The most excellent way

From my Bible in one year notes this morning:

'The great evangelist D.L. Moody was once staying with a group of friends in England. One evening they asked Henry Drummond to read and expound on a portion of Scripture. After some urging, Henry drew a small New Testament from his pocket, opened it at 1 Corinthians 13 and began to speak on the subject of love. D.L. Moody wrote in response:

‘It seemed to me that I had never heard anything so beautiful. The one great need in our Christian life is love, more love to God and to each other. Would that we could all move into that love chapter and live there.’

We get an idea of what Henry Drummond must have said that evening in his book The Greatest Thing in the World. He writes: ‘What is ... the supreme good? You have life before you. Once only you can live it. What is the noblest object of desire, the supreme gift to covet? In 1 Corinthians 13 Paul takes us to Christianity at its source; and there we see ‘the greatest of these islove.’ Henry Drummond divides this chapter into three parts, as we shall see in the New Testament for today.

God is love. We deceive ourselves if we think we can love God and hate other people (1 John 4:20). Love should be number one on our spiritual priority list. It should be the main thing in our lives. Love is, indeed, the greatest thing in the world. It is, in the words of St Paul, ‘the most excellent way’ (1 Corinthians 12:31).'