LOVE PREVAILS (4) – LOVE BEING THE MOST EXCELLENT WAY
The end of 1 Corinthians 12 reveals that love is the most excellent way (v. 31b). How can one be an elder? Love is the most excellent way. How can one be a co-worker? Love is the most excellent way. How do we shepherd people? Love is the most excellent way. Love is the most excellent way for us to prophesy and to teach others. Love is the most excellent way for us to be anything or do anything.
Love prevails. We should love everybody, even our enemies. If the co-workers and elders do not love the bad ones, eventually, they will have nothing to do. We must be perfect as our Father is perfect (Matt. 5:48) by loving the evil ones and the good ones without any discrimination. We must be perfect as our Father because we are His sons, His species. This is most crucial. How can we be a co-worker and an elder? It is by love in every way. We must love any kind of person. The Lord Jesus said that He came to be a Physician, not for the healthy ones but for the sick ones. The Lord said, “Those who are strong have no need of a physician, but those who are ill” (9:12).
The church is not a police station to arrest people or a law court to judge people but a home to raise up the believers. Parents know that the worse their children are, the more they need their raising up. If our children were angels, they would not need our parenting to raise them up. The church is a loving home to raise up the children. The church is also a hospital to heal and to recover the sick ones. Finally, the church is a school to teach and edify the unlearned ones who do not have much understanding. Because the church is a home, a hospital, and a school, the co-workers and elders should be one with the Lord to raise up, to heal, to recover, and to teach others in love.
Some of the churches, however, are police stations to arrest the sinful ones and law courts to judge them. Paul’s attitude was different. He said, “Who is weak, and I am not weak?” (2 Cor. 11:29a). When the scribes and Pharisees brought an adulterous woman to the Lord, He said to them, “He who is without sin among you, let him be the first to throw a stone at her” (John 8:7). After all of them left, the Lord asked the sinful woman, “Woman, where are they? Has no one condemned you?” She said, “No one, Lord.” Then Jesus said, “Neither do I condemn you” (vv. 10-11). Who is without sin? Who is perfect? Paul said, “To the weak I became weak that I might gain the weak” (1 Cor. 9:22). That is love. We should not consider that others are weak but we are not. That is not love. Love covers and builds up, so love is the most excellent way for us to be anything and to do anything for the building up of the Body of Christ. (The Collected Works of Witness Lee, 1994-1997, vol. 5, “The Vital Groups”, ch. 8, pp. 125-127)
The church in Zamboanga 