“Love is patient; love is kind; love is not envious or boastful or arrogant or rude. It does not insist on its own way; it is not irritable; it keeps no record of wrongs; it does not rejoice in wrongdoing but rejoices in the truth. It bears all things, believes all things, hopes all things, endures all things. Love never fails.” – 1 Corinthians 13:4-8a

Paul, writing to the church in the town of Corinth describes what perfect love is like, and the bar is set high. I wonder, are you always patient? Do you ever get jealous? Do you ever want your own way or get irritated? Do you ever hold a grudge? Well, you are not alone. None of us are able offer perfect love to others, so why is Paul urging us to have this perfect love?

We read in John’s first letter, “Whoever does not love does not know God, for God is love.” (1 John 4:8) In other words, if you want to know what God is like then describe love.

Therefore, as God is love, in Paul’s letter, we can replace the word “love” with “God”: “God is patient; God is kind; God is not envious or boastful or arrogant or rude. God does not insist on God’s own way; God is not irritable; God keeps no record of wrongs; God does not rejoice in wrongdoing but rejoices in the truth. God bears all things, believes all things, hopes all things, endures all things. God never fails.”

Through Christ we gain access to God and access to this perfect love. As Paul puts it, “God’s love has been poured into our hearts through the Holy Spirit that has been given to us.” (Romans 5:5) God’s love makes home in us through God’s Holy Spirit living in us – the Spirit of God, the Spirit of love.

God knows that we cannot live lives of perfect love, but through partnering with God, God holds God’s side of the bargain and fills us with love.

You see, love cannot exist in isolation. Love has to be expressed. Ever wondered why God is both one and community, why God has to be in the three persons of the Holy Trinity? Because love needs to be expressed and God could not be love if this love was not expressed: the parent expressing love for the child and the Spirit, the child expressing love for the parent and the Spirit, and the Spirit expressing love for the parent and the child – what theologians call the “cosmic dance”.

Therefore, as God opens up to us and extends love to us through the Spirit living in us, that love is always outwards looking and always looking to the interests of others.

If we want to become more like God, more like Jesus, then the answer is to open ourselves to the Spirit of God. The Spirit living in us transforms us and shapes us from the inside out, and the Spirit living in us seeks to love others and the world around us. Love cannot be contained.

Jesus said he was the way to God, and the way to God is love. He said, “I give you a new commandment, that you love one another. Just as I have loved you, you also should love one another. By this everyone will know that you are my disciples, if you have love for one another.” (John 13:34-35)

Remember how we are not perfectly loving? Well, how can a perfectly loving and holy God be paired or partnered with unloving and unholy us? The answer is through the life, death, and resurrection of Jesus – the ultimate, living, self-sacrificial expression of God’s perfect love – and it is Christ who makes us clean and holy so that the Spirit, the Spirit of love, can come and live in us.

The wonderful, good news – the Gospel of Jesus – is that God’s love is freely available to all without discrimination, without judgment, and without reservation. No matter who you are or what you have done. No matter what race, gender, age, social standing, sexuality, the Spirit of love is given to all who ask in Jesus’s name.

If there is one message I would like to give you today, it is that God loves you more than you can possibly imagine. There is nothing you can do to make God love you more and nothing you can do to make God love you less.

God wants to come and make home in your heart by putting the Holy Spirit of love inside you. The Gospel really is good news. All you need to do is ask.

Importantly, the good news is not just for us but for the world. Those of us filled with the Spirit of love are members of the Kingdom of God, the Kingdom of love and begin to see the world as God sees it, people as God sees them, and creation as God intends it to be.

Jesus said: “Blessed are you who are poor, for yours is the kingdom of God.” (Luke 6:20), not one day in the future when they die, but in the here and now, because those filled with God’s love will house them, feed them, listen to them, support them, and encourage them. The love of God poured into us is designed to flow out from us to heal a broken and hurting world.

Today, wherever you are, as you meet with God, may you become the best version of yourself and be filled with God’s Holy Spirit, the Spirit of love, to be the wonderfully diverse, inclusive, accepting, welcoming, and loving people God has called you to be.

Amen.

• Reverend Gavin Tyte is pastor of St Mark's Anglican Church. You can read or listen to all his Insights athttps://fab.church/