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind.’ This is the first and greatest commandment. And the second is like it: ‘Love your neighbor as yourself. All the Law and the Prophets hang on these two commandments’."
Notice which comes first—Loving God is the greatest commandment—not just loving others (although that is integral to Godliness). And, according to Jesus, loving God means loving the Law and the Prophet—you know, the Old Testament, the Bible. Jesus loved people, of course—but He had faith in God and His Scriptures first, which gave Him the hope and purpose and power to love others that society considered unlovable until His death on the Cross. To be a Christ-follower means loving God the Father, wholly, and trusting that His ways, His words, are THE path for a good, productive life.
And, by all means love, but start with loving our heavenly Father, to whom you owe everything. If you hold His Word and His commandments and His ordinances in disdain, if you mock others who adore His greatness and His guidelines for holy living, you are being unloving, untrusting, and unhopeful about God and to others. You are only loving yourself, which is easy and basically self-idolatry (despite what Whitney Houston proclaims in her song, “The Greatest Love of All”). Real love of God and others produces hope, which in turn produces faith, which fosters more love, more hope, and more faith in a wondrous, amazing cycle of relationship, response, and replication.
So, if you call yourself a Christian, then first pour out your love on God, sing out His praises, tell Him what you are so thankful for, give Him that twenty-second spiritual hug that Psychologists say is quintessential for mental and emotional health, and then let that love shower down upon others around you who are in desperate need faith, love, and hope in their own lives. We must be Christ to the world; people need to see the love of Jesus in our hearts for everyone, including God.
Remember, love never fails unless people fail to love—and it all starts with the Love of God.