Love Conquers

By Andrew Beasley       What is the greatest command? Jesus instructs that it is to love God, and that the second greatest is to love one’s neighbor as himself (Matt. 22:36-40). Paul in his discourse on spiritual gifts throughout chapters 12, 13 and 14 of 1st Corinthians teaches that spiritual gifts will eventually fade and three things will remain of which love was the greatest (1 Cor. 13:13). John, in his gospel account, records Christ noting that it was the bond of love between the Father and humanity that led him to send His only Son that we might have eternal life (Jn. 3:16).     It is no secret that if anyone had cause to hold and to harbor a grudge it would be God toward mankind. Moses records that God repented of making man because of their wickedness in the time of Noah (Gen. 6:6). Hosea, through inspiration, uses his relationship with his adulteress wife as an analogy for how the Hebrew people were treating God by their continued rebellion and repeated engagement with pagan idol worship. Yet God loved us so much that despite all of this He sent His son. These examples help to emphasize what Paul instructs in Colossians 3:14, that it is love that overcomes hardship and offenses. It is the bond of love between brethren that conquers the seemingly impossible, just as it was the bond of love that conquered sin and death.

- Andrew Beasley serves as a minister with the Northwest Church of Christ in Greensboro, NC. He may be contacted through the congregation's website: https://nwchurchofchrist.com/about/