11/05/2025
Today’s Manna - 11.4.25
Reading: 1 Corinthians 13
1 Cor 13:13 (NKJV) And now abide faith, hope, love, these three; but the greatest of these is love.
1 Corinthians 13 is the greatest treatise on love ever written. It was written to correct the abuse of spiritual gifts in the church at Corinth. Paul wanted to show that love is the supreme Christian virtue because love made spiritual gifts and spiritual sacrifices meaningful (v. 1-3). Love is also the supreme virtue because it puts Christian doctrine and duty into shoe leather (v. 4-7). Finally, love is the supreme virtue because it is the only eternal virtue (v. 8-13).
J. Cross, an early twentieth century pastor, wrote, “Love is the brightest star in the Christian firmament, and the fairest flower in the garden of God. It comprehends all virtue, honor, goodness, purity, sincerity, magnanimity, and whatever else can adorn the human character.”
Cross then goes on to explain how love encompasses all other Christian virtues, teaching us what Jesus meant when He said in John 13:35, “By this all will know that you are My disciples, if you have love for one another.” Cross wrote:
“For what is holiness but love supreme? and what is heaven but love perfected? and what are all the Christian virtues and graces but so many modifications of the same Divine principle?
“Mercy is love sparing the guilty; kindness, love blessing the needy; pity, love sympathizing with the sufferer; justice, love rendering to all their due; beneficence, love distributing its bounty; gratitude, love reciprocating its favors; fortitude, love sustaining its burdens; penitence, love bewailing its sinfulness; fidelity, but love performing its promises.
“And what is faith but love confiding? zeal, but love contending? peace, but love reposing? joy, but love exulting? hope, but love expecting? patience, but love enduring? meekness, but love forbearing?
“And worship is love adoring the Divine Excellence; prayer, love supplicating its heavenly Father; praise, love pouring its glad melody into the ear of God; preaching, love proclaiming the riches of the love that passeth knowledge; the holy communion, love celebrating love's sublimest mystery and transcending triumph; and all Christian work is love bringing its best sacrifice to the altar of the Love eternal, and laying its richest tribute at the nail-pierced feet.”
Bro. Eric
