Today’s 333 Devotional: “Love: The Great Essential”

What is an essential? In life it’s water, food, and air. In school it’s reading, writing, and arithmetic. In baseball it’s hitting, pitching, and fielding. In basketball it’s offence, defense, and will you please make a foul shot.

Webster’s defines essentials as relating to or constituting the essence of something, and that it’s of the upmost importance, basic and indispensable, an absolute necessity. It is one of the “I got to have it or die” requirements.

When it comes to living and being a disciple of Jesus, the big three are faith, hope, and love, but love is the greatest.

“And now abide faith, hope, love, these three; but the greatest of these is love.” (1 Corinthians 13:13)

Love is the great essential of life, or to say it another way, it’s the stuff life is made of. If you lack this quality of love, then nothing you can do that will impress God. Not even faith is as great as love.

Paul makes it clear when he says in 1 Corinthians 13, or the chapter on love, that without love we are nothing. And he makes sure that there’s no confusion when it comes to this truth. He says that we can have all the faith in the world, or even sacrifice our lives, but without love God considers them as without any real value.

“Though I have the gift of prophecy, and understand all mysteries and all knowledge, and though I have all faith, so that I could remove mountains, but have not love, I am nothing.” (1 Corinthians 13:2)

Hopefully through this set of devotionals about love we can now see why love is life’s driving priority and just how essential love is, how it exceeds everything else we can do as believers.

And so, are we willing to love in that way, love God with the whole of who we are, body, soul, mind, and strength, and are we willing to love others the same?