This week I'm starting with scripture... because surely scripture is always a good place to start:
"If I speak in the tongues of men or of angels, but do not have love, I am only a resounding gong or a clanging cymbal. If I have the gift of prophecy and can fathom all mysteries and all knowledge, and if I have a faith that can move mountains, but do not have love, I am nothing. If I give all I possess to the poor and give over my body to hardship that I may boast, but do not have love, I gain nothing." ~1 Corinthians 13:1-3
I've been thinking about these few lines for a while now. I've read them over and over again. I'm reading the word of God to say that no matter how sweet my words are, if they don't speak love they just add to an already noisy world. No matter how deep my study is, if it isn't rooted in the love I have for the Lord, I've learned nothing. And no matter how extreme my service or sacrifice may be, if it isn't motivated by love then I'm getting nowhere.
Faced with that truth, I can only come up with 2 logical courses of action. One: give up and quit everything... because working, striving, living and sacrificing without love and NOT DOING IT AT ALL earn me the same number of brownie points with God, they gain the same amount of ground and they lead me to the same level of spiritual bankruptcy... Or, Two: I ask God to plant love in my heart, help cultivate it and keep it growing... so that when I speak, the love in my voice cuts through the clatter. So that when I meditate on His word, the love I have for him illuminates my thoughts... and when I serve my neighbors and friends, my supernatural love for them draws them to their own relationship with God. The only way to make my life count for something is to live it in love.
"Let everything you do be done in love " ~1Corinthians 16:14
Let's ask God to grow love in our hearts. ( I'm certainly not able to grow it on my own... not for everyone.) Let's ask him for supernatural, overflowing LOVE that spills into every area of our lives and our ministries. Let's watch him use that love (the kind that could only come from him) to change lives, neighborhoods and eternities.
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