What if I Don’t Have
Love?
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 (NIV)
A Peanuts cartoon shows Lucy standing with
her arms folded and a stern expression on her face. Charlie Brown pleads,
“Lucy, you must be more loving. This world really needs love. You have to let
yourself love to make this world a better place.” Lucy angrily whirls around
and knocks Charlie Brown to the ground. She screams at him, “Look, Blockhead,
the world I love. Its people I can’t stand.”
I’m sure we all feel that way from time to
time, and some of us feel that way most of the time. Maybe you feel that way
right now. Loving the world in general isn’t that difficult; loving the people
around us can be a major challenge.
As far as God is concerned, love is the
bottom line. Nothing counts without it. Without love, the gifts of the Spirit
don’t amount to anything. Without love, your faith won’t work.
Without love, your giving doesn’t count.
In short, you and I can’t go anywhere
spiritually until we get our love life straight. When you think about how
important love actually is, it’s amazing we haven’t emphasized it more. After
all, love is our only law. God didn’t give us a long list of rules to memorize.
We don’t even have ten commandments like the Israelites did. Jesus said, “This
is my commandment, That you love one another, as I have loved you” (John
15:12).
How do we keep that one commandment? By
doing one, wonderfully simple thing. We do it by staying in contact with Jesus!
We do it by being in fellowship with Him and obeying Him. The more intimately
we know and walk with Him, the more His love will flow through us. And the more
we walk in love the more intimate our fellowship with Him becomes. It’s a
glorious cycle that continually lifts us higher.
Love is a word that can only be properly
defined in terms of action, attitude, and behavior. Paul has no room for
abstract, theoretical definitions; instead, he wants us to know what love looks
like when we see it. Thus, he paints fifteen separate portraits of love. Yes,
that’s right: in the space of four short verses (v.4-7) Paul uses fifteen
verbs, all of which have “love” as their subject. Our contemporary definition
of love is that it is an emotion or a feeling—we love our jobs, we love
football, we love pizza. In the biblical definition of agape, love acts,
for love is an action, not an emotion.
Paul declares that the greatest expression
of spirituality is love. We could summarize these three verses like this:
Without love…I say nothing, I am nothing, and I gain nothing.
:):):):):):)
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