Colossians 3:12-15 (ESV)
12 Put on then, as God’s chosen ones, holy and beloved, compassionate hearts, kindness, humility, meekness, and patience, 13 bearing with one another and, if one has a complaint against another, forgiving each other; as the Lord has forgiven you, so you also must forgive. 14 And above all these put on love, which binds everything together in perfect harmony. 15 And let the peace of Christ rule in your hearts, to which indeed you were called in one body. And be thankful.
Without love, there can be no Christianity. Jesus said that men will know that you are my disciples if you love one another. You and I cannot claim to be Christians if we do not love.
When you truly love, then all these other things we have talked about are encompassed in love.
In 1 Corinthians 13 Paul tells us that though we may do all these seemingly great things like move mountains or give up our bodies to be burned or prophesy, if we do them without love, then they amount to nothing because love is the greatest. According to John 3:16, it was because of the great love that God had for us while we were still in sin that He sent Christ to die for us.
To put on love then according to 1 Corinthians 13 means;
To put on patience, kindness, not to envy, humility which is a lack of pride, not to behave rudely, not to be selfish seeking your own. Not to be provoked, not to think evil, not to rejoice in iniquity, rejoicing in the truth, bear all things, believe all things, hope all things and endure all things. As you can see. It includes all we have talked about and even more.
In our strength we will not be able to do it because this is the kind of love that only God can give, but going back to the beginning of our key scripture, we are not just some ordinary people. That is also why we must be thankful because God has done so much for us.
We are the elect of God, holy and beloved God has already equipped us, but each still has to make the choice what attitude to put on and what to put off.
