Why love is the greatest spiritual gift of all
As Christians, we can agree that the spiritual gifts of faith, hope and love are all central to what it means to be a believer and that they’re necessary for living a righteous, Spirit-filled life. At first thought, we may think that they are all equally as important but when we pause and reflect on the nature of faith, hope and love, we will find that one surpasses all the others—love. Love is the single greatest thing that we can receive and express in life and walking in love should be our main focus as God’s children.
And now these three remain: faith, hope and love. But the greatest of these is love. I Corinthians 13:13
In I Corinthians 13, we find the apostle Paul’s famous discourse on love. Here, he clearly tells us that no matter how many gifts of the Spirit we may operate in, if we are not operating in the spiritual fruit of love, all other gifts are deemed useless. If we speak in tongues but do not have love, we are only making a loud noise. If we receive prophetic knowledge and power to interpret divine mysteries but do not have love, it amounts to nothing. If we even have sufficient faith that can move mountains but we do not have love, we are useless nobodies. As wonderful as these gifts of the Spirit are, they must be motivated and accompanied by love.
Unlike the gifts of prophesying and speaking in tongues that are temporal, the gifts of faith, hope and love are eternal. Of them, even faith and hope pale in comparison to love because faith and hope are by-products of love. It is love that ties them all together. Without love, there cannot be true faith since faith without love is nothing more than empty religion, which Jesus came to save us from. Without love, true hope cannot exist either because we can only hope for the things that we desire. God is love and it is by accepting His great love and sacrifice for us that we can believe in Him, dedicate our life to Him and have confidence that He will keep His promises.
We must commit our lives to walking in the love of God. Love is the spiritual fruit that should drive our spiritual lives. Where is love on your spiritual priority list? If love is not your number one priority, it needs to be. Ask God to help you learn how to walk in love and you will quickly realize how it will deeply enrich your walk with God and radically transform the way you think, speak and act.