LOVE PREVAILS (1)
In the previous two chapters we saw that shepherding and teaching are the obligation of the vital groups. In this chapter we want to see that love prevails. Regardless of how much we shepherd and teach others, without love everything is in vain. First Corinthians 13 is a chapter covering one unique thing, that is, love. This chapter tells us that even if we prophesy in the highest way and give everything for others, without love they mean nothing (vv. 2-3). Both shepherding and teaching need love, not our natural love but His divine love.
God is love; we love because He first loved us (1 John 4:8, 19). God does not want us to love with our natural love but with Him as our love. God created man in His image (Gen. 1:26), which means that He created man according to what He is. God’s image is what God is, and His attributes are what He is. According to the revelation in the Holy Scriptures, God’s first attribute is love. God created man according to His attributes, the first of which is love. Although created man does not have the reality of love, there is something in his created being that wants to love others. Even fallen man has the desire within him to love. But that is just a human virtue, the very expression of the divine attribute of love. When we were regenerated, God infused us with Himself as love. We love Him because He first loved us. He initiated this love.
God’s predestination of us unto the divine sonship was motivated by the divine love. Ephesians 1:4-5 says that God chose us in Christ before the foundation of the world “to be holy and without blemish before Him in love, predestinating us unto sonship.”… God’s giving of His only begotten Son to us that we may be saved from perdition judicially through His death and have the eternal life organically in His resurrection was motivated by the divine love (3:16; 1 John 4:9-10)… God’s love is the source of the grace of Christ dispensed to us through the fellowship of the Spirit (2 Cor. 13:14). This is for us to enjoy the processed and consummated Triune God.
The vital groups should be groups that are prevailing. A proof that our vital group is prevailing is that we love people without any discrimination. Some Christian co-workers may feel that we should let certain persons suffer eternal perdition. They may say that they would not love certain persons, such as bank robbers. But while Christ was being crucified on the cross, two robbers were crucified with Him (27:38). One of them said, “Jesus, remember me when You come into Your kingdom” (Luke 23:42). Jesus said to him, “Truly I say to you, Today you shall be with Me in Paradise” (v. 43). The first one saved by Christ through His crucifixion was not a gentleman but a criminal, a robber, sentenced to death. This is very meaningful. (The Collected Works of Witness Lee, 1994-1997, vol. 5, “The Vital Groups”, ch. 8, pp. 118-123)
The church in Zamboanga 