Thought of the Day !!

If I speak with human eloquence and angelic ecstasy but don't love, I'm nothing but the creaking of a rusty gate. If I speak God's Word with power, revealing all his mysteries and making everything plain as day, and if I have faith that says to a mountain, "Jump," and it jumps, but I don't love, I'm nothing. If I give everything I own to the poor and even go to the stake to be burned as a martyr, but I don't love, I've gotten nowhere. So, no matter what I say, what I believe, and what I do, I'm bankrupt without love.
                                                                                          1 Corinthians 13:1-3 (The Message)

I was listening to this great new song by King and Country on the way to the office this morning called "The Proof of Your Love".  Towards the end of the song the singer began quoting this verse from 1 Corinthians and it occurred to me just how many Christians there are who don't show love.

When we submit our lives to Christ we give up our selfish ways.  If not, have we truly submitted?  Yet so many people who call themselves, and truly believe themselves to be Christians get angry and demand their way.  We can be led astray by the devil if we're not careful.  We can show disrespect for other people.  We can demand our way instead of thinking of others.  We can hurt people who seek Christ by telling them everything that is wrong with them instead of showing the love of Christ with them.  We can turn people off from the Church and Christianity as a whole if we don't have genuine love for them.

I'm a pastor.  I can preach the best sermons people have ever heard.  I can believe and trust that God will grow my congregation.  Instead of ten percent of my income, I can place fifty percent in the offering plate.  I can even go to a non-Christian nation and be jailed or executed for my public displays of faith.  But if I do these things for any reason other than love, then they make no difference whatsoever.  And if you do what you do for any reason other than love of God and love of neighbor then there is no reward for you.

Before Jesus left his disciples he gave them one new command.  He told them to love one another.  Not only to love one another, but love each other as he loved them.  Can we do the same today?  I believe the answer is "yes" if we commit our lives to Jesus and allow the Holy Spirit to guide us each day.

In the love of Christ,
greg

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